53%

I have to take a minute and comment on this whole "I AM the 53%" response to Occupy Wall Street. Of course the original stat* itself is a distortion. And of course the underlying implication is that only those 47% slacker/losers are occupying Wall St or involved in the movement elsewhere. Of course if you are protesting the system as it exists right now, it is because you don't work, don't want to work, want a free hand-out, and probably don't shower regularly either. Which of course isn't true about the people involved in the Occupations, but it makes for much more interesting propaganda this way, right?

Once you divide up that 47% what you find is about half of them are simply too poor to pay taxes. That is anyone with an income level below $26,400 a year for a family of 4 taking standard deductions. These people are the working poor. People who go to work every day, or most days, since many low-paying jobs do not hire anyone for full-time. Or perhaps literally every day since they have to juggle the hours from 2 different jobs to even come close to stretching the ends together. They take care of your kids when you drop them off at day care. They change the sheets for your elderly parents in nursing homes. They ring up your gas and lottery tickets at the gas station, and your No. 12 meal with a coke at the fast food place for lunch. You may be able to convince yourself that you work harder or your work is more valuable and so it's no big deal they are paid so little, but just imagine how well your day would run without their help.

So you want them to pay taxes too, right? Aside from the fact they DO pay taxes and fees on everything else they use, OK then! Let's add income tax to the mix. How will we do that? By paying them enough money so they can pay taxes! Then let's see how much your latte costs, how much more it will be for a tank of gas, how many bargains you'll find at Walmart. I about bet within a very short time you're going to wish you were paying less than a buck a year in taxes for a poor mom to get some free milk for her kids through the WIC program than for how much it would cost you to actually pay everyone who works what they need to pay taxes themselves.

And another thing I cannot understand. All of this anger directed towards the poor. It's especially ironic when it comes from people who declare themselves to be good Christians, since Jesus was pretty clear which side of the rich/poor divide he was on, but that aside, how can you be this enraged at people who basically have nothing? Yeah yeah I know that you personally saw the proverbial welfare queen swiping her food stamp card to pay for a cart full of steaks and lobster, which you cannot afford to buy with cash! Which she loaded into a brand new Escalade she beeped open with a diamond-encrusted key ring. Except I don't believe you or anyone has ever actually seen this, anymore than anyone "personally knows" someone who named their twins Lemonjello and Orangejello but by all means, keep the legends alive. Do you think being poor is fun? Hey those homeless people don't even have to work a day anywhere, and they can roam around wherever their feet can take them, and even get some meals and a place to sleep at maybe if it's super hot or really cold! Do you have any idea at all how soul-sucking it is to always be scrounging up a few bucks to stay ahead of having utilities shut off? To never see any part of the world outside of your own city block? Unless it's on TV and you're kinda mad they have TVs to begin with! To never be able to give your child something special they want and would probably appreciate a whole lot more than most of the kids who have everything? And then you get pissed off because they buy a store-baked birthday cake? Because they could manage their money better than that! Why can't you understand that there are no easy fixes for poverty? No one is suggesting you have to spend your Thanksgiving dishing out meals at a soup kitchen but can you at least TRY to set aside your anger for a small amount of compassion? For maybe a day or so, just to see how it feels?

Back to the "We Are The 53%" counter-movement. I went to the website and read some of their stories. One after another are people who have lost job, been laid off, filed bankruptcy....??? OK you made it anyhow. That's great. You don't want a hand-out. We don't either. And yet, you're angry at us for believing someone who makes millions should pay their fair share too?! Some of the same people whose mismanagement caused the economic problems that lead to yours to begin with? Only they got bailed out and you did not but you defend them? I truly do not get it.

I picked this woman's story somewhat at random. You seem like a hard-working young woman who has accomplished a lot. I'm sure your parents are very proud. To begin with though, if your family is middle class, they should have been able to help you go to college. If you worked hard and got good grades, it should not have come down to waiting by the mailbox holding your breath every day to see if maybe you'd be the one lucky enough to get a scholarship. It also sounds as though you are probably still in college too. It doesn't sound like you work while you're in school or you probably would have mentioned it so I have to assume you either live at home or your family supports you in some way. So in fact you do have many breaks that not everyone can manage. Either way, I hope your hard work continues to pay off because this is about the fact that for most of us, even doing everything "right" has not. Do us a favor and check back when you graduate and head out into the real world, OK? I hope you don't find out all of your hard work and dedication will get you no farther than a job as a sales clerk at Old Navy. Like it or not, you are the 99%.



