April 2, 2013
Cold Shoulder Redux
When I
wrote the first Cold Shoulder post, I
felt some pressure to publish it quickly.
After all, the essay was about walking in cold weather, and…well, spring
was suppose to be coming. I really did
fold away my long underwear and put away the gloves I used when walking. So after the big Palm Sunday snowstorm, when
I was finally able to move outside once again, with the now unpacked gloves and
warm undies, I spent the first few minutes of my walk grousing to myself,
grumbling about how I didn’t think
this kind of weather in March was natural, how I just knew all this snow wouldn’t be good for the spring plants,
how I thought it was high time all
the winter weather was gone. Then….and I
mean this….really…I heard the universe chuckle.
The sound was probably inside my head, but it seemed to come from all
around me, and I heard, “How many times do I have to remind you, PJ, you’re not
in charge?” Then, as if to punctuate the
point, as I walked under a snow-laden evergreen tree, a shovelful of melting
snow tumbled onto my head and down the back of my shirt. Momentarily stunned, I burst out laughing and
said out loud, “Okay, I get the point. I’m not in control.”
That slushy
reminder stayed with me on my walk as I pondered a couple of recent episodes in
my life which, while vastly different in significance, both caused me some pain
that, ultimately, I couldn’t do anything about.
Just prior to the snowstorm I spent three days at the bedside of a dear
aunt who, after nearly ten years of battling cancer like a warrior, was moving
finally from struggle to peace. As the
hours ticked by around that hospital bed, I witnessed the harvest that results
from a life spent reaching out to others. My aunt personified love. Her motherly instincts drew her to children,
in particular, and they to her. In the
hospital room I saw tiny children, unfazed by the sights and sounds of medical machinery. Their happy focus was the lady they loved lying
in the bed. Their little hands reached
out to touch her, and they were eager to kiss her cheek. I
watched daughters, biological and adopted, minster to their mother with
untiring patience and tenderness. I saw
sisters determinedly put their grief temporarily aside as they stroked a fevered
brow and sought to bring some comfort to their baby sister. My sweet aunt, who
even with waning strength smiled at and caressed sweet babies and softly teased
her children, was too young and too dear an asset to this world to pass on, but
the decision wasn’t ours to make.
The second unhappy,
and certainly less momentous, event occurred when I returned home from my sad
vigil. I discovered that, due to a difference in opinion, I’d been ejected from
the group of high school classmates who were organizing our fortieth class
reunion. The fifty-eight year old adult me was a little surprised at how sharply
the high school teenager inside felt the sting of that rejection. I once
observed to a therapist friend that I thought relationship behavior never
really advanced beyond high school. He raised an eyebrow and said, “Oh, PJ, it’s
worse than that; it seldom gets beyond junior high.” I understand his point now.
As I puffed
my way through slush and snow, up and down the highway, I experienced that kind
of clarity that happens for me so frequently on the shoulder of the road. The only certainty in this world, I realized,
is that, like my walk, life will be full of hills and valleys. Loved ones will pass on; petty cruelties will
be inflicted, and I’ll be helpless to prevent any of it. I won’t be able to cling to those I love, and
I won’t be able to change the hearts of those determined to hurt me. On the other hand, I thought, as I
acknowledged the timelessness of snow covered trees and rock bluffs under
crystalline skies around me, I’ll experience a lifetime of emotions and
sensations…..the touch of my parents’ kisses against my cheek, the feel of my
child’s tiny fingers wrapped tightly around mine, the sound of my family’s
laughter when we gather together. I get
to watch sunsets, swim in the ocean, smell freshly mown grass, and eat ice cream.
So let me get
this straight, I don’t get to have any real control over what happens in this
life of mine, but to compensate for that helplessness, I’ll be touched by exquisite
moments—large and small—of overwhelming love and beauty? I think, maybe, that’s a deal I can live
with. Although, since I’m absolutely certain
that spring is here to stay, I’m putting those long johns away, and I am not getting them out again until
November…..unless…. you know….it gets cold again.
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