The Marrow of Life, Part 1

The Marrow of Life

For Uncle Mike

“Got another letter from your father today.”

“Mmmm.”

“Seems he lost another job. Took too many sick days, probably just being lazy. See what happens when you don’t get a real job?”

“Moooooom!” Here we go again.

“Megan, I’m just saying you would do so well in business or computers or something. Lotta money in that these days. Would you at least look into these things?”

“Mom, I like being a music major. It’s what I decided. Besides, lots of people consider that respectable.”

“Is that really what you want to do with your life? Play the flute?”

Truth was, I didn’t know. And I had a right not to know. Anyway, music was my only hobby that had even a remote possibility of payment. “Well Mom, they don’t pay you to read professionally. Or to write essays for petty little competitions.”

“I can’t believe I’m paying money for you to be in some –Band Camp-all day. Can’t you at least take some marketing classes?”

“Can we not have this conversation anymore? I have to go. Car’s packed.”

She sighed, and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer. “When did you turn out this way? You used to be my baby. Now it seems you want to get as far away from me as possible. You’ll do anything to hurt me, won’t you?”

“Just leave me alone.” Moms are great at pressure. “I gotta go. See ya later, I don’t know when.”

I know she hates it when I leave without a goodbye kiss, but kissing her was is the last thing I felt like doing at the moment. I couldn’t remember the last time we had ended a conversation amiably.

As I drove off, I saw her standing on the steps, watching me. I didn’t feel too bad for her. She had her job. With that, it seemed she got over her Empty Nest Syndrome very quickly. I missed being her baby, having someone take care of me. But it seemed the price of doing things my way was to be lonely an awful lot.

I like being a private person. I think what people do in private tells who they really are. If we could see these moments I think some of them would shock us and some would make us cry for the person. Maybe we wouldn’t even recognize them. Well, I’ll give you a window into one of my moments, and you be the judge.

As with much of my time alone, this one found me wandering around aimlessly. I was in a building which my feet knew better than I did. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when they took me to the fifth floor, past sterile bathrooms and water fountains and pompous potted plants, until I was standing in front of the picture window.


On that night, as with those before, I could see it glowing like a stationary spaceship. Being on the top story gave me a view into all four of its levels, though it was across the street. I liked to curl up in one of the chairs by the window and watch for hours as people came and went. Since it was a Saturday night, most of them were dressed up and laughing, paired off in cookie-cutter couples. The girls all smilingly patted their stiff curls as they left rooms choked with hairspray and unidentifiable fruity smells.

I liked watching this small slice of their lives from the fifth floor. Coming and going, cars pulling up and pulling out again-it reminded me of an ant farm. Some may think it pointless or pathetic to romanticize a parking deck, but at that time I just needed something to be beautiful.

I had been coming to this window on the top floor since high school, when I came to the college for tours and conventions. It was my refuge during breaks, where I would curl up and contemplate how exciting college was going to be. I smiled, remembering my old
enthusiasm. How different it was than I had planned. How complicated and busy life had become.

Not for the first time, I wished to be a little kid again, for just a few days. Whenever life got so hectic I felt like I was losing my mind, I would remember my childhood on the Jersey shore. Back when my parents were together, and we were all happier. While all the other kids ran and screamed and swam and played, I liked to stand motionless in the surf.

I would play a game to see how long I could go without moving, and found I could stand there for hours. With the cold water rushing around my ankles, I felt down to the core of my being the rhythmic push-pull-push-pull of the waves. Every time they receded, my feet would sink a little deeper into the wet sand, and I wondered how far down I could go. I would just stand there, thinking about anything from how deep the ocean was to how long the sunset might last. No schedule, no demands, no responsibilities. It was the most peaceful, happy time of my life.

In my chair by the picture window, I hugged myself tighter and wished I could feel that way again. Unwanted, the thought of my mother popped into my head. When I went to college, she bought me a little stained-glass lighthouse for my room at home. Whenever she knew I was coming home on a Friday night, she'd leave it turned on for me, perched on my top shelf above the dresser, glowing. Sometimes I wouldn't even tell her I was coming-and the little lamp would still be on.

