Holidays

Here’s a short post to say Happy Holidays to everyone. Most of us are dealing with some kind of family thing at this time of year, and I hope yours works out well. I talk to my niece and my brother, but we won’t actually be under the same roof for any of the holiday dates. That’s OK with me. I like spending my Thanksgiving in peace and quiet in my own house, drawing, listening to crime shows with the kitties asleep in my lap.

For those of you who love a houseful of people, have a great time. I can hear the chatter of people yelling “remember when…!” across rooms while women dance around each other in the kitchen-whether it’s to bake a pie from scratch or heat up take-out. It doesn’t really matter. You’re making food-and showing them you love them.

Kids are getting underfoot until somebody dreams up something they can all do in the same room-or outside. (I vote for outside, no matter how cold. It’s good for them.)

For those whose holiday comes up short on satisfaction (again), know you aren’t alone. Maybe next year we should spend a little less time on expectation and a little more on simple acceptance. My way of doing that has been to slowly back away from invitations. Since I’m not married any more, I don’t feel obligated to be with people I don’t like (most of them didn’t like me either, so it’s probably a relief for them, too.)

 Make an effort to get around to see your friends as well as family. Those guys, your friends, will hold your hand when it needs holding, listen to you tell something you wouldn’t tell anyone else, and still love you. Those friends will pick you up when your car breaks down, and they’ll call you when their car breaks down and you’ll both laugh about it for years. Those guys help you find jobs, give you references, tell you how good you look (still!), how smart you are, how glad they are you called. And friends give from the heart. One of my friends saw a sweater with sparkles and beads and said “It was just…you.” It isn’t something a woman my age should wear, but when I look at it, I realize one person doesn’t think of me as a middle-aged woman. She thinks of me as sparkly, beaded, and flashy. And I am so flattered I am still speechless. I love that sweater!

If you’re lucky enough to have a family member who is all these things to you, you are lucky, I have my brother (and his beautiful, wonderful, patient saint of a wife) and my niece and I would give them the stars in the sky if I could reach that far. Because they are my family, they know exactly why I do stupid shit sometimes and they don’t judge me. They shake their heads and say “Kathy…you KNOW…” We laugh and they help me figure out a better way.

So, to all my friends-new and old, family and not, I love you all and wish the very best for you. I’m posting a bit of my Christmas art as a blog card for the Holidays!

Designing my own Exit

This life is finite, and unpredictable. There is someone I know who is living the last chapter of her life and lamenting  it every day. No, not because it is the last chapter, but because it is taking so long to get to the end. She is dependent on others for her safety, her shelter, and food. Her independent spirit has become a burden for the children caring for her. She wants to do things on her own-when experience has shown everyone it isn’t safe anymore. I don’t need to report incidents; any one of you can probably call up something of your own. A relative, a friend’s relative, someone who forgets to turn off the stove, or the faucet. Someone who fell and now must rely on a cane or walker. Maybe someone who has been instructed to use a walker and refuses to use it and continues to fall-and receives injuries just severe enough to warrant hospital stays ($) and disrupts everyone’s schedule-working, sleeping, etc. The caretakers of these people are tired, confused, guilty, frustrated, and often broke.

I don’t want to get any replies about how we “owe” our family members. None of us owes anyone. We do what we do out of love or compassion. When we have reached a critical point in our lives regarding that person’s care, we shouldn’t have to struggle with some cultural familial “debt.”
Before any of you shoots off some noble essay about the last moments of someone’s life, let me finish.
I spent a long time in a nursing facility as a caregiver. This was one of the best facilities around. For confidentiality reasons, I won’t name it. I can’t tell you how many times a resident looked at me, in a fleeting moment of lucidity and asked “how much longer will this go on?”

