Vintage

Today I remember my friend, Dora.  I met Dora years ago through activities at my church.   This makes total sense, since she was one of those dependable servants of God who served in many functions over the years.  She and I were working as catechists during her last five years or so, and our paths crossed continuously for different reasons.  I always looked forward to her smile and that ever-so-constant twinkle in her eye.  We had a special relationship, she and I!  I always teased her about her accumulation of years, and she teased me for my lack thereof.  I was the only person allowed to call her an “old bat,” because it was always said with a smile and heartfelt love.  She always laughed and hugged me and then gave me back what I had just dished out. 

Dora was one of those dedicated people who spent her life serving others.  Her husband had died before I met her, so she had plenty of time on her hands and spent it well.  She worked with people going through bereavement, and often volunteered to say the rosary at the viewings of deceased parishioners.  She was a chaplain at a local hospital and served on various parish and community committees.  She and I shared a strong desire to educate our fellow parishioners about their faith, and we shared a lot of opinions.  I enjoyed our talks about our faith and how well (or not) certain students were doing.  Dora had accumulated, along with her abundance of years, an abundance of wisdom, and I was always ready to absorb some of what she knew.

The last time I saw Dora was several months ago, and I asked how she was doing.  Over the years she had undergone multiple medical treatments to unclog her carotid arteries, and she had survived breast cancer many years ago, before we met.  She had developed a dowager’s hump as well, but she always smiled and carried on her rather proper way.  I never saw her without her lipstick and make-up, and her hair was always done.  So there she was, dressed up for church, and her response to my question was that some preliminary tests indicated that she might have pancreatic cancer.  My blood ran cold and for once I was speechless.  What do you say at that time?  I wished her well and asked her to let me know if I could help.

Shortly afterwards, I stopped at her house, but she was not home.  I found out from a friend at church that she had moved in with her daughter on the north side of town during her treatment.  I also found out that she had brain cancer.  I knew, though I tried to deny it, that I would not see my friend alive again.  Those accumulated years that I had teased her about were not working in her favor anymore.  I sent her a few cards to wish her well, but I heard that she was tired and losing ground and spent much of her time sleeping and recovering from her chemotherapy and radiation treatments. 

My dear friend died on Christmas day.  We found out at mass the following Sunday, and when the announcement was made there was a sigh from the congregation.  When I went to church for the recitation of her rosary, I could not help but think back on her work in this area.  I did not go to see her in her casket, though I could make out the purple hat and its satin ribbon that she wore to cover the loss of her beautiful white hair, and I could see that she still wore her red lipstick.  I wanted to remember her as I had always seen her – with the knowing smile and that ever-present twinkle in her eye, bustling off to do some errand or other.

Good bye, my dear friend!  You will be missed, but I look forward to seeing you again someday. 

I was scheduled for jury duty this morning.  I’m one of those strange and wacky people who doesn’t mind my civic duty.  I figure that what goes around comes around, and someday – Heaven forbid! – if I am accused of a crime, I’d want someone like me on a jury.  Without people willing to inconvenience themselves periodically, our judicial system would crumble, and with it our society.

So, I found myself in a crowded jury room this morning, watching as the numbers appeared on the screen and listening to the announcements.  When we were released at mid-day, there was a stampede for the doors and sighs of relief for those of us who were not called.  Having been through this before, I just noted it as an event and left the building.

While I was downtown, however, I decided to indulge in a roasted eggplant sandwich at a little Italian deli that I used to frequent when I was a corporate soldier, so I began walking further into the downtown canyon to hunt down my lunch.  As I walked, I heard some drums and saw some street blockades and uniformed people.  “Ah, Veteran’s Day parade!” I thought to myself.  Not being much of a parade watcher generally, I thought that I would get my sandwich and watch the parade, and show our vets how much I appreciated them before heading back to work.

I bought my lunch and found a spot on the parade route.  I looked at the people around me, waiting for the parade to start.  Across the street was what appeared to be a Mexican family, consisting of a grandmother, her son, her grandson, and a little boy, who must have been her great-grandson.   I saw an Indian (as in the country India) mother and adult daughter.  I had followed a group of Middle Eastern men to the parade route.  There were several Anglo families with small children, clutching flags.  Near me were three vets – an African-American (in fatigues), a  Latino, and  an Asian man (Korean?).   I was surrounded by people of all nationalities, genders, and ages.  A golf cart came down the street and handed out flags.  The father of the small Mexican boy got several, and each member of his received their very own flag.  The little boy was jumping and waving his in the air.  I bought a flag for a little girl who was with her mother in front of me.

