Entertaining Angels .... in some way

Her teeth were what originally threw off my ability to respond.  They were badly discolored – yellow, some jagged, one a dark brownish.  I made a mental note to not stare.  I had to just listen to her and figure out what was going on.   

I live in the middle of nowhere.  It has been a phenomenally log day.  I had been to a morning doctor’s appointment with a friend who needed a driver.  From there I ran in to work for a few hours.  I ran home to get on a conference call to take minutes. I pushed myself to work until 5pm so I could feel that I carried out my full responsibilities to The System for the day.  My head was kind of in that floaty sort of stage when your blood sugar is deciding how to punish you by shutting down stuff.  I had just finished boiling angel hair and de-frosting sauce I had frozen in a baggie back when I had some energy and zeal about being quarantined as a nation.  I had vowed then to take care of myself since there was no one else jumping to help with that task in the last few decades.  

The kids out there in the Land of Cool have devised a word:  “Hangry.”  It means you are so hungry, truly in need of food (as opposed to wanting to just eat junk) that you get angry.  Well, more like cranky.  I was moving into that zone.  I reached for something in my dish drainer and, as I turned, out of the corner of my eye, saw something in a heap at the end of my driveway.  It was colorful and it looked like a person.  I put my eyeglasses on.  (that’s where we are with midlife vision.) 

My brain crunched:  Why was a grown woman sitting next to my mailbox, barely off the street?  I thought for a moment… I have no prior life experience with this.  I pushed the dogs back in the kitchen, lifted the porch gate and called out:  Can I help you with something? 

“I’m just resting.”  Really.  On my driveway out in the middle of cow country and she is “just resting.”  I walked out to her.  For some reason, I forgot we are supposed to wear masks and be six feet apart.  She had a small day bag on her the size of a little girl’s back-pack.  She had a cell phone and some sort of pink drink.  I asked her what the story was. 

She claimed her boyfriend kicked her out.  He lived in Canastota and she is walking to Syracuse.  She claimed she was walking for three hours and wanted to rest because she had no one to give her a ride.  A mighty long walk was ahead of her.  For a moment I entertained the idea of ….. well, you know …. In a perfectly safe world where no one has a revolver in their day bag or a knife or whatever …. Could I give her a ride?  To her credit, she didn’t ask me.  But with the voice of a petulant child she kept repeating, “I need to get to Syracuse.”  Also, she kept texting someone, then alternating with hanging up on someone else and swearing because her phone was running out of juice.  It was concentrated drama. 

I asked her one question:  You don’t plan to go back to him after he kicked you out, do you?  She said, “probably.”  I said to her, “No real gentleman treats a woman like this.  If you go back to him, you should be taken to the psych ward.”  Not my finest moment of compassion.  But I was trying to give her a concept that resembled human dignity via my challenge.  It was also my deciding point on driving her anywhere:  if she, after walking allegedly 3 hours in 80 degree heat, would entertain going back to an abusive situation, then me making any part of this easy for her is not the tough love and real life she needs.  Maybe I was a jackass in another life. 

I got my phone to help her and brought her a peach iced tea.  She drank it in preference to whatever pink drink she had that somehow, in my moral stupor, I had overlooked.  Her hair was an admirable shade of red-from-a-box and the tattoos on her arms probably would tell me what was important to her if I stopped to look but I just wanted her back on the road and me back with my cold spaghetti. 

My friend’s daughter – an adult – drove by and pulled over to see if this traveler was hurt.  Really it was also to tell her she was standing too close to the road.  Not much else was happening.  I used my cell to call this young woman’s sister, and then her father, and no one answered – a clue for me:  a text from her sister.  “Is she still there?”  That was significant. Meanwhile, for lack of a better idea, I explained the road ahead to her. 

First, I told her that when she passes a certain intersection she will find the State Police barracks.  I suggested she may talk to them.  She said, “They aren’t going to give me a ride to Syracuse.”  It is likely that she did not want to interface with the police.  (come back to that statement later; it’s brilliant).  I replied that maybe they were having a slow day, you never know.  Actually, I was hoping that they might have some better ideas for her.  As she pointed out, she had no credit card, so Uber and Lyft were not options.  Her sister, I found out later, had tried to get a cab for her but was unsuccessful.   

