Memorial

The music was to begin at 3:30, then the memorial service from 4 to 5, then the reception complete with numerous bottles and jugs of wine and food.

I didn't want to go, but I owed it to him.

I arrived at 3:05. Because the skies threatened rain everything had been moved indoors of the Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning. It's a big stone building that once served as our city's only library, financed by Carnegie back when Carnegie financed libraries across the nation.

The main room was full of chairs, as was the center room. There were a few people there, but I saw Mary Ann right off. We hugged for a long time and just looked into each others eyes -- hers blue, growing faded. So many tears behind her; I hoped there were fewer ahead of her. We chatted for just a moment, then someone else came up to us so I let her go.

The first two rows had papers marked "reserved" on them, and I considered sitting in one of them. Who would stop me? Who was to say who the seats were for. But, of course, I didn't. The people sitting in the chairs and milling around all seemed to have an air of privilege about them -- they were personal friends of Jim, they were in his class, they were the singled-out students invited out to dinner, they alone knew how special he was . . . It brought back all that anger and angst I used to feel for all the people around here who seemed to hold themselves above me, back before I learned it was usually me holding myself lower than others. Today, they could all be as special as they wanted. I had nothing whatsoever to prove to any one any more, even myself.

I wandered into the Writers Resource Room to peruse the selection of literary magazines. A young woman and man followed me in, holding a huge bundle, which turned out to be movie-poster-sized photographs -- one of him as a child, a few more of him as an adult, and some he had taken. The couple began putting the photographs on boards to hang them upstairs where the reception would be.

After awhile I went back out into the main room and saw all the seats filled, and people were lined up to the doors, waiting to sign the guest book. I walked beside the rows of chairs, seeing who I could see, if there was anyone there I knew, anyone from all those endless classes. A woman motioned to me; I knew her face but absolutely could not remember her name or place her as a writer or student. I shook my head, embarrassed, because it was clear she knew me well.

"It's K," she said.

Shameful amazement ran through me. Of course! She said she and her husband were friends of Jim's and Mary Ann's. But how could I have not recognized her? We chatted a few minutes, and I remarked how calm she looked; she said she'd just gotten a massage. She was sitting beside S, who was in my first poetry class when I taught those few classes at Carnegie. She saw my Vermont tee-shirt and talked about how she'd spent a month one summer in Stowe, Vermont, doing nothing but writing poetry.

I saw C (publisher) at the guest book and went to him. I told him that B had offered some of her art work for the cover of my book. I hugged him and told him he had no idea what it meant to me to be getting the book published. "Well, it's good work," he said. We parted and I saw two women smiling at me -- but again I had no clue who they were. I suspected they were L and A, but I couldn't be sure. If it was them, it had been over 20 years ago. I smiled back but I didn't want to get in a conversation with them. Or anyone else.
I stood in the middle room for a moment, looking at the line of people that now stretched to the outside. I don't like crowds. Recordings were being played: some 50s French song, the Stones' Wild Horses. I realized I was the only person in shorts -- what had I been thinking?

It occurred to me then that the event was becoming, for me, an exercise in who knew who, a sort of old-home-week event. Jim deserved better of me. I didn't want to stay and cry all afternoon, which I knew I would if I stayed. Wouldn't I honor him better by going home and writing? Hadn't I'd already seen the most important person there -- Mary Ann? Maybe these were just rationalizations I was giving myself, but they made perfect sense to me.

So I made my way outside, past the line that now was halfway down the park. Cool wind, with the promise of rain, filled the car as I drove home.

Sugar Franklin Update

Back to the vet's this morning for hydration, meds, and gavage. It waa also time to do bloodwork to see if her uric acid levels were bad. I thought she was so much worse that all day I tried to prepare myself for the inevitable euthanasia.

I went back to pick her up this afternoon, and the vet said all her bloodwork came back normal.

Normal!

I can cut out the morning meds and assume all is well. She said to watch Sugar's weight and, of course, call if I think there's a problem.

It's a miracle. There's no other way to explain this past month.

My baby is going to make it, and I don't care if that is false hope or not. She's going to make it!

James Baker Hall

We all knew this was coming, but when Charlie casually mentioned he'd heard hospice had been called it was still too much for me to hear.

I called his wife and left a short message but they both already know how much I love them. There's nothing left to say.

What I will remember is his laugh and the clear way he always pronounced my name, each syllable crisp, his long discourses on poetry and literature and ego and ego-lessness. If you're not risking anything, he would tell us in those late afternoons, don't bother to write. He wanted us to come to the page naked and honest, perhaps for the first time in our lives. If you're not risking anything . . .

Too easy, I guess, to say that he made it safe for me to finally risk in my work. During our first conference he said he took me seriously as a writer -- the first person who ever had.