We have discovered ways to stretch out a person’s life far beyond what Nature intended. Believe me, I have changed adult diapers on people who could do nothing but lie in bed. All day. Every day. We turned them, lifted them into wheelchairs, and pushed them down the hall to the Dining Room. We fed them, then wheeled them back to change their briefs, again, and their clothes and lifted them into bed. We changed their briefs during the night and started it all again the next morning. During all this, a nurse periodically gives them medication that maintains their heart rate. If their stool changes, we notify the nurse and she gives them medication for anything the change indicates. These people receive medication for everything. Nature tries, regularly, to lead them through that final door-and the healthcare industry pulls them back. They don’t eat. The nurse gives them nutrition. They are usually so medicated they will swallow or drink anything they’re given.
I could give you more, and more specific, illustrations, but confidentiality prevents that. And that’s as it should be. There are many other areas I could get into, about family guilt and refusal to let go, etc., but I’m not going to do that. My point here is this: I ain’t gonna do this. I WILL NOT end up in a facility with someone wiping my ass and feeding me. I WILL NOT live past the point when I can take care of myself. I WILL NOT continue to draw breath and call it living. It isn’t living.
I don’t have children to manipulate into taking care of me. I don’t have any family that I would manipulate into doing that. If I can’t pay my own rent, wash my own dishes, cook my own food without being a danger to myself and the neighborhood….MY TIME IS UP.
So, here’s my point. I want to die while I’m living. I can look around me and see that living to 100 is going to be fairly common. But like the person I know, the last 20 years could be dependent on someone else. Nope. SO I’m looking at 70-80. I am healthy; I take care of myself so that’s a reasonable age. That means I have a limited time to make art, write and experience whatever I want to experience.
Now, before anyone decides to write me about the unpredictability of life, I realize anything could happen, anytime. I could be in a car wreck tomorrow and end up paralyzed from the neck down. That’s a chance I am taking, and another reason for this essay. I know a Living Will keep me from being hooked up to breathing machines, but what about if I’m conscience. How do I get past that? Is there legislation for a shot, something to get it over with? Does anyone know anything about that? If there is nothing, is there some person or organization I could petition? If anyone has more information on that, please reply.
Back to my personally designed demise.
I believe we should talk to our families, friends, and coworkers so they know how we feel. If we decide to take leave of this existence, they shouldn’t be left with our mess. I plan to empty my home-sell what’s worth selling, give to my loved ones anything I want them to have, write letters take care of legal matters. I will send my brother or niece (whoever is around at the time) enough money to dispose of the remains so no one has to dip into their own account because of me.
I hope they will mourn me, hope they will remember how terrific I was-and how much I loved them. That’s one of the main reasons I plan to do this my way. I do love them. I don’t want them to end up resenting me, whether privately or not. I don’t want to ever be something my brother or my niece wishes hadn’t happened.
And as for anything religious, I don’t think that way. I don’t believe this is anything but an experience, same as the birds and deer and maple trees. I am an organism, nothing more or less. I’m not some special Being that deserves more than any other organism. We all are connected; all have the same level of importance. I’m not interested in anyone’s idea of reincarnation or Heaven or any of that stuff. I’m 55, almost 56, for Pete’s sake, and I’ve heard it all, OK?
This is IT. This is what we get. And I’m not going to overstay my welcome and spend years wondering the halls of some State facility, my eyes glazed over, a urine soaked diaper under my nightgown.
Hopefully, it won’t come to any of that. I’ll go in my sleep after a really good Art show where I sell lots and lots of art. Or after a book signing where I’m feted by local literary society. Wouldn’t THAT be fabulous? Then my brother and my niece would make lots of money off my work, instead of trying to figure out how to budget in my nursing care fees.
And don’t’ tell me that healthcare will be so sophisticated by then that I won’t have to worry about good care. That’s not my point. I don’t want good care! Once a person is OLD and can’t contribute anymore, it’s time to GO. OK, we can all take a while to say good-bye. I’m not asking our society to throw old people down a communal canyon to die. I’m asking people to take responsibility for their death, just as we should be responsible for our lives. Don’t worry, there will ALWAYS be those who won’t give it another thought, just like they didn’t give anything a thought-like babies and healthcare and on and on, so nursing facilities will always have someone to nurse.
There are those of us, though, who believe that going out is as important as coming in. We didn’t get to choose how we got here, or to whom, but we can certainly choose out moment of exit-unless Nature and Chance take that away from us.
I am planning to take care of all my stuff, tell everyone I love them and goodbye, and take a good long hike. I may or may not come back. Right now, I’d like to end it out in the woods, where I’ve always been happiest. I haven’t decided yet. I’m looking at everything. I figure about 20 years is what I have left.
AT 55, that doesn’t seem like such a long time, so I need to get busy making art, writing, interacting with the people I love. This essay is written and posted for the world to see so there will be no misunderstanding when it’s time for me to go-and I’ll decide when that is.