*

This Is About You, Too,

It seems a little silly at first. Something as important-sounding as a General Assembly being organized around hand signals: thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs sideways for indifferent. A little fluttering wave in place of applause. There's also some irony in realizing many of the people working hardest to maintain order in this manner probably weren't exactly kids who colored in the lines. Yes it can be a little awkward. People who are used to plowing ahead and getting things done might feel a little impatient with a process that waits its turn. What is happening here and everywhere is something entirely new. This is not the way we usually run things. There is no board of directors, no Robert's Rules of Order. We are literally re-creating democracy from the sidewalks of nearly every city in this country. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is equal. And everyone has a chance to say what is on their minds.

I've always been a little in awe of what the founders of this country put together. That they created this amazing system with so many checks and balances and seemed to think of practically everything all of those years ago. And over the past few years I have thought, well no they didn't think of this: the greed, the inequality, the fact that even justice can be paid for or lost if you can't afford its price. But then a sign at Monday's rally showed that yes, yes they did foresee even the place we are at now.

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”
― Thomas Jefferson

And so now it is up to us to put something in place that works again.

On Monday someone asked me why I was there. We all have specific reasons, although the media is making a bigger deal over those differences than we are. I replied "All of it. None of it is working anymore."

No matter what your personal motivation is I about bet that somewhere behind it is money. It is wrong to throw 100 year old women out of their homes so these houses can sit empty until they fall to the ground, when we all know that eventually those banks will profit from those homes. It is wrong to continue to destroy this planet because what's needed to be done to save it can't be bought or sold. It's wrong that a country that has been built by a strong labor movement is now dismantling the rights we have worked decades to achieve. It is wrong that our politicians no longer actually represent us but rather are paid for because of the costs of running for election. And because of their own personal lust for power. It is wrong that families have to put together fundraisers for medical care to save a child's life while insurance companies bring in piles of profits. It is wrong that the quality of education a child gets depends on the neighborhood they happen to live in. It is wrong that the same young adults who were told all their lives they had to attend college to make something of their lives now have nothing to show for that work except for loans they cannot pay. The list is nearly endless.

And don't tell me there isn't money. There is money. Every time a bank or corporation needs bailed out. Every time we have to fight a war. There's money for billionaires to buy presidential candidates and money for lobbyists to shove through laws that someone is willing to pay for too.

This isn't about socialism. I don't want the same as everyone else. I don't care if you're rich and I'm not. What I care about is everything in our lives that is now being bought and sold by a very few. Isn't there a saturation point when you can no longer possibly need so much money?! This is about what is fair. And it is about what will happen in each and every one of our lives over the next few years and forever

It's a small crowd in Toledo but every time I have been there, there have been a few new people. People who have come down because they have something to add and want to be heard. People of all ages and backgrounds and walks of life. People who show up knowing no one but come to say something no one else wants to hear. There is something happening now that resonates with all of them.

I don't have the answers. I don't think any one person does. I don't know where this leads. I do believe though that together we can work this out and I have to believe that we will.

But here's another fact. We cannot change society via facebook. It is a tool, yes, and certainly the internet is why this has spread so rapidly but it has also lead us to believe we are actively involved in something because we see it on our monitors every day. My concern about the success or failure of what is happening now isn't the weather. I am sure that public officials in most places believe this will fall apart on its own when it gets even colder or starts to snow. I believe we will work around that somehow, even if the actual structure changes in some way.

What will do us in is our collectively short attention span. We care about this until that comes along and the focus shifts. And NOTHING ever actually changes. So what have you done? It's not about a hierarchy of dedication. I believe the people who are actually occupying the camps, especially in this weather, are the true heroes but it is up to all of us, too. Do something to let them know you support this movement. Show up with a hot cooked meal or some cookies and hot chocolate. Stay for a General Assembly. Sign up for a work group or to teach something you know. Offer to do a load of laundry or clean up the camps. Donate some cash. Or some winter camping gear. Make phone calls and write letters in support of what your group is doing or to demand they be treated fairly. Use your imagination and think of one thing you can do to help. Most importantly JUST SHOW UP. The Occupations wherever you are need YOU too. I know you care. I know we all do. This is way too important to the future of our country, of the world, to leave it up to someone else.

