The Phone Call

One phone call can change your life.

“You have a new grandbaby!”

“This is the highway patrol. We’re sorry, but your son has been...”

“I asked, and she said yes!”

"Congratulations! You're a winner!" (You should hang up on this one immediately.)

The call came at 1:49 p.m. on Thursday, April 19. It was from my brother M. Usually,  M's wife, Janelle, would call me if we needed to discuss something. But I knew that Janelle had left just the day before for California, to help her brother care for their father, who is in the hospital with double pneumonia, and their third stepmother, who is in a different wing of the same hospital, suffering from kidney failure. Janelle, a caregiver at heart, had been here last weekend, with my and M’s mom, who was also in the hospital. Mom is doing much better, and Janelle felt that she really must get to her father’s side as quickly as possible. It had been a long hard week for her brother and his wife.

So, when my brother called and said, “Janelle’s dad...” I filled in the rest of the sentence myself. Has died. Oh, I’m so sorry for Janelle and Butch. My brother repeated himself: “Janelle’s dead. She died in her sleep last night.” We did a long round of me saying things like “What?” “I don’t understand.” “You’re not saying that right. You mean Janelle’s *dad*.” “I don’t believe it.” And M saying, “No, you heard me right.” “No, I mean Janelle.” “I don’t understand either.” and “I don’t believe it either.” His voice was as calm as if he’d called me to tell me about the progress of his vegetable garden.

M had that same conversation at least 20 times on Thursday. Having to calmly repeat the information that his wife of 28 years had died, across the country, just that morning. He had to repeatedly try to convince each person he called that the news was true, though he hardly believed it himself.

We all gathered at M & Janelle's house throughout the day. Family, longtime friends, co-workers (M's, Janelle's, and their "adopted" daughter's), anyone who knew and loved M and Janelle. There was a never-ending--and welcome--stream all day long and late into the night. They brought food, love, comfort, stories, grief, and disbelief.

This post is not for the purpose of eulogizing Janelle. That will come later. This post isn't even about grief, really. This is about shock and disbelief and the ability of the human brain to suspend reality.

Because Janelle's death happened all the way across the country, and none of us had any physical evidence that she was really dead, the idea was completely abstract, and surreal. 

All day long, my brain grappled with this concept--for that's all it was--that my dearly loved sister-in-law really was dead and that I would never see her or talk to her on this earth again. 

At first, my brain would not even allow such thoughts. Any time I tried to entertain them, I would unconsciously shake my head or blink my eyes to get rid of them. Any time that someone referred to Janelle in the past tense, any time I thought, "she's gone." any time that I saw her things around the house (and she is all over that house) and thought, "she won't be back to enjoy them," I would shake off the thought or think, "That's just wrong."

That feeling, that this just wasn't right, that it couldn't possibly be true, that everything was all wrong, persisted for all of us, all day Thursday. It made me marvel that the human brain, presented with factual information, could completely reject it and cling to a comfortable untruth. We use the expression, "I can't wrap my brain around this…" all the time. On Thursday, it was quite true. None of us could wrap our brains around this new, unwanted information. We knew it to be true. We knew that Janelle's brother was reliable and that there was no reason why he would perpetrate such a cruel lie. So, it had to be true. But it wasn't right. It didn't fit with anything we knew about Janelle. It just couldn't be true.

Janelle planted flowers in her garden last weekend. She hugged M at the airport when she left, and told him she'd see him next Saturday. She had plans for the near future, she'd be back, she had a job to go to, she had more flowers to plant, kitties to feed, friends to drink wine with. She wouldn't have just left all of that.

I have so many questions. Most of them for Janelle. I need to talk to her about this. I need for her to walk into the room and make sense of all of this. But there seem to be no answers.

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

When you ask a child what he or she wants to be, they always answer with jobs that have simple, one-word names that everyone has heard of. Ballerina. Firefighter. Astronaut. Teacher. Policeman. Doctor. No little kid ever says, "I want to be an actuary when I grow up." Or Public Information Manager, or Financial Advisor, or Amortization Clerk. Or thousands of other career opportunities that their little brains have never even heard of and couldn’t wrap themselves around if they had. Yet many of those little children are doomed to become amortization clerks or insurance salespeople or dental hygienists.

I remember going to the dentist when I was in the beginning of my career in publishing. The hygienist was cleaning my teeth, and–as they are wont to do–she was asking me questions while she alternately scraped my teeth with a medieval instrument of torture and blasted them with frigid water. Why do they do this (ask questions, that is, not the scraping and blasting)? Can’t they see that this is not a good time for us to be trying to answer questions? They should just develop some kind of stand-up routine that they can perform for you, their captive–and mute–audience. It could prepare them for a second career.

Anyway, she had asked me what I did for a living. I told her that I was a proofreader. She asked what that was, and I explained to her that I read magazine articles, looking for and marking mistakes. She said, "Ugh!" in real disgust. "I could never do that! What an awful job!"

So, the next time I could speak without drooling, I said, "This, from someone who sticks her hands in other people’s mouths and scrapes six months’ worth of dirt off their teeth? Good grief!" And she said, "Oh! I love my job! It’s the best! But reading all day long and having to correct the mistakes? Ugh."

And that is why some of the kindergartners whom you talk to about their future jobs will end up happily becoming dental hygienists. Or, worse, apparently, proofreaders.

