Unearthing a life.....

What's a person to do when the Angel of Death bursts through the door and points his boney finger ... out the window ... at the birdfeeder? "Pay him no mind," I whisper in Allie's ear. "He appears to have forgotten his glasses."
"How do you know it is a him?" asks Allie. "That long hair and big white dress looks like girl stuff. I can not look at that girl stuff."

Am I about to launch into a philosopical diatribe about death? Possibly (if I could gather together some coherent thoughts and stand them in some sort of logical progression). What I am actually doing is BIDING MY TIME. Waiting - all day - for a promised phone call from Dr. Adams, during which I expect to become endowed with some actual factual information about the currently nameless cancer inhabiting my chest. It is 2:25 pm and the phone has not rung. Now it is 2:26 pm.

I had always assumed that there was a certain sense of medical urgency that attached itself to any suspicion of cancer. I was wrong about that. Stand back and wait is the protocol as I am experiencing it. If Bookworm had not snapped her wet towel on a few butts, I would likely still be waiting another week to get the biopsy that I did get - thanks to her - eight days ago. Now it is 2:34.

So you get to Charon, you pay your fare, and he begins to pole the boat across the dark, misty waters towards the Underworld. Does he get you fifty feet from shore, then lay down his pole and announce, "We have to drift aimlessly now for eight days ... then we can go another fifty feet." Does he say that? I don't think so. Now it is 2:40.

I have had some occasional thoughts about death lately. NOT my own! Just general review of past impressions. And what occurred to me was that most of our cultural symbols about death are of quasi-beings who stand external to us. The Angel of Death, the Grim Reaper, etc.,. And, in the aftermath of the hippie years, I recollect some writer going on about 'My Death'. Paraphrasing: "My Death is always there standing just behind my left shoulder. When my time comes, My Death will reach up and touch me on that shoulder and I will go with him. Until such time as he chooses to do that, there is nothing in the world that I need fear."

That may have been one of the opening raindrops of the New Age deluge.

It is 3:00 pm. I am also waiting for daughter Kelly to arrive .... Saturday afternoon. She was going to come last weekend, but her plane broke down on the runway and the later flight cut too deeply into her visiting time, so she re-sheduled. And now the race is on! Which will get to me first: Dr. Adams' phonecall, or my daughter Kelly?

That's an old photo of Allie and I posted above .... I think he looks like a Pokemon creature with electical powers.