dinner with James Baldwin

"The children, very soon, did not need me at all, except as a benign adult presence. They began talking to one another. They were talking of their desire to know one another. Each was trying to enter into the experience of the other. The exchanges were sharp and remarkably candid, but never fogged by an unadmitted fear of hostility. They were trying to become whole." -James Baldwin, about teaching at BGSU, as quoted by Dr. Ernest Champion

In fall of 1979, we lived in a pumpkin-colored house on S. Church St in Bowling Green, OH. The color was a misunderstanding of what "autumn gold" would turn out to be, from when my roommates painted the house that summer. I can't recall exactly but assume the dinner was Ted's idea. I just shake my head now in wry amusement. A bunch of white, middle class 20 and 21 year olds from northwest Ohio inviting James Baldwin over for dinner.

Baldwin had originally taught at BGSU the previous spring, for a course through the new Ethnic Studies department about his own books. I believe now Ted pushed me to take the course when he first heard about it, not sure why I didn't, but once Baldwin arrived halfway through, he was unrelenting: "You HAVE to come to this class!!!" I had a Personality Theory class at the same time but cut my class and went along with him anyhow. Once I did, I never went back to learn more about Freud.

It's representative of my early college years that I walked away without a backward glance. College: The Early Years were oftentimes much more about life than learning. I started and stopped more times than I can remember now, registered for entire quarters and didn't go, went to some classes a few times and dropped out. A nice spring day, a random comment from a professor, a new romance. Anything could sidetrack me then. When I finally went back in the 90s as a serious student, I was surprised to find I had managed credit for that personality class after all, with a C. I vaguely remember running in to take the multiple choice final, so assume rushing through and checking psychologists' names at random must have worked out better than I'd thought.

Baldwin's class was in one of the big round lecture rooms. (I want to say 220 Math-Science but can't believe my memory can accurately pull up that bit of information.) I do know we divided ourselves up on either side of the room by race, and that's what we talked about, sometimes angrily, tripping over each others' stories, both sides doing exactly what Baldwin remembers: trying to explain and understand. We talked about South Africa and America and our own lives. I remember some of the faces still, and Baldwin at the front of the class, always pushing us to question, to learn more.

I grew up in a small town in Ohio. I literally knew no one at all who was black until I went to college. The one thing I credit my mother for more than anything else in my life is she taught me early and often that "everyone is the same inside, no matter what color their skin." She'd left that town as a young adult and lived in NYC and she knew when she took us back as young children, those weren't lessons we'd learn on our own. During Baldwin's first class, it occurred to me that I wasn't alone in my isolation. In many cases, both sides of the room were learning about the other for the first time.

I don't know if Ted started his friendship with Jimmy that quarter or not. It's easy to assume he stayed after class, continuing whatever discussion had started earlier, easy to imagine him walking along afterwards, still expounding on whatever thoughts he'd been in the middle of. Baldwin came back as a visiting professor the following fall and we all signed up for his class. He chose our reading list: Things Fall Apart, Heart of Darkness, Native Son. Somewhere along the line, we invited him over for dinner.

The preparations took all day. I remember part of our menu. I made stir-fried vegetables. Ted made shish kabob and homemade cinnamon rolls. I think Susan baked bread. Jeff was missing in action throughout the day, and rushed in shortly before dinner with his contribution: a bottle of scotch. When we complained about his late entrance, he said it didn't matter. He had Glenlivet! Eventually everything was ready and our guests arrived. We believed we were just having dinner with James Baldwin but 3 or 4 people from the university came too, real grown-ups. I can't begin to imagine how they decided to come along or what talk there might have been at the fact he was joining us at all.

I still laugh to myself even after all these years at how our dinner turned out. Ted pushing his platter of shish kabobs on everyone. The nicely dressed woman from the university across from me, looking uncomfortable. Dr. Champion next to her, enjoying our food and having a good time. Jimmy and Jeff side by side on one end on the table, sharing the scotch. Much to Ted's dismay, Baldwin barely ate anything, although I'm still pleased to say he did sample my vegetables. As it turned out, Jeff's bottle of scotch trumped all the food we'd made. I assume the rest of us drank wine as they got drunker and Jeff got louder and louder, the rest of us drowned out and either watching the two of them or our plates. I have no idea now what they were arguing about but even then I realized this was a complete disaster socially and absolutely wonderful just the same.