Over the years I took everything he had to give me, greedy for more without much idea of ever being able to pay back. My first and probably only book of poems is dedicated to him, but it probably won't be published in time for him to see it.

That night so long ago at Tolly Ho's, Carole and Tina and Jim and I sitting around, on our fourth or fifth pitcher, talking about rock 'n roll, and Jim turning to me to ask, "You've been awfully quiet. What do you think?"

And I said, "I was just thinking that I love you." I saw the tears in his eyes and flustered I went on, "I don't mean, you know, . . . " I got up to go to the jukebox to play some Fleetwood Mac song to cover up our embarrassment.

Safe journey, my friend. Safe journey.

April 1935 - June 25, 2009

Charli (and mini-update)

When all the birdies are out I naturally leave their cage doors open so they can go back when they want. I have decided that eating another parrot's food is the highest honor a parrot can give to another, because that's what all the birds in my house do. Eat each other's food, especially if it's the exact same food in their cage.
A few weeks ago the birds were out, and Charli made one of her little treks to Sugar's cage (Sugar was sitting on my shoulder, out of Charli's way). Charli casually ate her fill of Sugar's pellets, then settled in to look out the window for awhile. About five minutes later I glanced over at Charli and see that she is at Sugar's water bottle, having a drink. As I watched, Charli then proceeded to stick her head against the little ball in the water bottle spout. She kept rubbing her head against it, releasing water on the top of her head. She twisted herself this way and that, doing her version of the rain dance, for about three minutes.

Now the water bottle doesn't release a big stream of water, just a little bit, so when Charli was finished she had a patch about a half inch by an eighth inch of head feathers thoroughly soaked. And that was all. Finally satisfied she calmly sauntered back to her cage to preen, having completed her toilet for the evening.

I think I would give anything to know what goes on in a parrot's head.

Today Sugar Franklin solicited scritches from me! She has allowed me to scritch her two or three times since she got sick, but she hasn't jumped on my chest and bent her head and solicited scritches in over a month!

I figure it's for one of four reasons: she truly feels better and is getting back to her "normal" self, she is going to die tonight and is giving me a poignant goodbye gift, she thinks if I scritch her I won't be able to give her meds, or I will quit practicing piano if my fingers are busy scritching.

Right now she is on the back of the couch, napping -- with her head turned backward and firmly tucked in her feathers.

Happy, happy, happy! (but I stiil practiced piano and I still made her take her meds.)

Sugar Update

The night I made my last post Sugar was quiet and spent the night in the corner of her cage nearest me, no chirping, no fussing. Whatever was going on was not related to a hard molt. I slept very badly on the couch beside her cage.

I was at the vet's the next morning the moment the door opened. By four o'clock the verdict was in: renal failure, be prepared for the worst. I don't want to talk about how devastated I was or how I wandered around the house, completely lost.

The plan was to gavage and hydrate her and for me to bring her home Monday -- if she lived that long. But she did, and she did so well that the vet encouraged me to take her home on Sunday.

I took her in for bloodwork on Tuesday; tests came back astronomically better but still very bad. The vet said Sugar was proving her wrong on all counts, and she had her fingers crossed for us. While we were there they hydrated and gavaged her again.

Because her kidneys aren't working well the uric acid is building up, leading to gout. Her left foot is painful and she doesn't bend it. She is still perching but it's hard for her to climb. The vet explained there's not much to be done about the pain that wouldn't shut down the kidneys. And when things get so bad from pain I'll have to have her euthanized. I think I'd cut my own life short rather than have her suffer unnecessarily for one second.

At home I have to give her three meds in the mornings and four meds in the evening. She hates this. I hate this. She is only eating between 5 and 9 grams of millet a day, and drinking such a small amount of water it's heartbreaking but she's got to have fluids to help her kidneys. I've been giving her watery formula via syringe while I do the meds, mixed with some Pedialyte. It's torture for both of us but I'll do whatever I have to. I'm afraid I'm not getting enough fluids into her.

I don't think she's doing well at home at all, and I'm afraid all the meds I give her are dribbling down the side of her beak since I only have two hands to hold her and the syringe and try to pry her beak open. Yet tonight she did the eagle and earlier today was grinding her beak in her sleep.

At any rate, I'm taking her back to the vet tomorrow morning for hydration, gavage, and meds -- let them be the bad guys for awhile. I told the vet if she thinks Sugar needs to stay the night or even through Sunday I'd do it.

The vets and entire hospital have been wonderful to us. My friends have been so wonderful and supportive to me I'll never be able to thank them enough. Sugar Franklin is my baby -- she changed my entire life for the better. I grateful for each extra day she's with me.