After a few months, I began to anxiously look for it as soon as I turned my doorknob. We never talked about it, but the lighthouse was a sign that I was welcome, that I had safely arrived at harbor. If she had ever forgotten to light it for me, I would have felt devastated-cold and unwelcome. The little lighthouse filled me with peace and my mother's love. Like all the times she came in and kissed me on my forehead when she thought I was asleep. Even when I was a senior, she still did that. Then, I felt her tenderness and knew that somewhere deep down I was still her baby. And that she approved of me. That last thought cut through me like a scythe. She wouldn't kiss the person I have become. Where did it all go wrong?

My parents had divorced when I was 10. I saw my dad a few times a year, but three years ago he had quit his job and moved to a cooperative community in upstate New York. I hadn’t seen him since, my mom was caught up in her job back home and I was too darned independent. I didn't feel like anybody's baby anymore.

It's not that college was that bad. It's just that it was nothing like what I thought it would be. All my life I looked forward to it, dreaming of late night pizza parties with my girlfriends, and football games where everybody wore school colors. Yet there I was, starting my second year at the medium-sized, South Carolina school, and I knew exactly what was going to happen.

Music majors live in the music building. We never leave. I think they should install little foldout beds in the practice rooms, so we could get up in the middle of the night and practice. We get to the SOM (School of Music) at 7am, practice, go to classes all day, rehearsals and concerts at night, practice again, churn out some homework and fall into bed. It can be very frustrating and stressful-nothing like what you'd think a fine arts degree to be!

Because of this, racquetball is a very popular sport among music majors. I like to hit the ball as hard as I can, again and again, dashing around and blocking out thought, until everything sorts itself out and life makes sense again.

But lately life hadn't made any sense, no matter what I did. I felt like my life was a writing prompt, in which the author had forgotten to include 'the overall meaning of the work.' This year I had made a pact with myself. To "suck out the marrow of life," as Thoreau had said. To have a little fun like the other college students, and to enjoy my four years. To figure out where I was, where I had been and where I was going.

"There it is," I said, feeling flutters of anticipation.

"Yup," Douglas stopped at my side. "This is our last night of freedom. We should be out partying. Instead, we're drawn here like it's our mothership or something."

"Yeah, it's so weird. I've spent so many hours in this building wishing to be elsewhere, and yet hating it is like hating something in myself.

"Race you," I said to Douglas. "I'll win, because I'm a boy!," he dashed off.

Running after him, I could think of no reply more intelligent than "YOU ARE SO SEXIST!" He's not really. He just says things like that to annoy me. I call him a 'professional brother." He ticks me off, but he's my best friend.

We pounded over the bridge and up the purple gravel path. The music building looks like a castle to me. It's shiny and new. It has turrets at the corners, and is made of red brick trimmed with white stone. The whole back wall is an enormous, two-story glass window. It has a sculptured garden, and even a "moat"-a wooden bridge over the little creek. It's easy to picture myself as a princess held prisoner, waiting to be rescued from my beautiful prison. Of course, in my fairy tale, I would climb down the wall myself, steal a white horse, and ride off into the sunset while the brave knights were still wandering around, refusing to ask for directions. But I digress.

We reached the doors at *almost* the same time, and found one that was open. The halls were hushed, resting up for tomorrow's cacophony. We entered the Recital Hall, because Douglas loves to play the sleek, ebony Baldwin. I lay on my back with my feet hanging off the stage, and drifted off to Douglas' Chopin Nocturnes. He played some silly songs like the Sesame Street jingle, and finally joined me. I could smell his cologne, sweet but not simpering. I always teased him about wearing too much of it, but secretly I kind of liked it. It would always linger on my pillows when we lounged on my bed and talked, so that for days afterward I could put them up to my nose and feel less lonely.

Finally, he joined me on the edge of the stage, kicking his feet.

"I have a quote for you," Douglas said unexpectedly.

"The final proof of God's omnipotence is that He need not exist in order to save us." I pondered this for a minute. With Douglas you just don’t ask where things are coming from. Sometimes having a conversation with him is like trying to remain standing on a surfboard.