As I heard the bands begin to play, the excitement grew.  I cried several times during the parade, watching the aged warriors standing in the back of the trucks, with ramrod straight backs and eyes that always looked forward.  After all the years, they were still proud of their service.  I was momentarily saddened by the sight of a single veteran, carrying the black POW/MIA flag.  How many mothers and fathers are still missing sons and daughters?  There were the usual units, and then the special groups came by – the Korean vets, the Chinese-American vets, the Vietnamese, and even one Native American, with his feathered headdress and carrying a military flag.  Even the French were represented!  The disabled women’s veterans came by, one in a wheelchair.  Several other disabled veterans appeared, proudly pushing their chairs along, with flags and all.   I clapped for every veteran that rolled or walked down that street.  There Gold Star Moms and Blue Star Moms, and just Moms.  I was honored to honor them.

As I watched these men – the ones in the parade and the ones on the curb, I thought back to my jury duty dismissal.  I was ashamed of the people who had been so relieved to get out of the inconvenience of taking part in this great society for just a few days.  I could only imagine what these veterans had endured so that we could all stand together, in a street, because we wanted to. 

There’s a difference between duty and honor.  At times they overlap, at times they don’t.

For those men and women in the parade today, it overlapped.

And I was honored to witness it.

The winds gathered together and said

“Let’s have some fun!”

They gathered themselves up and began dancing in circles,

Whirling faster and faster!

Spinning, spinning, spinning,

Like young children at play,

The winds gathered themselves up

And pushed, faster, faster, faster!

Screaming out their delight ,

They moved from the water to find new friends.

As they left the waters,

They continued to play,

Kicking around rubbish

Like children on a playground.

The trees were jealous of their movement,

And wanted to be free, to move like the wind.

They called out to the wind,

And  wanted to dance with them.

They began bobbing and weaving

With the wind.

“Faster!” the wind cried out,

Spinning ever more quickly.

The sun hid its face

As the wind more swiftly flew,

And the trees threw their leaves in anger,

Straining to be released from the ground.

Twisting, bending, stretching, reaching out!

Shaking themselves in frustration,

And in their frustration they bent themselves down

And shuddered as their boughs cracked with the strain.

Alas! Freedom was not theirs

And the wind howled with laughter

Until tears fell in torrents,

And were lashed about wildly

As the delirium ran unabated.

“Faster!” the winds cried, howling into the darkness,

And the trees again tried to gain their freedom.

And when roots finally released from terra firma,

They found their  freedom was for naught

As the released captive fell to the ground,

Still straining to join the wind in its wild revelry.

Finally, the winds tired of their game and moved on,

Leaving the trees sighing in the waning breezes,

Counting their broken limbs and lost greenery,

Surveying their dying brothers.

“If only,” they said sadly to each other.

“If only.”

And the winds spent themselves,

Dropping tears in exhaustion upon the earth,

Their dancing slowly fading away,

Until only a small whisper was left,

Tickling the leaf of one last shrub,

Far from where the frenzy began…

“Maybe next time,” it sighed,

And rested.

When I was about six years old, we moved to a suburb of Houston.  Every lot in our neighborhood was two acres of land, and there were many fields in the area where the weeds were higher than my head.  Our new neighbors across the street gifted my oldest sister with two cats, a male and female of the same litter.  The male was black, with a white triangle outline point above his nose, the point ending on his forehead and the lines ending on either side of his nose.   He was named Punch, but he was short-lived, being hit by a car only a few days after getting his new home.  Perhaps he was trying to visit his mother.

The other cat was named Jemimah, and to this day I believe her to be possibly the prettiest cat I’ve ever seen, save one.  Calico colored from head to tail, with a white ruff at her neck and white socks, she had quite a personality!  Jemimah made herself quite at home, and before long was entertaining male suitors.  Her first litter was eleven kittens in all, and in quite a range of colors!  Among others, there was the extremely long-furred orange cat, the short-haired tabby, a replica of punch, and one kitten that took Jemimah’s beauty crown.  This female was never named, but she had beautiful soft gray fur, with a mix of longer, pure silver hair.  She also had a white ruff, and she was absolutely gorgeous!

Jemimah was truly the matriarch of all she surveyed.  She had a grace and sense of pride.  We fed our cats and dogs our table scraps (and with twelve kids, there could be a pile of scraps!), and in the evening one of us would go outside and call “here, kittykittykittykitty!” until the four-legged furballs would come screaming in from every corner of the globe.  One night, Jemimah failed to arrive, and I held the best scraps for her.  “Here, kittykittykitty! Heeeeeere kittykittykitty kittykittykitty kittykittykitty kittykitty!” I called, but still no Jemimah.  I decided to call one last time before forfeiting Jemimah’s dinner to one of her many progeny.  “Heeeeeere kittykittykitty kittykittykitty kittykittykitty kittykitty!” I called one last time, and just as I was turning to scrape the plate, I saw our momma cat out of the corner of my eye.  She was running at top speed, just a blur as she slipped under the fence gate and, still a blur, she saw me watching her.  I could hear the brakes go on as she screeched to a stop.  She sat on her haunches, surveyed me briefly, and then proceeded to wash her face and ears as I watched in amusement.  When she finally finished her ablutions, she then sat there, just far enough away that I had to go to her to feed her, and waited on me to wait on her.  Obviously, her pride was damaged by being observed doing something so ungainly as running to dinner!