I am uncertain whether or not to tell what happened next. Perhaps this part of the story is too titillating to share but I think it counts for something as well. I believe the others left shortly after dinner, but Jimmy and my friends moved into the living room, still drinking and talking. I missed the actual exchange but came back to find he had propositioned my roommate. To me at that time it was a non-issue. So what? Ted was a beautiful man, and Baldwin was gay. Of course now I realize my lack of interest in the whole drama had something to do with gender. For a 20 year old woman, being hit on was something that could happen anytime. For Ted, it was an enormous deal. For Baldwin? I can't begin to know his motivation. I don't believe he expected to get a yes. Perhaps it was just the drinking and the adoration and a spur of the moment "why not try?" but I wonder if maybe it wasn't a small reminder of who he really was. I'm not the wise dad you wish you had. I'm a gay man and if we're to become friends, you need to face that. They must have worked it out somehow because they all did remain friends until he died.

I have to be clear here. Jimmy wasn't my friend. In those days I was quieter, taking it all in, outshone perhaps by the flash of Jeff and Ted, the little sister tagging along. Another time, Jeff decided we would drop by Jimmy's apartment. It was probably midnight and we'd been drinking. I was skeptical but he brashly insisted it would be fine, and it was. We sat around the dining room table in that standard Bowling Green rental and finished a 6 pack of Heineken. That night he talked to me. I can remember his face and his eyes and I know he talked about love. I wish I could remember his words.

Out of everything from then, the one thing he said that I recall the most clearly is that what was most challenging about teaching us was how to answer the "question behind the question," that he had to find the exact words to answer what we said with our words and what we were asking with our eyes. It was a strange concept to me then. How can you answer questions people weren't even asking? Now of course I understand the eyes really do reflect our soul, and I appreciate the concern he took with all of us to find the right answers.

I remember him as always unrelentingly kind and patient, and yet even then I knew that for all his fame and recognition, for all the people who loved James Baldwin the writer, he was still a lonely man who drank too much. I cringe now a little at my own youthful naivety. Did I expect exuberant happiness from a gay black man who'd lived during those times? Still I wonder now if being face to face with the reality of fame didn't shape my own choices to some degree, to live with little concern about external "success" and work instead on who I am.

Baldwin called us "children" and I can imagine our outrage at the time to be thought of in those terms, but we were still kids, weren't we? Children whose childhood had been steeped in the changes of the 60s and 70s. We were passionate and dramatically confident, barely aware of the gathering mists of our individual issues and insanities. We watched everything that went on in the world and we were certain we would change it.

I love us all then, those I've remained friends with for more than 30 years and those I knew only briefly. We crammed more life into those few years than I have managed in many of my decades since. We're all nearly the same age as Baldwin was then and I can see now how delightful we must have been to him. I understand that part of growing gracefully into these years is being able to enjoy seeing our children live through the things we remember, and to believe the torch will be passed on. And the world did change, didn't it? For all we find wrong with it still today, in many ways it's a world he wouldn't recognize.

I may have fallen short at times but I'd like to believe that most of my life I've spoken out about right and wrong, continued to think and care. I'd like to believe he'd like me now still, be proud in a way of the person I've been and become. If I could tell him one more thing, I would say thanks. Thank you, Mr. Baldwin, for everything.

August 29, 1981

There's a precise moment between before and after, when the world tilts just enough to cast a shadow on the past, and blurs the lens through which you see everything afterwards. We have to start there. That moment for me is when my brother's friend walked into my mom's kitchen and said, "You have to come. It's Steve."

August 29,1981. I was 23, days away from having my first child. Steven was 21, days away from 22, and had graduated that morning with a Bachelor's in Social Work. I was inside helping to get food around for his party. He was outside with friends, hanging out by the newly-dug farm pond. I don't remember what happened after I saw the fear on David's face. I do know I called for help. I remember the faces of the people in the water, coming up for air. I screamed, his name over and over until I was made to stop. I searched the surrounding cornfields for him, willing him to walk out, be anywhere but underneath the still, flat surface of that pond.

