For the Love of My In-Laws

For the Love of My In-Laws

Turkey made of fruits.

This turkey was made by Nancy Jones. A beautiful, delicious and creative effort. We had a wonderful time yesterday seeing everybody for Thanksgiving at her Mom's house. For me it was very, very special because I hadn't seen any of my darling in-laws since last May because of my injury.

The first person to greet us was Chris, Nancy's husband! It was so nice to see him smiling because we knew what horrendous damage happened to the beloved home that he lives in with Nancy and one of their daughters (Sarah). Then we saw Sarah and Nancy and it was so good to see them all looking so strong and cheery despite their troubles. Jesse, Nancy and Chris' other daughter, was there with her mate Pete and again we were glad to see them enjoying themselves despite the troubles.

It also was great to see Mom, Joanne, Jack, Stephanie, Ann, Stan, Nick, and Steven. All the beloved faces I had not seen for so long. We had quite the usual scrumptious feast and lots and lots of love and laughter throughout the whole day. Poor Jack got a stomach problem and so he missed the meal.

Before we ate, Nancy thanked everybody and said she felt very blessed to have a place to stay and she was grateful for all the help and prayers from people. And she also said she was grateful for her handy husband who has been working day and night to restore their home. Wiping tears from my eyes, I said to Jimmy: "Well after THAT, we can't complain about anything."

Here's the thing with my in-laws. They are a very close-knit and resilient family. They are affectionate, caring, and conscientious. They embrace everyone into their loving circle. I have been both blessed and deeply inspired by them. I admire their deep roots and strength. The lessons they teach are not intellectual or political—they are lessons of the heart and they are the most important ones worth learning.

Bones of No Contention

Bones of No Contention

The golden leaves of the massive oak on the village green swayed gently in the wind on a fine autumn day. My eyes followed the soft rhythm, and I could almost hear a melody rising and falling as the leaves did their endless sweet dance. My feet felt as if they were planted in the earth, connected to the roots of this ancient tree. Yet, of the rest of my body, I could not discern any sensation; nor could I quite understand what brought me here. My knowledge of the wind was visual, not visceral. The glints of sunlight that poked occasionally through the leaves radiated like small suns, but my eyes remained unaffected by this brightness.

I turned my head, but nothing else looked familiar. It was as if all the old structures had either been torn down or had simply faded away, only to be replaced by unrecognizable, unfathomable steely structures that bore an eerie resemblance to icebergs. Where were the long-skirted, bonneted ladies with their hearty children in tow, carrying cloth sacks of potatoes and other comestibles? Where were the sturdy young men with their axes ready to build more of the wooden town that had been slowly rising around us?

Gone! Everything gone. Women sashayed down concrete streets with men’s trousers and hair clipped so short, the ladies seemed almost bald. Men wore odd shirts with pointed collars and long cloths suspended around their necks. Children were totally absent that day. It did not seem that they had been released from the one-room schoolhouse down the road to help with the reaping. I missed the smoky smells of cooking and harvesting.

To whence had I been transported? I could not move my feet to walk, so I twisted my body around back to the tree and was astonished to see my own name emblazoned upon a small plaque that had been nailed upon the trunk. It read thusly: “Here lies the Bones of Richard James Weatherby, re-interred in the Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and ought-nine beneath this Tree. May his Beloved Soul watch over All who pass by or sit beneath its Branches.”

Oh, I was dead then, was I? How long I do not know. In my days of life, I had been a watchman at the old clock tower, which had been the highest point in town when I was alive. My job, as I recall it, was to make sure that everyone was safe from intruders, whether they came in the darkness of night or the glare of the day. I had had a lovely wife and daughter, but, sure as God’s little apples, I have lost track of their whereabouts. . . .

• • •

As to whatever century this may be, I do not know. I do realize this: It is my afore-ordained task to watch over the people in this town and carry any messages of alarms to the authorities. So watch I will. And, when I see someone in need of Our Lord’s help, never let it be said that Old Weatherby ever failed to carry the message even beyond my lovely grave beneath this tree.

Author’s Note: This story was inspired by the discovery of a skeleton buried beneath a tree, which was uprooted by Superstorm Sandy. People have been discussing what to do with the bones, with some people saying that they need a proper (modern) burial and other people saying that these bones should be left where they are.

Katrina 2.0

Katrina 2.0 

W

e were told a big storm was coming. Prepare, prepare, prepare! 

Jimmy and I stocked up on our nonperishables, checked our supplies of candles and batteries, put extra water in the fridge, and battened down our proverbial hatches. I figured it would be similar to last year’s Hurricane Irene—some disruptions in services and a couple of days off from work. I worried about two things: the trees in Forest Park, because we live in the park, and our fax and phone service, which had gone out during Irene.

