1. I learned early this afternoon, when Linda Perkins called me with the news, that Rita Hennessy died on December 2. The day Rita died, snow fell in Creswell. Linda helped Rita into her wheelchair and Rita sat in front of her living room window and watched the snow fall.
As Linda told me this story, I wondered if the snow falling transported Rita back to her days growing up in Montana. I wondered if the snowfall called up in her mind passages from one of her favorite books, Gretel Ehrlich's The Solace of Open Spaces, a collection of meditations on living in Wyoming. Rita and I began our friendship thirty years ago. We had countless conversations about the power of beauty. Maybe Rita simply surrendered herself to the beauty of the snow falling.
Whatever Rita was thinking as the snow fell, she died peacefully. She was at home. She was in the company of people who loved her, people who had helped her stay home as she slowly died over the last several months of her life.
When I was in Eugene back in early November, I visited Rita three straight days on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, November 4th. 5th, and 6th. On Friday, she had called me while I was having lunch with Dale, Roger, and Terry at BJ's at Valley River Center in Eugene. Rita was distressed. She kept telling me that she thought this might be her last day. I had planned on visiting Rita that evening, but I changed my plans and hurried to Creswell as soon as my friends and I finished lunch.
Rita was in a distressful situation when I arrived, one that I prefer not to write about in any detail. She instructed me to call Linda Perkins to come over and the two of us helped Rita. I left to return to Eugene for a coffee date with Margaret, Jeff, and Michael with the promise that I would return on Saturday.
I returned. Rita was worn out. She stayed in bed during my visit. She asked me to read to her, to bring with me some writings I thought she might enjoy. The most positive and uplifting books I could think of were Aimee Nezhukumatathil's World of Wonders and Ross Gay's The Book of Delights.
Once Rita slowed down my speed reading aloud (!), the pieces I read to from these books really hit the spot. She was unfamiliar with both writers and their work delighted her and prompted her to tell her own stories, stories inspired by what I'd read.
When I saw Rita on Sunday, she was in her kitchen fixing herself lunch. Rita's physical energy impressed me, especially after she'd been so desperate on Friday and worn out on Saturday.
Rita and I talked about big ideas, discussed huge unanswerable questions. We'd been talking like this for thirty years and so our Sunday lunchtime discussion was a continuation of discussions we'd been having for decades. We talked about prayer. We exchanged our thoughts about the nature of God. We returned to discussions we've enjoyed for years about David Hume. Rita hobbled as she moved between the kitchen and her dining table. Preparing herself the small meal she ate for lunch turned out to be a drawn out process because of her physical infirmities. But, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually, Rita was as sharp and energized as ever.
When it came time to leave, I asked Rita to do all she could to stay alive until I returned to Eugene around December 4th or 5th. I was planning to return to Eugene for Linda Schantol's retirement party on December 7th. She told me she'd do her best. I told Rita I loved her. We embraced. I said goodbye.
When the time came for me to travel to Eugene, I contracted a virus that kept me down for nearly two weeks. I didn't make the trip.
Had I been able to travel to Eugene, I would have missed Rita by two or three days.
She died on December 2.
My many years of friendship with Rita ended just as they began back in 1993.
We sat at a table.
There was food.
We talked about God, prayer, and philosophy.
And teaching.
Our last conversation completed the circle of our friendship.
2. Renee from the transplant center called today. She wanted to verify that, if I were to have transplant surgery, Debbie would be my primary support person. I confirmed that and she said that when I meet with the transplant team on Thursday, Feb 2, the team wants Debbie to be there, too. Debbie accompanied me when I had my first full day of appointments and meetings with the Univ. of Maryland transplant program in Baltimore. But, Debbie was away, in Eugene and then New York, the two times I've had meeting with the Spokane Sacred Heart team.
This time, she'll be able to join me and we can both talk to the transplant team.
Quite a Feb. is shaping up.
Sacred Heart for a scan of my kidneys and blood work and meetings on Feb 2.
Colonoscopy in Kellogg on Feb 14.
Heart tests and chest x-ray in Coeur d' Alene on Feb 21.
3. Today I finished listening to the second season of Leah Sottile's podcast, Bundyville. The second season didn't focus on the Bundy family, but widened the net to examine other like minded people. After spending time trying to figure out a house bombing, followed by the bomber's suicide, in Panaca, NV, Sottile turned her attention to the Inland Northwest. She reported on communities and activities in Stevens County, WA, on the Spokane Valley pastor and politician Matt Shea, on the small town of Marble, WA (in Stevens County) and a couple, the Birds, the center of power in Marble. After reporting on the bomb a Stevens County man left in a backpack (and that was discovered before it detonated) at the Spokane Martin Luther Day parade in 2011, Sottile returned to the story of the Panaca, NV bombing.
She concluded the podcast with questions about right wing extremism, its future, and the future of the USA.
Listening to these two seasons unnerved me.
It's what made Leah Sottile's work so compelling and so important.
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