Divers came, emergency units. We were asked to wait in the house, all of us, my family, his friends. I watched from a back bedroom window, the divers surface, compare notes, go back to look again. I watched when they finally found him, and pulled his body from the water onto the shore.

They tried forever to bring him back. And then they took out a white sheet, shook it to full size, and covered his body.

Of course the unspoken question is "couldn't he swim?" And the answer is "No, he couldn't." He went to swimming lessons when we were kids, and screamed and begged not to have to go back. One of my dad's friends remembers taking us to a beach when we were very young. Steven stood in water to his knees, sobbing, "I'm going to drown." Do I believe he foresaw his own death? I don't know. His fears obviously lead to it. The pond was new that year, too. We'd only even used it a few times. I'm sure eventually someone would have said "hey, Steve shouldn't be out on the rowboat without a life jacket" but we didn't get that chance.

Later I found out he was on the boat with our brother, Mark. His friends hung out on shore. The boat tipped and Steven panicked. Mark held onto him for as long as he could, and then to save his own life, he had to let go.

One true thing is there is a moment upon wakening when you are conscious but have yet to remember what is missing. And then the pain bludgeons you again. I had barely experienced loss at all. Even losing the pets we had made me cry for days. The first days were annihilating. One minute someone is standing tall beside you, laughing, and you never in a million years would imagine they would ever not be there. And a minute later, they are completely gone, except for their body in a casket and several days to try to say "goodbye."

Six days after he died, I gave birth to my oldest daughter. No one defines it more precisely than Sylvia Plath:
"It is as though my heart put on a face and walked into the world."

I was submerged in love and loss and understanding and confusion. There were times when I could feel my mind slipping sideways. And so I simply locked his death away, pushed it behind a wall and believed I could nail the door shut.

Trains Don't Stop

Early the next morning, the investigator called me, woke me out of the dead (no pun intended) sleep. He told me they interview everyone who is involved in a train/car accident, well, when there's someone left to interview. Apparently a tape of our conversation exists in some national accident archives. After the official accounting was over, he asked me "off the record" how I'd managed to be hit by a train. Was I rushing home to watch Monday Night Football? I have to wonder if he's ever heard a satisfactory answer to that question.

The front page newspaper article in the town I lived in proclaimed "Quick Thinking Motorist Saves Woman's Life." I'm still annoyed by that version of the story. Yes, the car coming towards me flashed its lights as it came over the tracks. I thought "What? Are my lights off?" Checked and they were on. Looked around for another moment or two, trying to decipher what their warning was about, then glanced to my right and realized: TRAIN!!

I slammed on the brakes and ended up partway on the tracks. I immediately tried to shove the gear shift into reverse, while flooring the car. (I can't help but imagine how surprised the car behind me would have been if I'd been successful and smashed into them instead.) Throughout it all I had one clear thought: Trains don't stop.

The engineer was blowing his whistle. Yes, I know you're coming. I am quite sure you can see I am doing what I can to get out of this mess, before it becomes an even bigger mess. The light from the train shown brightly into my car. I missed reverse and hit park (DAMN!) and as I was yanking it back down to "R," a freight train going an estimated 40-45 MPH hit the front end of the Chrysler that had been my parents' car, then my brother's, then mine.

(Even though I miraculously made it through without injury, in spite of the fact the front seat belt was broken and so I ended up in the back seat, they took me to the ER for X-rays. I didn't want to even tell my parents, but couldn't figure out how to explain the missing car. I called collect from a payphone, told my mom I was OK and so was my infant daughter, but the car was totaled. I swear to god she said "I never did like that car.")

The tracks on that country road run at an angle. Apparently lots of people were hit there before (and I assume after) me. The investigator told me the same engineer had killed someone there about a year before. It takes a while for something that size to come to a stop, even after knocking a car off to the side of the road like some child's plaything. The engineer has to make that walk back, not knowing what he'll find when he gets there. I still feel apologetic about putting him through that. The people in the small town there come out too. They were all standing around in the parking lot we ended up in. Everyone seemed happy we made it. My main question to the government guy was what does it take to get lights or crossing rails? He told me that it's partly determined by how many accidents occur and how many of those accidents result in fatalities. I'd hindered the process somewhat by actually living. It was about 15 more years before they installed lights and gates.