How do you guys do it?

It’s been too long since I posted so I apologize to anyone who may have checked by only to find the same old same old. It’s hard to find time for the computer and everything else.

Let me apologize for the way that sounds. I love computers. I think they are one of the real instruments of progress. We are even beginning to use them for positive, enriching experiences instead of just games. But I don’t have a lot of time after work to spend on the computer, on the Net. I leave in the morning a little after 7AM. I get home a little before 7PM. I feed then cats, check my mail, check my email, respond when needed, do anything that is really, really necessary in the house (clean the cat box, wash stray dishes, pick up bits of this and that the cats scattered during the day, etc.) then settle in to artwork. I am getting ready for 3 Christmas shows and I have to start delivering work the first of November. Sounds like plenty of time for those of you who don’t do my work but it isn’t plenty of time. It’s been rainy here, so things aren’t drying as quickly as they should. Now it’s getting cold, too. My work is truly individual. When I sit down to draw (using a wood burner), it’s slow. Each design is original. When I start drawing, what comes out of my head through my hands is what comes out-I don’t copy one design repeatedly. Frankly, I may try some of that for these shows since I need lots of stuff in a short period of time. Of course, I know how that goes. I start drawing, even looking at a design I may have just completed, thinking I really like that and I’ll draw several, and I start drawing. I get into the lines, the loops, the flow and then I’m connecting this line to that and the burner wanders around and I’ve drawn something new and I love it and I keep going until it’s finished and I think Oh, I like that, I’ll do several and off we go again. Once I’m into that zone, I go and I don’t try to control it. That’s the point of making art for me. It’s a creative process that releases something in me and for me and I resist controlling it by making 6 of those and 12 of those…I did that with the potpourri pots I made from gourds. I designed the dragonfly cutout that went on the lid. That was really the only thing that I used over and over. The pots were finished with different colors and textures, and I was doing the same thing with that as I do with drawing. Watching what happens with this color, what happens when I do this? Or this? So the pots are just as individual, but the theme is consistent. That worked out pretty well and I’ll finish more of those. I’m also experimenting with finishes, sanding space off for drawing and making new pots that have interesting finishes and colorful designs. I’m letting the designs take new avenues and creating functional pieces that are beautiful and unique.

 

More pictures. I finally figured otu what I was doing wrong!

Dragonfly potpourri pot and pot decorated with gourd piece. The picture below shows the bits and pieces left over from broken gourds that I draw on and use for jewelry, gourd decoration, etc.

Lord, that’s enough marketing for one blog, don’t you think? Anyway, the point is that I have so little time after work that I want to do MY work, my artwork, or my writing. The blog is part of that, but not everything. Jeez, now it sounds like I don’t want to blog, or that I think this is less valuable than some other activity. Sorry, I don’t mean it that way. I’m just so surprised when I read other people’s blogs and I realize they do it almost every day. (!) I admire that, I do, but I can’t give up my art time. And I go to bed pretty early because I read for a while before I sleep. I can’t give that up, either.

So, I’ll post as much as I can and will try to make it a more regular thing so more of you will stop by and read what’s happening. I do want to hear from people and get feedback on my writing and my art. Without it, without feedback and interaction from those of you OUT THERE how can I tell if I’m communicating?

OK, now you have something to reply to: how do you do it? How do you keep up with email and blogging and Internet searches…and everything else? Does having an 8-hour a day job make that much difference? I work 10 hours a day and my travel time is 40 minutes each way so I’m effectively gone 12 hours a day. What gives? I go to bed to get 8 hours of sleep, so tell me, how do you split up your day?