Good Friday

I've been back home in beautiful East Tennessee for about two and a half weeks. I'm so glad to be home. Being away for three months, and returning just as the area bursts into late spring sunshine and flowers--I  really do live in paradise.

However, my life sometimes seems to be unnecessarily eventful. The last week was a good example.

Monday: Went to the doctor and finally got a diagnosis on the ankle that started hurting while I was in Boston. By the time I left, *both* ankles were hurting. I've got tendonitis in both and have been referred to physical therapy.

Tuesday: Had a wardrobe malfunction that caused me to be running late for an important early appointment. Got out to the garage, only to discover that the car battery was dead. After several abortive attempts to roll-start it down the driveway (something I've never had trouble doing before), we finally jumped it off. Missed my early appointment and was late to work.

Wednesday: An idiot backed his Jeep into my car at a red light, took off, and then--when I caught up with him--he cussed me up one side and down the other. (For more on that story, see post, "Is It a Crime to Be a Verbally Abusive Jerk?" April 17, 2012)

Thursday: Left my coat in a bathroom at work (which is a large building in the inner city that is open to the public). Lost and found was closed when I left because all other staff were gone by then. Got to my car and remembered that my car keys had been in coat pocket. Had to go around building, peering in doors and windows, to find a custodian to let me in. Searched building, found coat, and left--late--for ESL. Three hours later, after ESL is over, I discovered that I'd locked the same keys in the trunk of the car. Had to get a ride home, get my extra key, and then get another ride back to church.

Friday: Good day!

Saturday: My beloved Molly, an indoor cat, has gone missing. I've searched the house high and low. She must have somehow slipped out when I came in the night before. I've searched everywhere outside I can think of, with no luck. I think I broke a toe during my search for her. Later in the day, my mom went to the ER and was finally admitted to the hospital to get her blood pressure under control.

I guess I should focus on Friday. It really was a beautiful day. And all of those other days--they had their high spots, too, I'm sure. I just reported the low points here, but it's not like every day was like that all day long.

Is It a Crime to Be a Verbally Abusive Jerk?

Here are the facts:

•  Driver in Jeep Grand Cherokee in front of me at a red light backs into the front end of my car.
• Even after he makes solid contact with my front bumper, he continues to rev engine until his bumper pops over my bumper onto the top of my car.
• I was laying on the horn, from the time he first put his car into reverse until...
• Finally realizing what he’s done, he swerves into the right-hand lane, which is a right-turn-only lane.
• He takes off like a bat out of hell.
• I take off after him (my car is not seriously damaged, but I haven’t seen it yet, so I don’t know).
• I catch up to him, overtake him, and park my car diagonally in front of him so that he can’t get away.
• He jumps out of his vehicle, hurling invectives at me, of a sort that I have *never* heard come out of another person’s mouth. He used every gender-specific crude or foul word toward women that I have ever heard of, and perhaps some I’ve never even heard before.
• His veins were popping out on his forehead and neck.
• He tells me I’m a g**damn idiot (several times, in fact).
• Yeah, really.
• His premise is that he wasn’t trying to get away, he was merely getting out of traffic so that we could exchange info without tying up traffic.
• Yeah, right.
• These are the sum total of words I say to him during our “conversation,” and these are precise quotes: “You hit my car.” and “Oh, I will.” (When he screamed that I could call the g**damn police, and I could call his g**damn insurance company.)
• He screamed at me at the top of his lungs for quite a long time.
• I got into my car because I was afraid that his assault would become physical (however, the top was down, so my car didn’t offer that much protection).
• He continued screaming at me.
• I called the police.
• The driver, Robert R., stopped screaming, got into his vehicle, and we waited for the cops to come.
• The cops cited Robert R. for some sort of irresponsible driving for backing into me at a red light.
• Despite my protests, the cops did *not* charge Robert R. with hit and run.
• They also did not cite him, nor did they even say anything stern to him, about his verbal assault.
• They told me that I don’t have much recourse in the verbal assault matter.
• Robert R. does have good insurance.
• His insurance company’s claims adjuster came out and looked at my car.
• He says that the bumper does not need to be replaced, and he waxed off the scuff marks that were left on the top of the car from when Robert R.’s car popped over my bumper.
• He calculates that the total of my damage/losses is $86.84 (damage to a car-dealer tag and tag holder on the front end of the car).
• I think that he’s being generous, given that he says that’s all the damage there is. But I think that, with just a few well-placed words, and no foul language, I got him to understand that his client is a jerk.

These are my opinions:

• Robert R is a liar.
• Robert R has a major anger-management problem and possibly hates women.
• Robert R has the intelligence of a gnat. However, to make up for this deficiency, he has the vocabulary of a sailor on meth.
• Robert R has the driving skills of a drunken chimpanzee.
• Robert R should’ve gotten stuck with way more than one traffic ticket for backing into my car and an insurance bill of $86.84.

And, not to get all preachy on you, but–lacking legal or civil recourse–it gives me solace to know that God knows what’s what.

The Bible says:

• Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.
• But the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming.
• The words of their mouths are wicked and deceitful; they fail to act wisely or do good.
• How long, LORD, how long will the wicked be jubilant?
• Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.
• The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
• The wages of the righteous is life, but the earnings of the wicked are sin and death.
• The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked is of little value.
• And so on in that vein.

And that’s all that I have to say about that.