Friday, April 01, 2005
Don't settle for staying alive
Libba Wolfe
Libba Wolfe's column appears twice monthly in Extra.
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I'm way behind on spring gardening chores. I haven't even finished looking through the catalogs. It's been hard to keep my focus because of all the funerals.
In January I went to the funeral for my college roommate's father. He had lost his wife and then his health and his last year was filled with hospitals and pain. But he never lost his humor or his appetite for life. His stories of World War II were so hysterical you almost wished you had been a scared, skinny boy in the South Pacific. He was flirting with the nurses and chuckling with his grandson until the very end.
Daddy Howard went to glory in his Carolina boy uniform - a blue blazer and khakis, no socks and his ancient, shabby, beach-walking, fishing Docksiders. What a character.
Then friends from all over gathered for the funeral of 36-year-old Chip. He was a full-speed kinda guy. His mama had to hogtie him for his toddler naps and he was too fast to diaper properly. He was whip smart and an early reader. He surprised us with discussions about the insanity of the Electoral College when he was 7.
Part of his aunt's eulogy was a wrinkled piece of notebook paper covered in little-boy printing - a letter to Ayatollah Khomeini pleading for the release of the hostages. We laughed about his trademark black turtlenecks, his expressive eyebrows and his shouting laugh. About the way he ignored all the PC office rules and brightened many a day with "Dawlin', you lookin' mighty lovely today." He was a character.
Last week there was a funeral for Elizabeth. Nineteen months is not much time to make your mark on the world, but she did. She was a girly girl, wearing hats with great flair and never leaving home without her jewelry. But looking cute didn't stop her from whopping up on her big-boy cousins or teaching them to jump on the beds and get into the dog food. Her last weekend was spent having a wild time at her first Easter Egg hunt and snuggling with the bunny. The minister who baptized her said last week, "Elizabeth was totally alive."
"Totally alive" is good to be - how's that for an understatement? - but it takes some thinking about.
I'm thinking about my three friends and about the things that made their lives so rich.
I'm planning to cook for friends and eat and laugh. To be amazed that the world is turning green again. To plant and grow. To make more garden trips and eat more barbecue. To cherish the friends who keep me close in thought, word and deed and do the same for them. To be wide open for what the world has to offer. To pay attention. And keep thinking about being "totally alive."
You haven't read anything new about gardening here today. You may think it's sappy and corny, old wives' tales and cliche. But I'm an old wife and corny is sounding pretty wise to me.