THE SHOW

The show was fabulous!!! I sold a lot of gourds; I talked to a lot of people. I received lots of encouragement and kind comments. I was invited to show in two more shows next month for Christmas (back to work!!!) and I felt exhausted and very, very happy at the end of the day.

I am posting a few pictures here, but check the website in a couple of days for new work. Those pictures are better, because they were taken by a professional in a studio.

 

My brother, the savior I wrote about recently, helped me get another car so I could concentrate on the show. Now I don’t have to worry about getting to work and around to galleries who want me to exhibit with them. When I’m famous, he’ll get a bigger cut. Right now, he’ll get the cost of the car and my undying gratitude. When we get together, I have to do a lot of bowing and scraping but it was worth it!! I’m kidding about the bowing and scraping. He prefers documentation (don’t we all?) so here it is again

My brother, Johnny, is my savior. In addition, his wife, Linda, who puts up with both of us and never crabs about it. Out loud.

I know I should write pages and pages, but I’m still tired and I have to get back to creating-those shows are coming up immediately and I want to be ready. I want my work to be terrific and make people “ooh!” and “aahhh!” like they did last Saturday.

I also want to send heartfelt thanks to all of you who thought positively for me when I lost the ability to do it myself. Tell me what you want for Christmas-I’ll put it on a gourd and send it to you!

new poems

FRIEND

There is no crueler arena

than Childhood.

My attempt to help my friend

left me as far on the

outside as she was.

 

She lost control

of her bowels at school,

one of the greatest fears

of Childhood,

exposing

some weakness,

knowing the predators

at the edge of the herd

would pick us off.

 

I helped her out of the

great laughing crowd

in the schoolyard

and stayed with her in

the sickly green vastness

of the bathroom.

 

I stood outside the stall

where she cried,

passing wet paper towels

under the door.

 

Somewhere between

the dust and dirt

of recess

and the cold echoing sobs,

small, fierce vows

leaped the chasm between

her head and mine.

 

I lived afterward with

the horror of my secret,

would there ever be

anyone to sit with

me in the

cold green bathroom,

and risk

Eternity on the Outside?

======     =-=-=-

 

DRIVING

 

I checked the oil,

the air in almost-new tires.

My gas gauge pushed the F

and my windows sparkled.

The passenger seat held

an assortment of books on tape

and a notebook .

 

Backing down the drive I

breathed in the moist

air of dawn and

smiled at the wake-up

songs of cardinals.

 

I drove down the highway

that connects my house

to the house 100 miles away,

hoping, again, I will

find the person I lost

So long ago.

 

If I pack more carefully,

drive slower or faster

maybe I can find

that bend in the road

that takes me back.

 

When she still breathed

the same clammy air

at five in the morning

that I breathe now.

 

Breathing and talking and laughing

maybe if I time it just right,

I can reach her

before she’s gone

and ask her the questions

that propel me out the door,

and down the highway

over and over again.

roadblocks

The date for the art show looms closer and it seems everything that can go wrong has…and, no, I’m not surprised!

It’s even difficult writing since I sliced my finger a couple of nights ago. The bandage makes me hit several keys at once so my poor typing is really crappy now. Bear with me, please?

My car died a sudden and violent death on I-26 as I was coming back from dropping art at the photographer’s. It was as if I suddenly STOMPED on the brakes. I did have a couple of seconds of shuddering before the big STOMP so I put on my turn signal and began easing off the road – the truck behind me knew something was up so luckily he managed to get in the passing lane-the truck behind him went around on my right side, on the shoulder. Miraculously, there wasn’t an accident. I couldn’t get the car all the way off the road. A man stopped and told me to put it in neutral so he c could push it off. I tried to explain that it wasn’t going anywhere-when he couldn’t push it, he gave up and told me to get out of the car because someone was going to hit me. Heavy traffic and everyone going 70+ made his statement a fact. Another man who was with the work crew I had passed earlier (in another life-when my car MOVED when I pressed the gas pedal) and pulled me off the road.

I called AAA. It only took a little more than an hour for them to get there…and anyone who has had car trouble knows the rest of the story-inconvenience, dirty looks from drivers who obviously have never had car trouble. Yeah, I thought, I made my car stop in traffic so I could wait out here in this heat just to inconvenience you by making you slow down to 60. Yeah, this is FUN!