At some barely-below-moral-consciousness level I was working other thoughts through my brain.  In random order, these are some of them:  I’m a hypocrite.  I’m not talking to her about Jesus.  I’m an idiot.  She could stab me right here in my driveway.  My neighbor is trimming his hedges out front so I am safe.  She’s not raving like a crazy person so I guess that’s good.  She’s not ready to get her life together if she thinks she will go back to him.  (It never crossed my mind that SHE might be the bad guy, not her boyfriend.)  I wonder if the dogs ate my spaghetti yet?  How can she make it to Syracuse walking?  Reassessing:  if it took her 3 hours, as she claimed, to get to my yard from where she started, something is wrong with her math.  I’m a bit overweight and I could make it in an hour.  I wonder if she used a bathroom lately.  I can’t let her inside my house because she is, at some level, unstable.  Her insistent verbalizing of, “I just want a ride to Syracuse,” is an attempt at asking me to take her but I just can’t do it.  I can’t bring myself to do it.  

The next thing I suggested to her was that a couple of miles down the street is a mini mart.  She can have another rest break there.  She thanked me for trying to help her get in touch with her family.  I said one parting thing to her that I hoped would stick in her brain:  “If you get to the point where you think of going back to him, I want you to remember This Day.  Remember how tired you are.  Remember the long walk, your aching feet.  Remember how hard it was.”  She began walking away.  I watched her for a moment, and then looked down at my phone.  Her sister had written me a very long text message.  What I had presumed was going to be no response told me everything I needed to know:  the story was inaccurate. 

Key points:  Not exactly sisters, step-sisters from childhood but more recently out of touch.  Boyfriend did not kick her out.  He was at work.  She was heading to Syracuse for one purpose:  to get drugs.  He cared about her and called the step-sister to say that she really needed to go to rehab, to get help. 

And there you have it.  All the Bad Guys in the story were actually the Good Guys.  And by me not driving her to Syracuse, well, perhaps it delayed her getting the drugs she was seeking.  So my reticence to drive her was most likely my Guardian Angel putting his hand on my shoulder saying, “Not in the plan.”  

Isn’t it curious how even when we think we failed to help someone, we’ve actually done a better thing for them?  As I finished reading the text message, I looked up and she had vanished from sight.  And that is strange for someone who allegedly walked so slowly that it took her three hours to get to my driveway.  I went next door and talked to my neighbor for a few minutes and then walked inside to eat my cold spaghetti. 

The next day I told one of my closest friends that when I pass, I want my favorite quote written on my tombstone:  “You can’t make this stuff up.” 

################ 

The Breaking of the American Spirit

05/20/2020

The veterinarian used a word I’d rather not hear:  “rare.”  I was sitting in my vehicle outside the clinic and the Vet was on the inside with my dog …. Where I wanted to be, save for “COVID19 safe distancing.”  It began two weeks ago with my dog’s eye looking red and the lower interior eyelid (an extra feature) seeming irritated.  Then I noticed her lower lip on that side drooped and drooling.  And her nose was plugged up … most likely kitty litter, as she hunted for a snack.  Yeah, dogs have some reprehensible habits.  So after playing “Home Vet” myself for a week and a half – saline flushing the nostril, gently, and terramycin drops in her eye – and seeing little to no improvement save for the lower lip getting better (I massaged it often), I hauled her in for a vet visit.

A rare partial facial paralysis.  Maybe due to thyroid.  Maybe due to infection.  Maybe, we don’t know.  She’s only eight years old, hardly a senior citizen.  Just last year at this time she had a litter of puppies.  How quickly life changes, and without my permission, if I do say so.  So the new part of normal This Week  is eye ointment antibiotic, eye ointment for lubrication, and a tablet antibiotic.   I made a grid on my kitchen table and began keeping track of my tasks.  I can manage this.  I’ve managed worse. 

So I took a break this evening and walked a mile at the horse track.  And I started to ponder again the things that matter to me.  The whole world is in a tail-spin (it seems) and no one knows who we are believing for good direction: 

The doctor that, while he is head of Infectious Disease in this country, also is accused of participating in financing Wuhan Labs with our American money.  Was he part of making this disease for study purposes?

The president that has been so busy fighting to save his own skin for the past 4 years from his merciless, lying and brainless opponents – and yet he can’t seem to help himself with the barbs and jabs on Twitter – come on, be professional for 5 minutes so we know you got this.