She was the ultimate kitty momma.  She was prone to stealing the kittens from the other cats’ litters, and one summer we had to raid her nest to retrieve the kittens she had stolen and return them to their rightful mothers.  Only once did she refuse to accept a kitten.  When the drop-dead gorgeously grizzled gray cat turned out to be a neglectful mother, we tried to put her babies in with Jemimah’s litter, but she refused to feed them; instead, she moved her kittens to a new site.  We tried in vain to save the babies, but they were too young and we were too inexperienced.  I cried as one by one, the beautiful kittens succumbed to starvation and died.  We never figured out why Jemimah had such antipathy towards her daughter, but of course, that is a secret that Jemimah took to her grave.  After her litter and the death of her kittens, the pretty cat eventually wandered off somewhere, never to be seen again.

 Jemimah, always tried to get into the house to have her kittens. We always knew when it was her time - not just because she resembled a furry barrel with legs - but because she always found a way to sneak past someone and run for the carpet under Mom and Dad’s bed. Once there, she’d dig her claws into the carpet and refuse to budge. We’d eventually entice her out with some cat food. Once we got our little grubby hands on her, we’d very gently and carefully pick her up (she loved to be cradled, so we had to flip her on her back, and doing that while she was so pregnant required some care) and carry her lovingly outside - then QUICKLY close and lock the screen door so she couldn’t streak back inside the house!

Jemimah made sure that her babies knew their business!  I remember being outside one summer twilight, and turning to see Jemimah walking toward the fields behind our house, with her retinue of kittens trailing her obediently.   We never had rats on our property near our house.  Jemimah was fearless, even taking on our neighbor’s German Shepherd.  Bullet never lost the scar left by our cat, as she tried to take his nose off one day!  The only time I saw here running from another creature was the day the mockingbird chased her across the yard.  They had both decided to set up housekeeping in the tool shed, and the mockingbird would have none of it.  She chased our cat across the yard each time Jemimah went back to get one of her kittens.  Eventually, all of her babies were ensconced in their new home – in the weeds along the septic line.  We had to be very careful about mowing the grass for a while! 

Jemimah was for a time, my best friend.  As a child, I faced my share of tribulations, and I would pick up Jemimah and cradle her, scratching her ruff and sharing my problems with her.  She never gave me solutions, but with her I always felt wanted.  As a matter of fact, she had problems letting me leave!  If I tried to remove my hand from her neck, she would place her front paws on my wrist and pull it back down to her neck for more scratching!  She was a cat who knew what she wanted!  I spent many an hour in our backyard, her paws around my hand, sharing my tears and talking out my issues.  Every child should have such a pet!

Her offspring were varied, but there was always a theme to the litters.  Her litters tended to be large – her first was eleven babies!  Orange was a popular color, as was gray (tabby) and calico.  And in every litter there would be a kitten with that Punch-like triangle over the nose – sometime white on background, sometimes a dark triangle.  They all lived, except for one litter which was smaller (she was much older at this time), only about four kittens.  They were all calico, and they all were stillborn.  I can only imagine that they were male calicos, which, I’ve heard, don’t usually survive.  There was one kitten that made it through the birth, but not the first few weeks.  It was a strange cat, with fur that looked like someone had snatched patches from the other cats and stuck it on her while blindfolded.  She had a gray tabby patch on top of her head, a triangle above her nose, calico splotches (the same calico colors as her momma) on her body, with patches of orange and silvery gray thrown randomly here and there.  I really wanted to see what she would look like as an adult, but alas, my younger sister, in her enthusiasm for the new kitties, accidentally killed it as she tried to make a new shelter for them with some bricks.  Poor girl, she took our anger for a while, and she felt absolutely horrible about the whole thing.

As I grew older and became more engaged in my school activities, my younger siblings began to take on the chores of feeding the cats and such.  Busy as I was with band practice, etc., I did not realize that Jemimah wasn’t at home for several days.  I was told that she had been disappearing a few days at a time.  It turned out that she had adopted another family nearby, and was spending time with them!  Traitor!  But I smiled and returned to my busy schedule.  One day, Jemimah just stopped coming back home.  I preferred it that way – not having to see her die, not having to bury her as we cried.  In my mind, she’s still out there in the field somewhere, catching rats and raiding some neighbor’s affection.

It’s so much better that way.