Dallin Malmgren's Blog, page 24

God as a live oak

photo by me

I don’t write much about prayer. Certainly, I’m an advocate. But it’s hard to mention your prayer life without sounding sanctimonious. Jesus said something about praying in secret. God has shown me a thousand times that whenever I start thinking about how spiritual I am, I have turned in the wrong direction.

Still, I’ve been thinking about prayer. My custom for many years has been to have a quiet time right after I get up. I will read something spiritual (the Bible or Christian writers that I admire), think about it, and then write my prayers for the day on 3 x 5 cards in little spiral notebooks. The reason I write my prayers is that if I don’t, my mind will wander off faster than a thirsty dog, and the next thing I know I’m wondering why I can’t hit a four iron. Writing them helps me keep focused. Of course, after I write them I say them out loud, just in case.

Karen keeps a prayer notebook too, but I think it’s mostly to remind her of things she wants to pray about. My wife absolutely loves to pray with other people. She will remind me that Jesus said “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” She and her sister Laura close just about every phone conversation they have with prayer. Our daughter Bethany is not a pray-er (yet) or I’m sure Karen would do it with her too. As we’ve gotten older, she and I pray more together (lately, after we watch the news or before we venture out). It’s a healthy thing for a husband and wife to pray together.

Nowadays, I’m trying to figure out “…praying without ceasing…” I’m positive it doesn’t mean becoming a monk. It seems to be in keeping with my #1 retirement goal: learning to abide in Jesus. The key to abiding is realizing He is present. If He is present, why not think to Him? (Talking to Him out loud in public can weird people out.) Think to Him about the virus and the quarantine—about those you love—about anything that is bothering you—about making dinner—about hitting that four iron. About everything.

Which brings me to my title… My very favorite place to pray is sitting on my back porch. I have this huge live oak tree in front of me, on the golf course side of the fence. I like to put my head back in the chair and pray. Last year when I did it, I saw three specific gaps in the leaves, revealing clear blue sky. I thought of them as the Trinity. Fanciful I know, but it worked for me. Only this year those gaps grew over. And this is the year of corona, when my prayers seem to be of greater concern and anxiety. But God changed my perception. Now He is the live oak tree, absolutely covering my whole field of vision (see photo), arms widespread, assuring me that whatever the problem, whatever the concern…He has got me covered.

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The Sameness

Artwork by Annalisa Barelli

One major effect of the quarantine: The Sameness. It was unavoidable—your options have been severely reduced. When getting in your car involves a decision to risk your life and endanger others (it really does), The Sameness of staying home doesn’t seem like such a bad decision. Of course, the re-opening of our country greatly diminishes the power of The Sameness, but many of us, especially the elderly, are not fooled by the re-opening. Re-engaging is a movement borne out of desperation, not human logic. It is rooted deeply in the self—I’m gonna do what I want to do. I think I prefer The Sameness.

No doubt, I’m a lucky man—lucky to be retired and facing no pressing financial issues. Here is what The Sameness means to me: I get up and do my spiritual reading and write my prayers. Check my phone and get a weather report. Make sure it is real by going outside to get the newspaper. After that comes my morning ablution: do my business, wash my hands, brush my teeth, take my pills (always in that order). On the best days, I throw together approximately the same breakfast, to be eaten on the golf course. Finish golf, come home, take a shower, and make lunch—not always the same, but I have 4–5 standbys. Check my phone, take care of any pressing matters, and decide about a nap. The rest of the afternoon is down time: reading, doing puzzles, making phone calls to people I care about. My evening begins when I head for the back porch. There I will enjoy my cocktail, listen to music, watch golfers go by, and pray (not always in that order). Frequently, Karen will join me—that is a special time for us. One or both of us will make dinner. Then we’ll watch the news. We might put on a movie after that, or go our separate ways. I will read or write, go back to a puzzle, or sometimes just think (usually with music on). Then I will go to bed to await The Sameness.

Yes, I’m blushing—it sounds pretty cushy. But I’m retired—and the Lord is with me. I know He wants me to do good every day—I pray and watch for the opportunities. I know my riches are His—I seek His guidance. I also know He wants me to be wise and cautious in these trying times—unless He tells me otherwise. And I know there is so much He can teach me through The Sameness.

Of course, The Sameness is also fraught with spiritual danger. Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” I think an even greater danger is complacency. Without vigilance, routine can become a rut. The inability to do things can lead to an unwillingness to do things. That is where I most count on prayer and His Spirit. I don’t want to become that person.