 • • •

OY! Superstorm Sandy was Irene on steroids.

Ironically or “irenically,” in our area, things were not bad. We had a disruption of our internet for about a half day. We looked out of our office window and watched the leaves dance on the trees. Back and forth, back and forth, the cascading waves of yellow, green, and brown almost seemed like a moving Monet. Jimmy wrote a poetic essay and I captured some of the movement with my camera. We enjoyed a lunch of devilled eggs.

The next day, the stores were open, so Jimmy prepared chicken salad sandwiches with pickles, and the creative task for the day was to venture outside for a photo shoot. Jimmy rolled me in my wheelchair up a half a block on Park Lane South. I snapped away—an upturned garbage can; crews clearing away downed trees; bent “No Parking” signs; twigs, branches, and leaves strewn in the street and on the park benches; an abandoned, broken umbrella; and even a small group of toadstools were my subjects.

After we got back upstairs, I created a slideshow and a Facebook Album to share my photographs. I called it the Sandy Dancer’s Ball (a takeoff on an old, old song called "The Gandy Dancer’s Ball"), figuring the pictures would provide some esthetic amusement now that the storm had passed.

But looking at Channel 2—and seeing the flooding, the fires, and the hospitals being evacuated—gave me an uneasy feeling. The crawler at the bottom of the screen indicated that Jimmy was in for an enforced “staycation” of at least the remainder of the week—no public transit and no electricity at his workplace made us realize that our plans for a vacation in New Orleans would again have to be cancelled. A worm of worry started to intrude—how much overtime would be lost now?

Then on my Facebook page, suddenly, the devastation of the storm became personal. No more was it, “wow, this looks like Venice” or “that flood looks like a dam” or “thank G-d we don’t live on Breezy Point.” Now members of our own extended family faced large-scale destruction of their home—a home that they had put so much loving care into—remodeling it and redesigning it to their heart’s desire. 

Now I felt ashamed. This was no Sandy Dancer’s Ball—it was something far more sinister. It meant tears and fears realized and writ large. It meant a sense of homelessness for people we love. Yes, they have a place to stay with other loving relatives, but, it’s not home!

How can we help? What can we do? What can we give these people to show that we care? Oh my G-d, surely prayers cannot be enough!

I renamed my album Katrina 2.0.

Only the Shadow Knew

Only the Shadow Knew

  It was a dark and stormy night…just like it always in in every scary story—except that in this case, Hurricane Sandy was barreling its way up the East Coast. Andrea was alone, shivering and jittery. A blue-gray shadow seemed to follow her everywhere she went. Even the comforting glow of her desk lamp failed to chase it away. Yet, when she drew closer to examine what it was—was it the cat? Was it her OWN shadow?—the shadow faded.

   Suddenly the lights failed, and Andrea stood alone in the obsidian blackness of her room. She ran to the window to see if any lights were on in the street. Alas, the engulfing darkness extended outward as far as she could see.

   Andrea’s heart began to pound. With shaking fingers she felt for the glass with a candle that she had left on her night-table for just such an event. Ah, her hand touched the edge of the glass. Suddenly, it moved in a jerking motion away from her groping fingers. With a crash, it landed on the floor—the glass holder shattering all around her feet.

   Now she stood paralyzed with fear! One step could lead to a sliver cutting the bottom of her feet, and it was not like she could get to the bathroom to put a cloth on such a cut. It was not like she could even see to remove it. She would have had to live with the pain.

   A light appeared; involuntarily, Andrea jerked toward it and stepped on a large piece of glass. But when she turned to see the shadow, it was misty, blue-gray, and fading. It was just like all the other times of late—the ambiguous form following her every move. It always happened at night, so she had been sleeping with the light on.

   Now, cold, chilly, shivering, bleeding, and lightless, she faced the shadow—determined to stare it down despite the intense gulf she felt in her solar plexus.

   “Who are you? What do you want?” she shouted.

   Nothing but silence—a silence that even masked the roaring wind outside her window. The form floated toward the window and moved slowly through the glass panes. Then it flattened itself against the outside of the window. It transformed into another mist, and then a grimace, distorted, with black elongated eyes and a mouth drawn up in a rictus of pain. Andrea felt her knees buckle. Then she lost all sensation below her waist and fell to the floor. She then fell into a darkness that was even deeper. Her body floated and bobbed. Nausea gripped her belly. . . .

   Then her eyes opened. She was lying in her bed. The light was on. The candle and its holder lay intact upon her night-table. Her head was face down and her reflection glared at her on her makeup mirror, which lay between her and her pillow.