"Hmm. Does that mean that maybe He doesn't exist but we believe in Him anyway and therefore He exists because we think He does?"

"See, that's your problem, Megan. You read too much into things. It just means God is cool."
"Well that seems like the kind of quote you should mull over, and discover new meaning each time you think about it. Don't you know how to mull?"

"Not really. I do know what a mullet is though!"

Despite myself, I cracked up. Before I had fully recovered, he grabbed my hand and started running out of the recital hall, kicking off his shoes by the door.
I caught his mood. We raced up and down the dark, polished hallways in our white cotton socks, bumping into each other like awkward penguins. We ran and slid a dozen feet at a time, then ran and slid again. My blood pounding in my ears, I was caught up in an exuberant dance. We played hide-and-seek, popping in and out of closetlike practice rooms, breathing hard from the exertion.

Finally,Douglas and I landed in front of the huge glass wall. We collapsed on the floor, still panting and laughing, my head on his chest. I thought of Thoreau. The starlight blazed through the clear glass. It slid along potted palms, newly waxed tile, and the forms of two happy young people, whose heads danced with visions of joy.

Chapter 2
On Sunday afternoon, Douglas and I had a Muppet marathon. We both love anything by the Muppets, and consider them the source of all wisdom. Oddly enough, we are simply incapable of agreeing on any other type of movie. Douglas started singing along to the Muppets in falsetto, which had me rolling in laughter. He always rolls back his eyes when he sings falsetto, and it makes him look like a vampire. Just then, my cell phone rang. I picked it up, and immediately heard Mom's agitated voice.

"What's wrong?" I asked, one eye on Douglas's antics.

"Your Dad has cancer."

There are a few sentences in everyone's lives that stop time. Sentences that symbolize whole periods of your life, because they are weighted so heavily. Sentences that you remember later as having ended a tranquil time in your life that you desperately want to return to. You always recognize these sentences even as they are being said.
This sentence hung in the air interminably. In my mind's eye, I was eight again.

*********************************************

We are walking through the quiet nighttime streets, past deserted playgrounds and the occasional orange streetlight. I am watching their fiery reflections in puddles as I ride on my dad's shoulders. We are singing "Tra la la boom de aye, there is no school today..." I am so far up I feel like an explorer on an elephant's back, like I once saw in an Indiana Jones movie. My dad whistles along as we sing and walk towards the inlet. I always considered it to be my father's greatest talent that he could whistle OUTWARDS. Imitate him as I might, I could only do it inwards. We stop at the boardwalk by the inlet, my eyes on huge white boats as he carefully lifts me over his head and aaaaaaaaaaaall the way to the ground. To me, the boats look like they are slumbering peacefully on their huge waterbed, rocking drowsily back and forth.

The inlet is called The Glimmerglass. I think it is the most beautiful name for anything that I ever heard. So elegant. Like an impression of a shimmering mirror. I run to a bank of reeds between the boats and the nearest subdivision of beach houses.

The reeds are 6 or 7 feet tall and very tough. You have to twist them and pull hard to break them off. Then I dip their feathery heads in the water, which smells of brine and fish and sunscreen on long summer afternoons.

Then we begin to paint. With these great tall reeds and their heavy, dripping ends, I have the freedom of Picasso. I dip and swirl and dance around, brushing the reed tips on the wooden slats just to see what whimsical designs they make. The best part is, no one can yell at me, because in a few seconds, the pictures disappear! I watch as my beautiful masterpieces sink into the parched boards, run and break off another reed, and begin all over again-creating absolutely anything I want to.

When we are tired of that, the two of us walk along the boardwalk, calling out funny names on the boats, and he laughs while I run out onto each dock, just to see if this one is built differently. We can see the lights for miles each way along the water's edge. they shine on noisy new housing developments and old, deserted arcades with garish clowns painted on their fading walls. We walk in the secret glow of the streetlights. I am holding onto one of my father's hands, while he tells me a joke I’ve heard a thousand times but I laugh anyway because he laughs at all the jokes I tell him a thousand times.