The governor that shuts down the entire state because his part of the state is hit the worst in the country… his concern for human life seems exponential because he often uses the phrase “out of an abundance of caution” or something like that …. Too bad he doesn’t have that kind of concern for the babies that are full term that he wants to allow to be executed when they come out of the womb if their mothers don’t want them.

The bishop who, despite a clear shortage of priests during the regular term of life prior to COVID-19, (I have heard) thinks that when we re-open we should have “more Masses” so people can practice safe distancing.  Look, my friend, ever since the clergy scandals, a lot of people began to practice their own form of social distancing:  not showing up at all.  The Church has an image problem that it thinks it can somehow ignore and all of a sudden be the Bastion of Spiritual Support that it should have always been, right now.  Um, yeah, not happening.  I am going to “online Mass” in other states where the homilies have some content and zeal and perspective.  I feel abandoned by the local church for more than one reason.

So my point is, not to be ugly, but to admit that the leadership in every realm has various disconnects that have hurt their image with the public.  Consequently, it is far beyond a partisan issue.  No one knows WHO to trust.  And don’t get me started on the godless Media that still, in the middle of this healthcare nightmare, tries to twist the words and agenda when they are interviewing any of these key people.  Where’s Commandant Pelosi when we can finally identify people who are TRULY guilty of Treason:  the greater part of our national Media. 

And among those of us who pay cash …. I have noticed a lot of interesting subdivisions:

Ø  The people who think this is a hoax designed to take away our freedom, break down the populace, and create a climate for the social revolution that the Progressives want. 

Ø  The people who are patiently complying, trying to keep their wits about them by clinging to faith, family and a memory of freedom from days gone by.

Ø  The people who are scared out of their brains watching too much news, and thinking that anyone who does anything that is in their particular political party is a gift from God Himself.

Ø  The rebels who won’t be told what to do, even if people around them are dropping like flies. 

Ø  The sheep who are doing every single thing to the “nth” power just in case…. They were the ones who were most nervous on the eve of Y2K.

Ø  The people who think this is God’s way of stopping our break-neck speed merri-go-round and making us take stock of what is truly important.  Does God do that in such a terrible way? 

Ø  Those who are distracting themselves in every possible way so as not to be overwhelmed by having the Rug of Regular Life ripped from under their feet.

I may have missed a group or two.  Some of the groups overlap, but you get the point.  My humble observation:  We are still needing to pull together.  Last week, I unfriended a person on Facebook who probably won’t miss me …. I didn’t like her relentless postings that slurred and belittled my particular political party.  When I told her that I had hoped we could remain friends, but was insulted by a recent name-calling she posted, she told me it was “up to me” if I was insulted by her words.  Come on, sister.  That’s like the guy who drives down the highway blaring his horn and has his left window down giving everyone a single-digit traffic signal as he flies along:  he offends EVERYBODY.  It’s just a shock to the sensibilities of regular people who have their own opinions – and are entitled to them – and would prefer to be left unscarred by crass behavior around them.  I wish we would have a National No-Name Calling Month.  I can’t hope that we could make it last a whole year.  My faith in “us” is not that strong.

So while I wonder if I can get back to the things that mattered to me, and cling more tightly to what I still have (my dogs, my family, my friends, my faith) I am confused by what the future will look like.  Will yellow school buses never pass my driveway again?  Will Disneyland re-open?  Can I drive across the state lines to go sit by the ocean with my friends?  Will the economy rebound from this “eventually” like it always seems to do?  Will I go back to work physically for the last few years before I retire?  (frankly if these 8 weeks are a taste of retirement:  more dog-time, more lap-top- time, more time to cook better food and take walks so I don’t turn into a pear-shaped elderly Polish auntie, more conversations on the phone with friends & family….. BRING ON RETIREMENT, BABY!!!).

Two weeks ago, Fr. Mike’s online homily (from Ascension Press) he made the most salient point I’ve heard yet:  “We just want TO KNOW …. “  we want to know how this or that will turn out. …. Or how THIS particularly will turn out.  We feel like we will be at peace …. if we just knew …. BUT that is not the nature of Trust.  It is the opportunity for us to say:  “Jesus, I trust in You …. even through this situation.” 

I used to sing a song in Church with the words from Psalm 23:  “though through the dark valley I pass, I am not afraid.  Your rod and your staff are beside me to give me strength.”  His staff may be for guidance, but I know also that rod is for correction.  This is our Season of Rod & Staff, as it is.  Huh.  And I thought the dark valley was my dating life….

#############