My carry on luggage was heavy because I couldn’t determine the reading mood I’d be in as I traveled across the country, and came prepared for every eventuality.  I settled into the second Crosswicks Journal book by Madeleine L’Engle, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother.  (It’s on my summer reading challenge list, btw)

This sensitive book about her mother’s stay with the family the last summer of her life both captured and held me.  I gladly let people stand in the hot aisles and clammer towards the airplane exit. Time to read a few more pages. Both flights I sat in close proximity to families with young children.  I was so glad, because their chatter and occasional yelps don’t bother me and I could give them space to work through stuff with the kids without dealing with nasty glares and looks. I’ve learned to tune out sounds and distractions when I read. 

I silently hurrahed when I read L’Engle’s words: “death is the enemy and I hate it.”  I underlined with my pencil, shaky lines to match the air pockets we flew through. I commiserated when she agonized about her ability to keep the promise to her mother that she would never put her in a “home”. I chuckled when she ranted about funeral “homes”.  I paused and looked out the window, not really seeing the checkerboard ground below, but needing time to process the words. 

Oh …. Madeleine!! You have such an ability to think and to bring those thoughts to ink and paper.  I’ll gladly fly with you as my companion.

Both life and death are present for me in the house this summer.  I look at Mother, and think that if I am to reflect on the eventual death of her body, of all bodies, in a way that is not destructive, I must never lose sight of those other deaths which precede the final, physical death, the deaths over which we have some freedom; the death of self-will, self-indulgence, self-deception, all those self-devices which instead of making us more fully alive, make us less.