On the Way to Wonder

Sr. Wantabee sitting here in the Denver airport, pretending she is important and pulling out her computer like everyone else. sighhhh She flew out before the midwest tornado could set down and after the S. California earthquake. Ye ole earth is struggling. She finished ESL teaching last night, a testing night. How many will pass and go to the next level of learning English, a transition. When she returns she will have a new teaching schedule, teaching different nights, a transition. By the time she returns her daughter will have finished her driver’s ed class and be ready for behind the wheel experience on the road, a transition.

Transition times bring memories of other similar times, teaching her other children to drive. It is not a time to race through, she explained to her daughter, but a time to enjoy the process of learning and being “not quite.” Soon enough the next phase comes with all it’s responsibilities.

Sigh, loading is begining. Must go and lean into this transition.

Sr. Wantabee came home this evening to a letter from the City that her dog barked and disturbed a neighbor. Last year her beautiful husky/malmut dog slipped out the gate which sprang back when Sr. Wantabee brought in the groceries and had a night running in the nearby cemetary. A neighbor down the block saw it and reported it. The dog never hurt anyone but it was guilty of being on the city’s grass. Sr. Wantabee was guilty of negligence. The dog had to be put down or Sr. Wantabee had to agreed to lock it in a box, hide it from people, and muzzle the beast. The dog was nine years old so the freedom of death was given it. She believes it is roaming free and happy in the next life. Last month her son asked her to babysit his great dane/boxer mix with the assurance that it never barked. The beast has been a wonderful comfort but, sigh, it does bark and now has been reported. It has offended the ears of a neighbor. Noise.

Sr. Wantabee remembered Robert Frost’s question, What is it that does not like a wall? and thought, what is that is offended by the bark of a dog, a dog doing what dogs do. In an inner city neighbor hood with thieves and shootings, the presence of a large dog that woofs, enunciating the “f” rather than yap, yap, yaps, seems to be a comforting sound to Sr. Wantabee. But to someone else it is offensive. How does one make a dog not bark? Lock it in a basement? Is that humane?

We live in a funny world where do not want dogs to bark but to protect us. We want lights to shine at night to make us think it is daytime and then expect to not be tired. We want good food to be available quickly and for only a dollar. We want our straight hair curly and our curly hair straight or we want no hair where the good Lord put it. We travel faster than sound. Maybe like our airplanes, we are getting ahead of ourselves and will meet ourselves coming. In the meantime, Sr. Wantabee will be puzzling on how to make a dog not bark, how to conquer the noise frontier.

Sr. Wantabee was at the hospital Tuesday and called to a room to assist a family where the father was dying. He had a terminal disease for 15 years, had an operation, infection set in and he realized it was the end as did the family that had gathered to walk him through the valley of the shadow of death. Could Sr. Wantabee go and comfort the family? Upon entry, it became obvious that the patient was not in a coma, but was struggling with the breathing process and trying to cough up the gunk that kept forming in the chest. The family was standing by letting their presence be known, holding the hot hand, encouraging him to cough, and generally caring. Recovery was not truly an option but death did not seem that evident either. The family was trying to organize transport to take the patient home and have hospice. Sister Wantabee looked at the scruffy faced patient and the loving people standing around and realized what a miracle life is and that the stranger on the street has a constellation of caring people around them. The interconnectedness of life and the hole death leaves. As the disease claimed the patient’s strength, he could still cast a line and another, who could not cast, but could reel in a fish, would do that. The memories and love flowed. There are many things Sr. Wantabee cannot do but others come along and finish the job. The holes left in our social circles can never be filled, only appreciated. She cried going home.