He is there in most of my childhood memories. tickling me, teasing me, roughhousing with me, holding me when I am sad. He is there, taking me on camping trips, where as the fire dies down he reads me "grownup" books while I snuggle down in my thermal sleeping bag he bought me. i don't understand them, but I listen to his soft, deep voice, and the words all blend together and sing me to sleep while I stare into the flickering, crackling flames.

He is there in so many memories, and in the deepest part of my heart reserved for the few people in my life who have never let me down. Those who have loved me unconditionally, those kinds of people who inspire you to be the person they already think you are. You can't delete someone like that from your life. It simply doesn't work. Your heart, your whole life is missing something vital if that chunk of the equation is gone. So he can't have cancer. at least not serious cancer. He would never leave me. because he knows i couldn't take it.

*****************************
I picked my jaw up off the floor and remembered where my voice was.
"How bad is it?"
"Stage 4 already."
"What does that MEAN?"
"I don't know. Nobody knows anything right now."

Before we got off the phone, I asked her, "What do I say to him? How do I talk to him now?"
"Say whatever you feel like saying."


I didn't know what that was. So I didn't call him.

Everything changed very quickly after that. I started getting letters several times a week from my mother, talking about things like 'chemo' and 'not responding to treatment.' i spent hours late at night searching for all the information i could on metastatic melanoma, but nowhere did it tell me what i wanted to hear.

To keep from going crazy, one day i went to K-Mart and bought myself a bunch of brightly colored plastic toys. I went back to my dorm room and taped funky-shaped balloons all over my walls and ceiling. Every time I got another depressing email about dad's condition, I taped up more balloons. Pictures from a Lisa Frank coloring book soon followed. My friends began to leave cheerful crayoned pictures under my door to add to my collection.

One night, even the balloons didn't cheer me up. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw us walking the nighttime streets again, a tall man and a chattering, pigtailed girl holding his hand, in their own little bubble of love and trust. In some little protected place in my heart, we walk there still.

Looking around my dark room, I could see his influence. The liberal bumper stickers on my door that he proudly bought me, the radio he insisted on giving me when he found out I didn't have a CD player. (Oh, what privation.) The Sierra Club raincoat and boots he bought me (always the practical outdoorsman), the tapes he mailed me when I picked up the flute, just because some saleslady told him they were standards in Classical repertoire.

I tossed and turned until 2 am, then sat bolt upright in my sweaty sheets. I realized that in response to Dad's cancer I had turned to everything except Dad. I looked at my clock. Would he have time for me? I sat there for another half hour deliberating, then sort of oozed out of my bed and shuffled to the phone.
"Hello?" answered a familiar and sleepy voice. My heart leaped straight from my shoes to my throat.

"Dad? I know it's been a while..."

"OH HELLO, MISS MEGGIE!!" he boomed. No condemnation, no discomfort, only easy joy. I smiled immediately. We talked about little stuff. I thought, I could mention his cancer. No, I'd depress him. I could talk about me. No, definitely too selfish.

"I want to come see you," I said finally.

"You know you are always welcome, and I promise to spoil you rotten," he said immediately.

"Is it OK if I bring someone else to help me with the drive?" "Megan, whatever you do is fine with me, haven't you realized that yet?" I closed my eyes, and kicked the desk. His approval felt underserved, and rare, for me.

"I'm coming next weekend," I decided.

His voice turned serious. "I can't wait, Miss Megan. I just have to fight this right now, but you are always welcome no matter where i maybe be for treatment. Seeing you will brighten my, well, my whole year. You be safe and don't ever forget how much I love you."

What did I do to deserve such love? And how could I have let years go by, barely talking to him, because my life was so darned important? I threw myself onto my bed, scrunched into a ball, and stuffed my comforter into my mouth so my suitemates wouldn't hear me wailing.

The next few days went by in a blur. With all my schoolwork and rehearsals, I didn't have time to cry. It seemed horrible and fortunate at the same time. The night before I left for New York, I finally dragged myself into my room at midnight. Dropping my keys on the desk and my backpack in the nearest corner, I fell into my chair. The phone rang, and I picked it up out of habit, wondering briefly why I hadn't turned the ringer off. It was Douglas.

