So, there I was, yesterday, standing in Ocean State Job Lot, throwing cans of sardines, tuna & salmon into my cart, food that will go into the back of the pantry against worst case scenarios. Feeling good about that, I headed toward where I hoped to find bottles of water.
As I turned onto the aisle, my way was blocked by a man a bit younger than me talking to a woman a great deal older than either of us. I couldn’t tell if they knew each other, of if he just decided to impose upon her age, in a way people sometimes do with small children. He asked if she were worried about the hurricane. She was in addition to being obviously very old, very small and a bit hunched over.
She straightened up with that question to a full nearly five foot tall, I would estimate. And she replied, “Hah! I made it through ’38! And, I’ve never been afraid of anything since…” Or, words as close to those as I can recall.
Took me back a couple of days.
At the end of the week as Jan & I were getting ready for a small dinner with a visiting Zen priest from Atlanta and his associate, all ahead of our annual weekend at Tanglewood with old friends.
Auntie, who was vacuuming the living room carpet, plopped herself down and sighed deeply. I asked what’s up? She said her leg, the other one than the one that had a blood clot back in January, hurt just like the one in January did. I asked how long it had been like this. She replied it started two weeks ago. Now, we’d just this past week had an ultra sound on that one which had the blood clot to see if it was well and duly gone. It was. Being auntie, she hadn’t thought that she was beginning to have similar pains might mean anything.
I stifled a sigh. I called her doctor’s office. Which was wise, as we ended up spending just shy of eight hours at the closest emergency room. Suspecting such could be the case before leaving I called and canceled the dinner. The priest and I have known each other for well over a decade, but had never actually met in the flesh. This was a small sadness. But, in the face of a more pressing issue. Even if it turned out to be nothing, well, still it needed doing…
They took pictures of her leg and just for the smarts of it, her chest.
The good news was no clot. We didn’t even have a chance to congratulate ourselves before the doctor, why are they getting so young, moved on.
There was bad news. They saw a spot on her spine. They also found a fair amount of fluid in one lung. Asked about this she said, oh yes, I’ve been having trouble breathing. Again, didn’t feel the need to check in on it…
We went home. As per instructions, I called and set up an appointment with her oncologist for the first available, which turns out to be Monday in the very early afternoon.
And we canceled Tanglewood. Hearing all this and then having us leave didn’t feel right.
And what with the hurricane rolling madly toward us, all in all, probably the smart decision.
So, I’ve been watching auntie, whom we usually refer to in her absence as the hobbit.
She’s taking it all in stride. Finished one of her talking book Vampire romances and is primarily worried about getting the sequel in a timely manner.
I find myself thinking of auntie. I find myself thinking of that elderly woman responding to the question about this hurricane moving steadily toward us.
Some of this obstinacy in the face of bad things is foolishness, no doubt.
I thought of that hadith of Mohammed. Trust God, but tether your camel.
That optimism of the heart doesn’t, or shouldn’t replace getting some batteries, water and sardines.
And…
I found my heart swimming with admiration for our foolish bravery, we humans.
Small acts. Big ones. As I begin to think ahead to my sermon on the tenth anniversary of nine/eleven, the image that most hangs in my mind, in my heart is the eyewitness description of those firemen and cops racing into the towers as everyone else were trying to escape.
And I found myself thinking about reflections about heroism and who exactly is a hero that were shared on some Buddhist blogs recently in response to a book about a terrible fire at a rural Zen center and of the five people who stayed when all the rest were evacuated. All luck of the draw. And how whether they had stayed or left affected each. And how we sometimes seem to hold up individual acts of heroism mistakenly thinking those are the only heroes. While at the same time holding up that there are specific moments that turn us, ordinary as dirt people, into something larger.
Heroes.
Heroic acts.
And, for me, really, while I shiver as I think of the firemen racing into the towers, as I think of young Zen monks trembling but, because circumstances threw them into it, stayed with axes to try and hold off racing flames, as I think of that little old lady squaring her shoulders in a moment of defiance against all the power of nature, as I think of my auntie, silly hobbit, hearing her cancer may have spread fatally, wanting her next book…
In the face of it all, at our best, we straighten up, and we stand up, and we do what needs doing.
Not always, Of course… Not always…
But, often enough.
And, right this minute, good words for me.
Do I hear an amen?
Or, maybe a hallelujah?
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