My 6 week old daughter skewed their stats, too. She only woke up long enough to cry for a minute from her car seat. I'm pretty sure she's never had a train phobia, although I still get a jolt of adrenaline at the sound of a train nearby. In those days car seats weren't required; in fact, they were rarely even used. I had brought her home from the hospital in my lap. I was the one who insisted I get a car seat and kept her safely strapped in at all times. OK so in the front seat but obviously without that foresight, the story would have ended more tragically than it did.

I had my dog in the car with me too. She took off running as soon as someone opened the door. The train wreck guy sadly assured me I would never see her again. He said in 20 years of investigating accidents he had never heard of someone finding their dog. Dogs run from fear and by the time they stop they are so far from home you can't find them again. My dog stayed in a nearby corn field. I got her back a day later when someone saw her there and called. I've heard of many other stories where dogs are found after accidents. All I can come up with is he is only hearing what happens immediately afterwards and doesn't realize things can change later on. If I'd had his number I would have called him back and told him he was wrong.

I realize he was just doing his job but I still resent his early morning phone call. I'd barely had any sleep to begin with. Friends picked me up from the ER and I spent many hours at their house that night, finding God. Surely there was a reason I lived through this! Surely God's hand was involved! That only lasts so long before you begin to ask why God would even bother, or if God was bothering, why he couldn't have sent me back into the house to get something else, and made me miss the train entirely?

When the call woke me, I was dreaming about Heaven. It was the only time since his death I have ever dreamt about my brother Steven. I've since read about the place where I saw him in "Life after Death" accounts: all rolling green fields and bright warm sunshine. And a feeling of love and peace so overwhelming that I wanted to cry when I left. I was walking along when I heard him yell "hey LaMountain!" And I turned and said "yeah thanks a lot for leaving me alone to carry on our last name." We held hands and talked and laughed, and the one thing I remember him saying was "Don't forget to write the book."

on my brother's death

It's a symptom of how convoluted the whole relationship had become that I have to pause before beginning this to decide between "my brother" or "my step-brother." For years, I simply skipped the "step" part of those relationships. It seemed to me after 20, 30, and now 40 years, how it all began should be irrelevant but things were said and done that made me realize perhaps not all of us felt the same way. Still, for me, he was my brother, and that didn't change even when we weren't talking, or now that he's gone.

The first time I met Brent I was 9 and he was 7. His dad was dating my mom and they sent him out into our backyard without introduction to "play with the kids." He was a chubby little kid with big ears, and I was the pack leader. I asked him what his name was and I remember being genuinely perplexed because I'd never heard the name "Brent" before. He was a farm kid and we lived in town and when it was time for them to leave, he said they had to go home to "do chores." To me, "chores" was a descriptor, followed by a list of specific duties. For him, chores were chores, and he couldn't figure out why I was asking him what chores he had to do.

Eventually our parents married, and the blending of our families was nothing Brady Bunch-like in the least. We were 4 kids who had started off life with 1 sibling, now expected to establish our places with 2 more. At the time, our age differences seemed more pronounced because we were spread out over several school grades. In reality, our birthdays all fell within about 2 years. My mom bought everything for the boys in 3s: a stack of jeans on the counter at Sears, 3 softball uniforms in different sizes. They even had their own color socks. When Steven left for college, he asked my mom to please buy him a different color because he had finally had enough of always wearing dark green.

(I spent most of today sorting through old photos, but the one I wanted I still can't find: All 3 of my brothers lined up in their softball uniforms, all with the same buzzed-off-by-my-dad haircuts. I love that photo. Now only Mark is left.)

I hope it's a sign of some sort of emotional balance that most of my memories of the past are happy ones. I know it wasn't all that way but growing up on a farm was a lot of fun. What Brent always remembered was how well we ate, and we did. Dinner was at 6 pm every night and everyone sat together at the dinner table. We had a freezer full of meat, freshly frozen or canned vegetables we grew in our own garden (and how I hated all the work that involved, shelling peas or snapping beans! Now I realize how much work my mom and dad did to keep us fed like that. Our part was nothing.) We had to mow an acre of lawn and did so based on a rotating schedule, everyone's weekly sessions posted on the bulletin board in the kitchen. We all did dishes the same way, one turn after the other, but the actual farm chores were left to the boys. We had 4-H projects and built forts in the hay mow when it was filled with straw in June, rooms connected by tunnels. There was a hole in the floor where you'd drop the straw down to bed the pigs and we'd jump through and land in the pile of loose straw, then climb the ladder and do it again.