Anyway, I have no money; of course, I have been paying for a website, photography, supplies, etc., trying to get my art business going. I have a full time job that doesn’t pay much so I have been skating from paycheck to paycheck, hoping that if I can make enough really good stuff this could be my “breakout” show since I have the website and professional photos to submit to other shows and galleries…and the show is the 19th. I’m almost there.

Almost there. The work I’m making is good. New designs are swimming in my head every night when I settle down to sleep. Almost there.

If I can hang on until this show, even if I don’t sell a single damn thing, I will feel as if I have gotten over some kind of huge roadblock, the kind the Universe sets up to keep you in your comfort zone-and if you can get past it you can move on. Grow.

I won’t go into great, depressing details about the roadblocks that have littered my path the past few years-along the way I have lost everything except my need to write and make art. It is, literally, all I have. Send me positive energy, reader; help me get over, past, though this roadblock.

Even technology goofs

I didn’t really have time to blog today, but maybe those of you who have read it will read this-and understand why I haven’t replied to your email. I can’t get into my email!!! I get that “website not available” error.

So, I’ll try again…again and maybe whatever the pr0blem is will be corrected.

In the meantime, I had a great weekend at my writing retreat and plan to post some things this week. Mostly, I’m making art for the show in 4 weeks. It’s September 19th, for those of you in the Weaverville area (near Asheville, NC.) who might want to visit. It’s a one day show and I will be posting photos afterwards.

Talk to you all soon. If the virtual dimension allows.

Katie

Left out

I had to pull off the road recently, trying to get a signal on my cell phone. The local community center has a great pull off spot, under a big Maple, where I could sit in the shade. There was a house just across the road.  As I waited, I watched the kids nearby playing on the ball field. Nearby, another group of kids played on the freshly mowed grass outside, near their parents. It’s a nice little community center, with lots of trees, a large ball field, a building that houses nice rest rooms, meeting rooms and hosts a breakfast every Saturday morning.

As I watched the kids near me playing-yelling, running after each other, laughing, I noticed a movement across the road at the house. I turned and saw a little dog, some kind of terrier or Scotty mix. He was tied up near the porch, straining against his leash. He watched the children, running, laughing, and ignoring him altogether. He whimpered just a little, but mainly he strained to watch them. The tree I was parked under, a big maple, was between his line of sight and the children, allowing him glimpses of running children, just out of reach.

I watched a while, and saw his eyes light up, his tail start wagging, and his little body wiggle uncontrollably when the children got close. They did not stray past the tree, of course, that would have put them too near the road. But the clear summer air carried their shouts the 50 or so feet to the little dog and he heard them even when he couldn’t see them.

I imagined him thinking, “I wanna play! Let me play, too! Come get me! Please, come get me!”

If I had known the children or the parents or had I thought anyone was home (I saw no cars) I might have walked across the street and asked if Little Dog could come out to play. As it was, I felt near tears when I finally got the call I had pulled over for and had to leave.

I have seen that little dog over and over, and wonder if he has anyone to play with, or if anyone realizes he wants someone to play with. I can feel his yearning, see his symbolic nose pressed against the windowpane. It is too hard, sometimes, to be an empathetic person. I remember my own times of being left out, of course, of being ignored and passed by and all that. But for him, watching those children run and play and being so close to a dog’s idea of heaven and not being able to …get to it…must have been agony.

This is a reminder to all of you with dogs and cats and children and whatever- Everyone wants to be included. Look around. Invite someone over to play.

Mama. Family.

This is one of the things I wrote when my mother was dying. It feels awkward to say any more than that.

Nov 5, 2007

My mother is sleeping now. Her soft snores assure me the morphine is working. She goes in and out. We talk to her when she’s conscious, talk among ourselves when she drifts away. The only sound is the steady patapatapata of the machine hooked up to her hand and nose. They oxygen tube is wound around her ears so she can breathe; the gastro tube is taped to her nose, goes down her throat, and slowly drains the bile her body cannot expel normally.