   But the shadow remained, just at the very edge of her vision.

   

The Visitation

      Another 4 a.m. transmission woke Jimmy and I up the other night. But, it was not The Weather Channel. As if we needed it to tell us that the night was going to be stormy, with rain pounding, lightning stabbing, wind roaring, and thunder booming. . . .
      Nor was it our potheads on their CBs. This time it was something else: 

"Hey Doug, Do you have any signals?"
"Yeah Jerry, I have a blip at 4 o'clock, but there's nothing on the schedule."
"Maybe a flight was diverted because of the storm?
"They usually tell us about any changes."

      Uh oh—it sounded like two fellas discussing something weird on a radar screen. Maybe the wind had blown something around to cause a radar blip. I didn't have to wake Jimmy. He was already wide-awake and actually quite alert. "Sounds like you have JFK airport this time," he said.
     "Yep. I wonder what blew over there," I replied. I was only mildly curious because, well, in weather like this, anything on earth was possible."

"Hey, Jerry, what's that light over there? Damn it. It looks like something's crashing over by the fence."
"Doug, It can't be a fire--not in this downpour. I'll ask Ray to go check it out and, when he gets back, I'll give you a call."

. . . . 

      This exchange reminded me of a plane crash that had occurred many years ago, when my sister and I had started out from our home in South Ozone Park, Queens, to go into Manhattan to a Rolling Stones concert. It was raining in that same heavy way, when the world just seems to fill up with water.
      We had heard a tremendous crack of—I thought at the time—thunder. "It's the judgment of G-d," I had joked to my sister and she had laughed. Later that night, when we had returned from the concert, we learned that there had been a plane crash out near JFK just around the time we had heard the noise. Judgment of G-d, indeed—many people had lost their lives in that crash. 

. . . .

      So, now, on this rainy night, I waited rather apprehensively, hoping to learn that something had crashed but that it was nothing with any people in it. Maybe it was a just a weather balloon or an unmanned craft of some sort or other.
     "Doug, Doug, what's on your screen now?" Jerry's voice had picked up a strong note of panic. "Got nothing," Doug replied, yawning rather loudly. "What's the matter? What did Ray see?"
      Silence. Had the transmission ended? Drat it, was I going to end up not knowing what happened until it flashed on CNN tomorrow? Then my foot started up again:

"Doug, this is Ray. I called Jerry out here and he's freaking out. He thought I was nuts, but he came out anyway and we don't believe it. There's all this crap lying around here and it's not a weather balloon! There are these gray things around here with these big black eyes. Ya know—it looks like Roswell."
"C'mon, you guys. Stop messing with my head. Pick up one of them things and bring it to me. I'll show you what's what."

    Jimmy and I looked at each other. I was frozen with awe and fear. Could my infamous left foot have picked up some JFK personnel in the middle of an alien encounter? "OMG!" I mouthed, unable to utter a sound. "OMG, it can't be!" he responded aloud. "Gotta be a practical joke." "No," I whispered, my voice starting to come back. "The grays are there!" Jimmy shook his head despairingly at my credulence. "This ain't JFK. It's 'The Twilight Zone.'" 
      Once again, silence reigned, this time, for approximately 15 minutes, although it felt like 15 hours to me. Then, once again, we heard: 

"OK, gimme this guy. Let's do an alien autopsy right now." "Doug, you're no MD. You can't do that."
"Ray, look, turn this one over. See that little plug there? Just pull it."
"I'm not gonna touch that thing. Maybe it's got radiation."
"We got detectors for that. No radiation here. How about you Jerry? Can you give this a pull?"

      Suddenly there was a hissing sound and then bursts of laughter. "Look, you guys. Which one of you pulled this stupid stunt?" Silence. "Where'd you get these dolls. Korea? China? Roswell?"
      Then a more-professional voice intervened: 

"Douglas, did you get a blip on your radar about 20 minutes ago?"
"Yes, Ms. Gray , I did."
"Good, I've just been notified that a blimp with some inflatable alien dolls was moored nearby, and it seems to have blown away in the storm. Can you check to see if it's the blimp? It was going to go to Roswell for a stunt in a movie."
"We found them Ms. Gray. I'll get the fellas to clean up and recover as many as possible. But the blimp is all torn up."
"Thanks. Good night, Douglas."
"Good night." 

     And that was the alien invasion. The only Gray in the whole scenario was the detached and professional lady. I sure can't wait to see the movie though. . . . 

(to be continued)

For the  previous entry go to the tab called: My Left Foot, Version 2.0, and scroll down past this entry.