"Hey! Can you take me to Walmart?"

I closed my eyes, every muscle hurting.

"Can't I just give you my keys?"

I knew the answer. Douglas hates driving, especially at night, and especially in cities. I sighed, but knew I was going to give in. I owe Douglas everything. He brings me joy and peace in a time when every day is a struggle. When I am with him, I feel perfectly content-a feeling I didn't know I could still have. I see everything in a sharper way. I can see each distinct leaf and flower, and feel the urge to share every one of them with him. He tells me I've drained all the fun out of my life, and he's trying to teach me how to be young.

Douglas is one of those people I can do anything with and have a good time-including late night Walmart trips! It's amazing the people you end up loving-and the things you will do for those people. They become pillars of your life that all of a sudden you can't live without. I believe that our worth-all our redeeming qualities-is the greatest when we are experiencing love like that for someone else. I would never tell him all this. He HATES clingy people. I know because he keeps little lists in his Bible of all the things his perfect soulmate would be, and number one is 'NOT CLINGY.'

We walked out to the car in our pajamas. Heavens knows what we looked like. I love Douglas' pajamas. He always wears a white undershirt and these cute blue striped sweatpants. He looks like he should be rubbing his eyes and holding a teddy bear.

Naturally, as soon as got in the car, we started fighting over the arm rest. I know that if I told him how much it hurt when he arm wrestled me, he would stop. Of course, I have way too much pride for that, so while we sat at a stoplight and wrestled furiously, I kept my winces to a minimum. He almost tore my hand in half as I turned the corner, but I won in the end. Of course, he says I didn't because he stopped first and that means he won-but then again I always thought he should have been a lawyer instead of a musician.

Wringing my hand discreetly, I glanced up at the angry clouds broiling in the night sky. It reminded me of a storm brewing in the ocean.

******************************
The clouds were gathering in stern black bunches as we walked across the sand. I shivered slightly. My father noticed. "You know, everybody stares at us when we go swimming in the ocean in October," I commented to him. The corners of his mouth quirked up.

"That's because they're all wimps," was his typical response. "See, they don't know what's good for them. You and me, we're members of the Polar Bear Club. We have a lot more fun."

"OK," i answered uncertainly. My feet barely touched the waves before he put his hands on my 6-year-old waist and lifted me up to sit on his neck (an elevator going from basement to 4th!)
Carefully, he picked his way into the water. My mom had a rule that I could never ever go into any water over my waist-which meant I generally stayed within 10 feet of the shore. How liberating it was to be on my daddy's shoulders. We just kept walking, way, way out into the ocean. It was a No Man's Land to me, and considering how far we were from the shore, I estimated it must be several hundred feet deep. I swallowed, picturing all those--creatures--that must be down there.

"You're not gonna drop me, right?" He was still wading out, up to his neck. I repeated my question several times in the next few minutes.

"Miss Meggie," said the jolly voice below me, "Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me? I would never let you go. no matter what happens, I would never let you be hurt. ever!"

I hesitated for a few minutes before relaxing my stiff limbs. I looked into the deep, dark ocean and knew that if I tumbled off his shoulders, he'd catch me before anything bad happened to me. I never worried about the Polar Bear Club again. and he never gave me any reason to doubt his ability to protect me. Even my mom let me see her worry, but my father's confidence never wavered. No matter what age I was, I knew he'd always take care of me.
****************************
"What are you thinking about?," Douglas asked.
I blinked back to the present day, and told him my memory. I thought he would appreciate it, but after I finished, he frowned.

"I think you're forgetting one thing," he said. "The past isn't necessarily happy just because it's the past."

I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but I was pretty sure I didn't like it.

"Whaddayou mean?" I mumbled reluctantly.
"Well...have you ever noticed that you can paint your whole life a hundred different ways according to what mood you're in? Like when I'm elated, I see my past 20 years as a string of blessings, one after the other. And when I'm angry or frustrated, all I can see is a history of disappointments, setbacks and failures. And it's the same life!"

