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When I look up at the wall from where D., the nurse who cared for K. up until his death earlier this morning, and I sit, this is on the wall of the meeting room in the funeral home:

Mourn the dead
by tending to those
they have left behind.

I think that's how it went. I tried to memorize it as I sat, waiting for K.'s son to complete the funeral arrangements for his father. The shirt he's brought is on a hanger on the coat rack, and its covered in yellow stains. His prayer shawl - what is the proper name for it? - and a black clip-on tie are on the table in front of me. I will call at some point and ask the funeral home staff to walk in and read me the exact words, so I can get it down. It was that sentiment, but put as nicely as you could ever hope to put it.

After the young and nice guy from the home excuses himself, I ask K.'s son the relevant questions. Do you intend to kill yourself, as you said, as soon as your Dad's funeral is over?
Yes.
Are you willing to go talk to your doctor if I take you there?
No.
Are you willing to go to the ER with me, to talk to someone?
No. They'll try to stop me, and I don't want to be stopped.
You have had hope in the past, that life still has something for you. Do you have any hope of that now?
No.
Is there anything I can say to change your mind, anything I can do, to change your mind?
No.

In the end, I cannot get him to go voluntarily, and I cannot detain him gracefully and demonstrate the compassion and sorryness I feel by at least accompanying him through his transport and evaluation. In the end, I and D. spend about 45 minutes trying. It doesn't work. Its too far gone to be workable, or I fail too much at it, or both.

I let him go, then sign the section paper and fax it to the police. I tell them where he is headed, and his home address. The young and nice guy who was conducting K.'s son's meeting is stunned. He didn't perceive any of this going on in there. He says a few things that I find both funny and understandable. I don't feel smarter than him, or anyone. I do feel glad I know what to ask and that I can do it, that I can ask. I feel nervous. My hand shook just a little when I handed the section paper to the lady at the funeral home to fax to the police, and I think she noticed, and I think she is used to not commenting on things like that. She must observe things like that everyday.

Two days later, at our meeting where we review all deaths, admissions, and active patients, one of the first things we discuss is this case and the medical director who heads our meeting congratulates me on an excellent job, as do most of the team. I feel humiliated, a little, at the congratulations, because I feel that no one is perceiving that I stripped this man of his freedom and rights, although I know it was for exactly the right reason, at exactly the right time. I was still the one who stripped him of his freedom. I have to sit with that, indefinitely. One day, maybe K.'s son will have hope, and will look back on me as the person who helped to save his life that day. Maybe he will spend the rest of his life in unhappiness, neither able to live, or end it all, and blame me as one of the proofs of the horror of this life. Maybe he was discharged and maybe he's completed his suicide already. I can't say, and won't know.

I do know there is something about the grocery store that brings all of this to just under my throat and just behind my eyes. There is something about walking up and down the aisles and contemplating the items on the shelves, the solitariness of being alone in mind in such a busy and crowded place, that makes my heart feel achy and full and timeless and aware of all love I have ever had and ever lost and the simultaneous enormity and insignificance of that. The certainty that in one generation, I will be remembered, as a thin resemblance of myself, and in two generations, I will be all gone, from memory too, and be only a name with dates. I will be that. I am OK with that, even now. But it makes me ache with a heartsickness for all this, all this, this now, what is already spent, the precious little left. That is how I feel in the grocery store.

This morning they read this in church, which I find myself going to, because it is better than the grocery store for feeling like this.

I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
I was naked and you clothed me,
I was sick and you visited me,
I was in prison and you came to me.

Here is the bread of life, food for the spirit. Let all who hunger come and eat.
Here is the fruit of the vine, pressed and poured out for us. Let all who
thirst now come and drink.

We come to break bread. We come to drink of the fruit of the vine. We come
to make peace.

May we never praise God with our mouths
while denying in our hearts or by our acts
the love that is our common speech.

I come to be restored in the love of God. I come to be made new
as an instrument of that love.

I know that I am worthy. I know that I am welcome. All are worthy.
All are welcome.

Come into the embrace and remembrance of this communion.


The grocery store is where I most feel and know my dual existence. In the morning, when I wake up, I sometimes remind myself: it is my right, my delight, my decadent gift to waste my life in all these small little ways. My life is abundance, and today I will squander it beautifully.

I was sick and you visited me. I cannot comment or offer anything on God.

I was sick and you visited me. That much, I can do.

Found Objects, or Clues

Everything you want
everything you need

you already have

as you sleep under a blue and gold quilt
so dearly watched, so warm and stripped of
your waking self

and in the hills just beyond you
in the cold predawn light, diffuse, also watchful,
also blue
air moves, and a breeze
stirs the grasses

that await your step.

The End of This Particular Year

Every morning I
wake up with you
whether you are you
whether you are there

its the click-click-click
the flurried hiss

goodbye to you

the impending dawn.

Tethered

Christine's Barn

They'll move it. Or it becomes someone's barnwood floor.

It will disappear by spring, when we come back. It doesn't matter.

The barn is still there.

Untitled

Everytime I come to see
you, I come in through
a blue door. Everytime I come in, you stand up. You
stay where you are. You put your
book down and tip your head back. Regard. I come in and
you rush to help me with
everything I'm carrying. I come in and you hold up one finger
don't interrupt. I come in and you
ignore it, absorbed, genuine or not. I come in and
you smile, you don't. Everytime I come to
see you, I come in through
you do
you don't
I come in
you don't
I come in
to see you
you already were. You,
already.
You were.

Continue.

The State of the Union

We go up and down, but more often
back and forth. I'm usually forth, and you're back. The going.
I look back but don't go back. You go back. I go forth. We
pick up where we left off. We pick up the thread. The thread is
red. The thread is frayed. We tease it apart. Its a tease. Its a
part of us both. It teases us. I pick it apart. You pick it up.
Sometimes it makes us a little frayed. Then we
smooth it over, and pick up where we left off. For better or worse.
I'm getting better. I'm not as up and down. I'm
less frayed. Sometimes that makes me feel worse. Sometimes you're
worse, or better. I go
back and forth on which it is. You're
a smoothie, or you're a tease, or you're right, its better this way. Its
neither here nor there, in the end. You're there and I'm here.
We're both for better and for worse. Overall, its better. It could be worse.
It would be worse if
it was the end.