Her intestines, the doctor said, are twisted and a toxic build-up in her system has created this crisis. He doubts she would survive surgery and even if she did, the result would be a few more days in a morphine-based coma. Less morphine would leave her in agony. Right now, after deciding to forgo surgery, we are simply trying to manage pain so her final hours are as comfortable as possible. She made it clear long ago she wanted no heroic measures.  Her kidneys have begun to fail, her intestines cannot rid her body of waste, and her heart is beginning to falter. Her breathing has slowed to less than half its normal rate. We are here on deathwatch. Anything we wanted to say should have already been said.

I was here last week and the week before. I missed a few weeks – moving and then a chest cold – but I have tried to visit regularly for the past couple of years. I’ve been writing her story – at her request – and reading to her when I visit. She refers to me as her daughter, Kathy “the writer.” I appreciate that she doesn’t think of me as a failure – I do – but as something she dreamed of for herself all her life. For this, I am grateful. My love of books and writing were a gift from her and I will forever credit her with that. It has often been my only lifeline – this act of putting words on paper. Stringing words into sentences the way I string beads into necklaces.

Maybe I can eventually get the sentences to form the story she has been trying to tell me all my life. Maybe even after she’s gone she will still talk to me the way her parents communicate with me now. They fill my dreams with stories and even asnwer questions. Whatever I do with the rest of my life ,nothing will ever be more important than finishing her story.

 

 

WAITING

The dry hospital air

Makes her thin skin itch.

 She moves her hand,

Bound with tubes,

Toward her face, her hip .

We gently move it away from tubes and bandages,

murmuring encouragement .

My brother rubs lotion on her skin,

I think of butterfly wings.

 Morphine pulls her back into that soft, dark place

Of painless dreams and peace.

 Those of us at her bedside

talk of things that don’t matter,

Our eyes never resting on anyone’s face.

We’re trying  to ignore so much,

Huge things, past hurts, regrets, painful memories.

We hold her hand, smooth her fine hair,

Wish for a peaceful end. Final peace for her Release for us.

We are a large family. Not close.

 Too much pain,  too much damage.

 Being here is beyond awkward.

 There are some not strong enough to be here at all.

 I do not judge them. I am here for her. Only her.

Because I let my anxiety explode

recently at someone who pushed

against my fragile bounderies

I vow to keep my own council,

For her. Hearing is the last thing to go.

So now my face is smooth, my manner calm.

I am as cordial and polite as I would be with strangers.

 They mostly are, in fact, strangers. Mama would be appalled.

She’s your sister She’s your niece He’s your brother.

 And on and on. She’s right.

I care as far as my heart can stretch.

They are related to me by accident of birth.

 Too many experiences,

 Too many reprisals,

Too much damn drama.

My own life has drained patience from me,

My own pain fills me up; there is no room for theirs.

So many of us in one room poisons the air with sadness.

We are all old now,  hard lives etched on our faces.

 The damage of lives mired in sorrow and desperation

Reduces the memories of goodness, bright days, personal achievements

To mere moments – moments long gone and tarnished.

I was young once- bright, energetic, even beautiful.

I still have bright days,

And I guard them as jealously as any miser guards his gold.

 My brothers and sisters must have secret caches

Of happiness that they dip into,

count out in the personal darkness of their lives.

I hope so.

Johnny

Remember when I said we should take the time to make our real heroes famous? People who live their life in such a way that they will be remembered when they’re gone-and not just for being really, really pretty, or handsome.

This is for my brother, Johnny. He served in Vietnam and that alone makes him a hero in my eyes. Since he retired from the military he has been at loose ends, I think. He has been spending a lot of time inspecting the world under the twin microscopes of politics and religion. Sigh. We who love him get exasperated because he wants to fix the world and we know it can’t be done-not by one man and not in one lifetime. However, we love him and remind ourselves that, like most of us, he is complicated.

