Two Dishwashers

Several years ago, my guess is about 2001,  I was taking my husband, Ken, to dialysis treatments three times every week.  One day, in the waiting room, I met a delightful woman named Anna.  Anna was an older, elegant looking African American dialysis patient. We arrived at about the same time on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  The first dialysis shift started at 6 A.M. but we had to be there at 5:30.  The patients were called in one or two at a time to get hooked up to the machines that cleansed their blood for several hours.  Ken was a big guy and Anna was a tiny woman so his time on dialysis was significantly longer than hers.

So after Ken was wheeled in Anna and I shared stories in the waiting room.  Anna spent most of her adult life working for a wealthy white woman who lived half of the year in a big house here in Central Florida.  The woman loved to entertain and Anna was proud of the kitchen she was assigned to preside over.  She told me several times that it was so big it had two dishwashers.

In the winter months Anna kept the dishwashers busy because the woman of the house loved to entertain.  When I asked Anna what she did in the summer months she told me about polishing the silver.  She'd sit at the dining room table with mounds of silver piled around her.  She expressed pride in how she would polish and carefully wrap a dozen punch bowl cups. She deep cleaned every room in the house so that when the lady returned the place was "dazzlin'."

Some days when Anna was finished with dialysis she went a little crazy for a time.  This was not unusual.  Ken did the same.  He wasn't usually wild or violet but his mind was garbled and he slept so soundly in the car coming home that I had to have help getting him into house and into his bed.

Anna, on the other hand, screamed in her dialysis stupor.  She reminded me of a baby seemingly screaming for no reason after you'd done everything you knew to do to quiet her.

One morning Anna told me, in a quiet matter-of-fact way, that "when the insurance runs out my family is going to let me go."  I didn't know what to make of this.  I already knew that some patients, at some point, opted to stop dialysis.  But at that time I had never heard of family members making the decision.  I also was well aware of the financial ramifications of years of dialysis treatment.  But Medicare usually took most of the burden.  For whatever reason; possibly because I was too tired, sad or confused, I never questioned Anna further.

A few weeks later, after not having seen Anna for several days I asked one of the nurses about her.  They said she was gone.  That was it.  She was gone.  For weeks later I had questions in my mind.  Could I have done or said something?  Should I have done or said anything?


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The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Dave and I love movies by film making geniuses, the Coen Brothers, Ethan and Joel.  Their latest is on Netflix.  What's it about?  The old West,  and how brutal and beautiful it was.  But to me, it's mostly about death and human nature and irony.  Oh, and it's also dripping with all kinds of symbolism and theological implications.  And it's funny.

The two hour plus film is divided into six totally different short stories.

1.  The Ballad of Buster Scruggs -  Buster is a happy go lucky singing cowboy; delightful and entertaining.  Oh, he's also a killer.

2.  Near Algodones - James Franco is a bank robber.  The story is short and to the point.  The arbitrary justice of the old West was swift.  So was Franco's life.

3.  Meal Ticket - Liam Neeson stars in this, one of the most disturbing, sad stories I've ever seen.  Somebody suggested that it's about the predatory nature of show business.  I think it's way more than that.

4.  All Gold Canyon - An old prospector pans for gold.  The old West is stunningly beautiful until human beings show up.

5.  The Gal Who Got Rattled - This is a sweet love story about a quiet young women who kept her wits about her until the one time she didn't.


6.  The Mortal Remains - The entire story takes place in a stage coach.  Spoiler alert:  I think they're all dead.

If you watch The Ballard of Buster Scruggs (and I hope you do) let me know what you think.  They're all great stories and great discussion starters.  What are they saying about human beings? About the natural world?  About God?  The only places you'll get answers are from having discussions with other people.  The Coen Brothers aren't talking.


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Small Great Things

A couple of weeks ago, while we were crossing the ocean for seven days, I read Jodi Picoult's book, Small Great Things.  The title is from the Martin Luther King, Jr. quote "If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way."

The Washington Post said that Small Great Things is the most important novel Jodi Picoult has ever written.  Jodi Picoult said of this book, "I think (social issues are) the whole reason for fiction: to get readers to address a topic they might shy away from non-fictionally."