(It took me forever to actually jump. If I thought about it at all, I'd imagine hitting the other side and freeze in one place. My brothers and the neighbor kids would race by me again and again while I sat there working up to it.)

I left home to go to college when I was 18 and Brent left not too long after that too. I think he was 16. I bet if he were a kid now, they'd find out he had learning disabilities or ADD but back then he was a "bad" kid who should try harder or whatever they came up with to put their own inabilities to understand him back on him. He spent a lot of years getting in trouble, years I was getting into similiar trouble in my own way, but not getting caught at it as much as he did.

I moved out here when I was 30, a bit closer to where he lived, and for quite a few years we were good friends. I took him in for a few days when he got beat half to death, and then lent him my blender so he could eat through his broken jaw. I went to his softball games and met his friends. No point in skipping the facts: we smoked a lot of pot together. I about bet he never stopped, too. I tend to think there are worst things someone can do than that. As time went by, he settled down and became mostly a homebody. He met his wife about the same time I met my husband, and they married a year after we did. We had our first big falling-out a few years later and barely talked for a few years, until he showed up here to tell me they were getting a divorce, about a year after mine. We became friends again. I loved going out to his place, on the land where we grew up. At night in summer, there are more stars and fireflies than you can imagine, so many that the concept of "infinite" becomes real. Still, there were grudges and issues and eventually it all fell apart again. I can understand the reasons why but I couldn't find a way to fix them.

We were still hanging out when he first got sick, about 2 years ago. His back hurt he said, so he saw a chiropracter and soaked in the bathtub. I was trying to back away from the bossy, know-it-all big sister but insisted he see a doctor. I was afraid it was his heart. I guess it took him about 6 months of worsening pain before he finally did. His heart was in great shape. He had lung cancer instead. About 6 months after that he woke up and couldn't see out of one eye and found out then it had already spread to his brain.

Since then, I saw him once and talked to him perhaps a dozen times. Our only visit was nice, went well, but he made it clear he didn't want or need me in his life anymore. Perhaps I should have pushed it. Perhaps I took the cowardly way out, avoided what was coming by telling myself I wasn't going to push my way into a dying man's life against his wishes. He had his friends, good friends, people who went out of their way to be there for him. And his way of dealing with it all was to not deal with it. He claimed he didn't think about dying much, when it's your time, it's your time. And having me around, unable to forget what was going on, was more reminder than he wanted. Still, when you're not talking to someone you know is going to die, you have to accept that one day there won't be another chance. And that day was yesterday.

He was still at home, still continuing treatments. Not well but not dying exactly yet either. They believe he had a stroke or a heart attack, which I suppose was a blessing for him in a way. The lingering last weeks of a death by cancer aren't pretty for anyone and he sidestepped that somehow. In keeping with a family tradition of dying on other people's important days (My brother Steven died a day after my dad's birthday and 2 days after my Grandma's. My dad died on my birthday. My stepdad died on my mom's birthday), he died on my nephew's wedding day.

One thing I always told him, and it's true, is that in spite of his faults and his mistakes, he was a good guy. He was always honest, always cared about other people. He was a great dad to his daughter, who is 12 now. The saddest thing I heard in all of this is she chopped her hair off because she wanted to be bald like her dad...I can't imagine the hole that's been torn in her life. He worked hard and had a lot of good friends. He didn't demand a lot out of life. He was happy keeping his house clean and swimming in his pool. He should have had a lot more time than he was given. RIP, Brent. I'll miss you.

Sara

The same day I signed on to news of Michael's death, I got this caring bridge post in email. Sara is a relative of a friend of mine. I've been following her fight for a while now. For many months now, it seemed miracles do occur. Her notes were happy. She seemed to be doing well. Please take a minute to read her story, leave a note for her, and add her to whatever version of prayers you can come up with. Thanks.
www.caringbridge.org/visit/saral

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2009 01:33 PM, CST
Hello and welcome to my official website this is Sara and i have good news and bad news is my backround will soonly be changed to spring and I an feeling fine the bad news is that my braintumor came back and I am very scared well umm...Because my mom knows that my tumor is back she promised to take me somewhere fun to take my mind off of it and theres nothing much else to say so byby.

Sara Lance