He is also generous to a fault. I’ve been cornered by poor choices, despaired of ever finding my way out, and wondered if there was really a reason to even try. Johnny talked me down off the ledge. He has seen people murdered and mutilated and knew there was no sane reason for it. He carries horrific scenes in his head that flash at inopportune moments; he doesn’t sleep well. But when his daughter calls and needs to talk about her son, her job or her own fears and frustrations, he’s there for her, as he has been her entire life. Never, she once told me, did she fear telling her Dad anything. She knew that no matter what happened in her life, her Dad would be there for her, without judgment. Oh she knew, she laughingly told me once, when she’d done something stupid that he would acknowledge the choice had been poor, but his main concern was-what would she do about it? And whatever she decided, with his help in identifying the choices, she knew he would help her. And now, with her own child, she continues to share with her Doad, my brother, the events of her life. I think that’s a good statement about a man who makes us crazy when he wants to argue about the Religious Right.

I could tell you a lot of stuff about Johnny’s life that has added to his anger at the injustice and cruelty in the world but I’m not going to open up his heart for public view. It isn’t necessary. If people look closely at the things he gets angry about, it says a lot about the man. He hates it when corporations make decisions that add to their bottom line but heap extra work without extra pay on people who are already doing the best they can. He hates it when people look past problems they could fix and wait for a Holy Spirit to fix it for them. He believes fiercely in independence and self-actualization and gets angry when he realizes some people are afraid of all that responsibility.

My brother, Johnny, has helped family members not only by loaning them money (for which he is almost never repaid) but also by offering suggestions when they ask for them. He helped me find a car when I lost my third job in three years, my car breaking down on the same day. I had lost my roommate, the air conditioner in my house broke during a heat wave (I slept in the yard for 2 weeks), and when we were told the company was going into Chapter 11 they also didn’t have our paychecks. I felt my back breaking under the strain of unpaid bills; uncertainty in the future and how the hell was I going to look for another job without a car? Johnny helped me. It wasn’t just the money. He stayed calm about the situation (which was a pretty good trick; Johnny’s famous for getting really worked up about stuff!) he told me I could get through it. His certainty helped me find my own strength. It didn’t happen in  a day-I still lost my house, my furniture, my pets…but I managed to keep a tiny bit of sanity and determination and he helped me feed them and make them grow. He helped me help myself.

One of my nieces was sick-really sick-and he planted a garden for her. He went over and worked it regularly even though she had two children and a husband who could have, and should have, helped.

He visited our mother regularly and took her fresh fruit. He fixed things at her house and kept up the yard. There were other children who lived nearby but Johnny was the one my mother counted on to get things done.

He has taken in stray cats and their kittens, taken them to the vet, and found them homes. He has made friends in almost every part of the country and they will all tell you Johnny is exasperating about politics and religion but you will never meet anyone more generous, or kinder. My brother also believes in love. Romantic, flowers and everything love. He is almost naive in his attitude toward it and his heart has been broken more than I believe has been fair. Still, unlike many of us (including me) he believes in love and its power.

We shake our heads because we want Johnny to stop arguing about things we think don’t really matter in the long run. People will always pray for guidance but then won’t take it if it seems like too much trouble. People will always let someone else make their decisions for them and then complain about the results. It seems to be something in human nature. We, as a species, are very sheep like and are easily led. That mindset doesn’t encourage independence. It’s good to have a community attitude but we still need to see our own choices for what they are. Johnny clenches his fists when he realizes most of us aren’t that mature.

We love Johnny and wish he wouldn’t argue so much. Then, when I think about it long enough, I realize we want him to stop making us all so uncomfortable. Be the kind, generous person we know he is – all the time. We want to make him less complicated. But then he wouldn’t be Johnny, would he? And what would that make us? We have a tough time accepting everything about a person and in the end, if you really love someone; you love the whole person, warts and all. No one is one way all the time. That’s TV. Characters on TV always react the way the character is written, we know what they’re going to do or say, and that makes them attractive to us. They’re easy to understand, easy to accept. Maybe that’s one reason people spend so much time in front of that damn box. It’s a whole lot easier than interacting with real people.

And Johnny is a real person. A real, breathing, watching. listening, moving, laughing, talking, yelling, crying, loving person.

I am so lucky to have him in my life. I’m offering this inadequate portrait of my brother because I want the world to know he is out there, and that he has been a part of more than his own life, he has been an active, productive part of the human community.

Thank you, Johnny.