It's a powerful book.  The three main characters are Ruth, a Yale educated African American nurse who is accused of killing a baby fathered by Turk, a white supremacist with swastika tattoos.  Kennedy is Ruth's public defender/lawyer who is basically clueless about what she's getting herself into.

Believe it or not, all three of them end up doing small, great things.

I'm writing this on Thanksgiving eve and I'm feeling grateful for so many people in my life who don't seem to tire of doing good.  But I am tired.  I don't do things anymore that others can do or (this is enlightening) don't need to be done.  But I can still do small,  (hopefully) great things.  One of the easiest is letting other people know when I see them doing small, great things.  They're all around me.

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Did the Devil Really Make Me Do It?

Every Halloween we see kids dressed up like Satan.  It used to bother me but then I decided it might be therapeutic.  I'm currently reading a book that calls the whole Satan/Hell thing into question.   For most of my adult life I've listened to people with serious (but usually solvable) problems complain that "Satan is breaking up their marriages or causing their suffering in other ways.

I sometimes think that Satan gets a bad rap.  Is there a personality outside my own that "makes" me do stupid things or am I blaming my stuff on Satan so I won't have to take responsibility?

In Deepak Chopra's book, "Life After Death - The Book of Answers," he suggests we each have to decide if Satan is real.  I like this idea because I think we each have to grapple individually with our own personal theology.  For instance, I'm sometimes appalled when I'm reading lists of "What Christians Believe."  I know Christians who have maybe four beliefs in common; the rest of the list is up for grabs.

Deepak Chopra says Satan is real if you believe that you deserve punishment instead of healing.  So that guilt is projected upward onto demons instead of healed inside.

On the other hand, Satan is unreal if we feel we deserve healing instead of punishment and there is a believe in forgiveness, healing and atonement.

Of course, Evil, and our ability to hurt ourselves and each other, remains even after Satan is gone.  So we always have work to do.

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Night Train to Lisbon

Dave's photo of Lisbon
a few days ago

We've been home from our European cruise for a week now.  This trip was, by design, laid back.  We knew we'd be spending many days on the ship so we prepared for it.  As it turned out, it rained the first few days so some of our port visits were short.

We were looking forward to Lisbon.  We've been there before so, this time, we wanted to go up and down the windy cobblestone streets without getting lost.  But it was raining the day we were there so we didn't spend as much time as we might have.  However, the gray day seemed right for Lisbon, a city full of intrigue.

Jeremy Irons in Lisbon

One of the great things about our ship was the availability of films.  Everyday was movie day on the big screen in the theater and all of the films shown there, plus many more, were available on the large flat screens in our staterooms.

So, after spending a while in rainy Lisbon we went back to the ship and watched the excellent film Night Train to Lisbon staring Jeremy Irons.  It took us right back to where we'd just been.


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At Sea

Holland America's Oosterdam

Dave and I just returned from a 14 day cruise that began in Barcelona and ended in Fort Lauderdale.  The first seven days we visited ports in Spain and Portugal.  The last seven days we were at sea.

These repositioning cruises are economical because not many folks want to spend that much time in the middle of the Atlanta Ocean.

 What can you possibly do to have a meaningful and fun experience at sea for a week?  First, there are over 50 activities offered every day so there's lots to choose from.   But if you spend three hours eating and two hours exercising and playing cribbage, you don't need a whole lot to fill in the time.

The lectures and entertainment were non stop.  But what we enjoyed most was getting to know people from all over the world.  There were 43 countries represented on the ship.  Most of these were Americans and most of those were Floridians.  But we met Europeans who were coming to Florida to spend the winter just like people in this country do.

Dave celebrated his birthday on the ship.  He was surprised by a dozen Indonesian waiters singing a happy birthday song in their native language.  Since Dave was born in Malaysia, this was meaningful to him.  He loved talking with all of the Indonesian crew.

Everybody has a story.  We invited two ladies to sit with us one evening and discovered that one of them had planned the trip with her husband but he died suddenly so she came with her friend instead. We got to know another couple with whom we had much in common.  The husband had been a college professor, an attorney and the mayor of his small town for nine years.  Dave was on the planning commission for his town for 30 years.  They had stories to share.

 Holland America caters to oldies like us.  Some of us shared fun life stories.  Some of us shared sad life stories.  Some of us seemed to be aware that the meaningfulness of sharing was that we're nearing the final chapters in these stories of our lives.


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