Death don't have no mercy in this land....

I sit in a doctor's office waiting room reading my book on race, class, and gender thinking about how tenuous this thing called life is.
I'm only here to have my throat checked. A five day bout with fatigue and soreness has me wondering if I have strep. This has led me to wonder just how long I'm going to walk this earth. It's a stretch, I know, but I'm prone to overthink things at times... So, I take my tired ass to the clinic because I'm one of the lucky ones who has health care. I sit in wonder at how many "sick" people there are here. I don't know what they're sick with and to be fair, some may be in just for a check-up. But, most, I'm sure, are sick.

An obese woman in a wheelchair scoots past me, her husband not far in tow. He sits behind her. She shouts, "Did I take my 1:00 pill." He (tiredly?) says, "Yes." Wow, that's love.... care. I realize how seldom I am around, let alone interact with people who are disabled, people who face death in their physical (or mental) challenges every day. How different their perspectives must be. Someone recently told me that once you have cancer, every little ache and pain takes on new meaning. they must be asking themselves, is this a sign that the end is near?

Death and dying is just not something we want to talk about. Except in religious terms like heaven and hell, I don't remember the last time I had a discussion with someone about death- and I am part of a circle of people (artists, writers, counselors) who will talk about just about anything. It is the proverbial elephant, no- the wooly mammoth in the room. But, why? Why don't we teach our children about death? What scares us? What keeps us from admitting that it is just a part of life, the other side of the coin?

Back to the hospital room. Minute by minute, my aches and pains don't seem so bad. An old lady hobbles back from the closed door and I wonder what her prognosis is. And why am I here again? Do I want someone to tell me I'm not dying? Aren't we all, really dying? Perhaps, slowly, but dying nonetheless. And why is it morbid (read negatively) to talk about death? Maybe it is the mystery of death we don't like. Maybe it's the not knowing that turns us off. I guess I'm just talking about Americans (or Westerners) here. The Tibetans have a whole book (The Tibetan Book of The Dead) dedicated to death, after all.

My good friend had her best dog friend pass away this year and is dealing with her own perceptions of what that means. As we get older, family members with health problems cause us to ask tought questions with no answers:
What happens to those who pass away?
What would change if we knew the answer to this?

Back at home, I'm still feeling crappy. The doctor tells me I've got the same thing everyone else has this flu season and it will pass. "You're getting older," she tells me. As if I didn't know. Perhaps that's it. Getting older. Getting wiser, maybe, but essentially, weaker. The (negative?) thought that I might get sideswiped while checking the mail suddenly feels oddly inspiring. It seems too cliche to say it makes me want to live every day as if it was my last... But do any of us really know which day it will be?

Growth

The sky grows from grayish-white to blue
as the day grows from morning to afternoon
Little baby birds we rescued after cutting their tree down
grow soft black feathers too
Students grow from wide eyed freshman to
can't wait for next year impatience

And I'm watching this new building from my office window grow
Each day a new layer of cement and a new floor
Men are lifting wood panels
With giant insect armed cranes
Placing walls up in geometric configurations
Too gingerly for such enormous machinery
What must it feel like to know you made something grow?

We all wait for the building to be done
So that there will be a place to relieve overcrowded classrooms
We hope our "space issues" will be gone
But I will miss the beep beeping
The clank of metal
The surprise of something newly made
that greets me in the morning
The chance to watch something grow.