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Snapshots
of a Day While on a walk not far from our community land, we discovered in the middle of the desert, a lost highway. Maybe you don’t “find” lost highways--they find you. I don’t know. We walked it for a couple of miles. It used to be called “War Road” back during the Cold War when the large military machines and convoys of that age would travel back and forth from it to the White Sands Missile Range. I could feel the presence of the memory of a young soldier riding joylessly in a large sweaty, but dusty bus heading back into civilization circa 1960. I saw him writing a letter to his mother back home in Biloxi, Mississippi describing the absolute wasteland this desert was to him; about the merciless heat; and how there’s nothing but brown and gray covering the shimmering waterless landscape. For the first time in his life, he knew what green was and missed it with an aching in his soul. Now this highway is reclaimed by the dust and mesquite while young soldiers caravan continuously on the new road, Highway 213, a couple of hundred feet or so away. I wonder where this old soldier is now. Did he die young in the greenery of some forgotten jungle? Is he sitting on his front porch somewhere surveying the grays and browns of his aging landscape? As he ponders his old age, does he seek the lost highways of his life? I wonder. Later in the day, I went to my friend’s house in an older residential area in town. The neighbors in this place never bothered to put up “privacy fences” on their back yard rock walls. Neighbors can see and talk to one another. I looked in the adjacent yard and saw a boxer puppy. He had a black ring around his left eye that made him look sad. Some people drove up and got out of the car in the driveway. The little dog intently watched them through the chain linked gate, his tail begging for attention. The kids got out of the car and went straight to the side door ignoring the boxer: he wasn’t a full grown dog, and he wasn’t really a cute little puppy that kids would adore anymore. He was a lost puppy. I heard the kids yell, “Happy birthday, Adrian!” I wondered if Adrian would remember this specific birthday of all his birthdays in his life. How many would he have? Was Adrian too young and yet too old? The commotion was muffled and swallowed by the house’s interior. The dog finally noticed me standing there. He stooped low believing he could make himself invisible. I called him over, destroying his ineffective fantasy. He was drawn to me, but terrified. I convinced him to come as he almost crawled toward me. Did he think it was wrong? Soft puppy head met hand, and I reassured him. I could sense the intense boredom and loneliness that lies ahead for the remainder his life in this 50 by 50 foot piece of suburbia. Later in the early evening, I looked out again. The puppy was chewing on a plastic soft drink cup. Jumbo size; bigger than his head. He had already forgotten me. We went into the house to visit my friend’s mother. She’s been a close friend of ours for years, but she’s dying slowly at the age of 90. This was the first time in the 15 years we’ve been coming to see her, that she was unable to recognize us. In the past, she always demonstrated an incredible intuition and loved us with the ferocity of a warrior-guardian. Now we were strangers in her spotlight. Her state of dementia broke my wife’s heart as she cried deeply when we got home later in the evening. Our friend had been a nurse, a teacher, and a preacher. Now, at the end of her pilgrimage, she seemed a lost woman. She’s lived through the death of her husband, her brother, and her son; and this evening, all she could say repeatedly was: “It’s time to go. I’ve got to go.” Later, she looked over at me, stared for a moment, and said, “This little boy looks sleepy.” As her caretaker put her in bed, we gathered around and stroked her hands, feet, and hair like always. We prayed a blessing over her, and a brief, lucid moment opened up, and she looked at me, my wife, and my little girl and said, “It was good seeing you, again.” I could sense her perpetual prayers for us: flowing through, and rising above her broken mind and wilted body. We stared in her illuminated eyes for a standing, hanging moment, and said, "goodbye"--for now. As we left the room, and made our way down that ancient hallway, I could hear her take up her mantra once more, “I’ve got to go. It’s time to go…” -David |