I could see his point, but would never admit it. I wanted him to agree with me all the time. As we pulled into the Walmart parking lot, I filed his comment back to a place in my mind that wasn't so tired.

We played with the the Light Sabers on the Star Wars display until blue-smocked people started coming toward us with stern looks. I had to drag him out of the game section before he drooled all over some new complex game he couldn't afford that was merely a trumped-up version of PacMan.

Finally, we stood in the Medicine aisle. He took so long deciding which version of Calamine lotion to get that I sat down next to the cough syrups. I had a question I had long wanted to ask him, but always feared I didn't deserve this huge favor from him. "Douglas," I asked casually, "how would you like to go to New York with me tomorrow?"

"Now should I get the kind with Vitamin E or without?" he replied, deep in concentration. I rolled my eyes. Douglas is the most medicated person I know. Half the people on campus know he runs a pharmacy in his microfridge, and come running to him for everything from colds to insomnia.

"Get whatever's cheaper."
"But this one has 4 more ounces free."
"So get that."
"But it has a different active ingredient."
"Douglas!!!" I screeched.
"Can I see Carnegie Hall?" It took me a minute to switch gears.

"No, Douglas, I'm going to see my father. I know it's a really long drive, but I don't want to do it alone and you're free this weekend....it might be fun?!?"

He gave in a lot more easily than I would have thought. As he started to check out allergy medicine, I surreptitiously grabbed the cheapest bottle of Calamine off the shelf and threw it in the cart.

Friday afternoon Douglas and I threw our stuff in my trunk as soon as our noon class ended. I closed the door and wiped my forehead. South Carolina can be blazing in the fall, but my dad said they already had snow in New York, so Douglas and I had worn warm clothes.

"Um, Douglas?," I began, not sure how to start. "This may not be such an easy trip. I mean, it's a long drive and i don't have A/C and we're going to visit someone you don't know, who's really sick and had lots of surgeries on his neck and may not look so good.....and Douglas....well, I apologize in advance. I-I may not be myself sometimes. I may be really emotional and stuff...and he means a lot to me...and I hope you still want to hang out with me when we come back," I finished.

His head snapped up, eyes narrowed . "What do you mean?"

"Well I-well, I learned in high school that a lot of people are friendly to you in the halls and stuff and you think they really care about you-but when you're even a little bit down they just avert their eyes and wait for you to get 'better.' They don't try to help you. They're embarassed for you because it's not OK to be anything other than happy..."

All the usual cockiness and queenly pride I always showed Douglas was gone. I had let down my defenses, and I turned my face away, afraid he would use this opportunity to hurt me. He took a couple of deep breaths, and turned my chin around to face him. I could see a lot of feelings swirling in his eyes. It scared me. Douglas was NEVER emotional.

"Don't you worry about me leaving you," he said carefully. "I won't be like those other people. Ever."

When I felt tears coming to my eyes, I knew this moment was getting out of hand. I surged upward and fumbled for the keys, crying out something cheerful about how we should be going. It wasn't the last time I thought about what he said, though. Leaving seems to be a big thing for Douglas. One time we were arranging to meet each other in a central place in the SOM for lunch. A person who's big on contingency plans, I said "should I just meet you in the Caf if I don't see you here at 12?" He got all serious for some reason.

"I'll be here" he said. "I'll never just not show up. I'll always leave a note, or get someone to tell you, or cancel something to be here-or something. Take my word for it, I'll never just not show up."

He ran to his class, but I gaped after him for a minute. What a promise! I knew it shouldn't seem so important, but it did. NO ONE makes promises anymore, even little ones, that they keep. And he always kept it too. I felt good knowing that in all the certainty of this world, one little thing I could count on was Douglas always meeting me where and when he said he would. And here he was saying he wouldn't desert me just because I displayed an unfashionable side of myself to him. That kind of devotion shakes me to the core, It's pitiful what a sucker I am when someone is truly nice to me. I don't stand a chance against them anymore! I counted my blessings for the friend beside me and pulled out of the parking lot.




End of Part One