But He is here to pull me along. Sometimes unwillingly, but mostly I hope not. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; He mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22–23) That’s the way I try to get out of bed. It makes the sameness disappear.

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Golf is a spiritual exercise

Artwork by Jean Neely, spiritually exercising

Yep. I’m sticking with my premise, even with my wife rolling her eyes some of the time. If there was no God, I would not play golf. Even if that is a lie, I would not play so happily, surrounded by joy. To take my divinization even further, golf is a spiritual exercise for most of the people who play it (Maybe not Donald Trump–I’ve heard he cheats). Admittedly, a lot of them don’t realize it.

The business of God in His interactions with humans is to develop our character. We are supposed to be becoming like Him. Like I’ve said before, He never forces us, and His business is not necessarily our business. But if we are willing to align our intention with His, He becomes the most patient, gentle, compassionate, and wise teacher that ever was. That is why I always invite Him to the golf course with me.

Why golf? I confess there is nothing special about golf (except to me and most of the people I know who play golf). For one thing, golf is challenging. The presentation of a challenge always brings our character (good or bad) to the surface. We golfers care about how we play. The difference between passion and apathy is like the difference between soft malleable clay and my granddaughters’ Play-Doh that has been left in the sun for weeks. Remember, He is the potter and we are the clay. Golf creates a good medium for Him to work with me. Ah, and what about emotions? I have slammed a club to the ground so hard it broke (long ago). From my back porch, I’ve heard all kinds of cussing on the course. I’ve watched men cheat at golf. If you play, the need for character-building becomes readily apparent.

I enjoy playing golf alone, because I am not alone. But a whole new avenue of soul-improvement opens up when you play golf with others. I play with a senior men’s group. This means we have to deal with competition (it is a game), jealousy (so many better golfers than me!), greed (the bets are small, but money is money), and prejudice (we all like some individuals better than others). Of course, the plusses outweigh the minuses: there is friendship—there is teamwork—there is laughter—there is love (though we men are not very good at expressing it). If you play golf with God, the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) will flourish. It is impossible not to enjoy yourself in that atmosphere.

Do I sound like a religious nut? I said SPIRITUAL exercise. No bible tracts to hand out. I’m not sure if many of the men I play golf with know that I am a Christian. Jesus said, “I am with you always”—not an easy promise to claim. On the golf course, it’s easier for me to sense His presence. The sky, the trees, the water, the greenness, the geese, the ducks, the babies. The acceptance of a bad shot. The exquisiteness of a well-struck ball (you sense His perfection then). The fellowship of people enjoying themselves. My spirit revives. My advice to my fellow golfers: invite Him along. (No one will know that you are a fivesome.)

I told my artist friend Jean Neely that golf is a spiritual exercise, and she asked me to explain. This is the explanation. But I know full well that her doing art is a spiritual exercise. Karen working in her garden is a spiritual exercise. Exercising your spirit is simply seeking His presence. Anything that opens up the pathway of communication between you and Him is a blessing. The best news of all is His promise: I am with you always. Get out there (however) and exercise your spirit!

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“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9

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The Skeleton in my Closet

My uncle, Hafis Salich, served time in San Quentin as a Russian spy. Honest.

My mother’s family had to leave Russia when the communists took over. Born in Moscow, she was seven years old when they left. At least, I think so. My mother’s birth date was listed as January 1,1917. I have been told that is a guesstimate, that her birth records had been destroyed. My grandmother, Hadicia Salich, lived with us the first seventeen years of my life. Did she forget? Do they have a different calendar in Russia? Never have understood.

My uncle Hafe was ten years older than mom. The family ran a hardware store, had a country estate, and sided with the czar and the White Russians. When the communist revolt succeeded, they had to flee Moscow. I used to tell this great story about how my grandfather had to sneak his family aboard a train going through Siberia, and how he himself took a bullet in the thigh as he was climbing aboard. The last time I mentioned it to my mother, she said it wasn’t true. My poor creative writing classes.

From Russia they moved to Japan. My grandfather worked very hard and in several years had established another prosperous hardware business. Then they lost everything in an earthquake. His whole store was destroyed, and everything they had was invested in the business. A broken man, he moved his family to California and got a job as a janitor at the University of California in Berkeley. He still held that job when he died several years later. (My mother met my father at that school.)

My uncle was a brilliant man. He spoke seven languages (not sure how fluently). In California he got a job at a munitions plant, and in 1929 he was convicted of selling secrets to the Russians. Time Magazine had an article about him. My sister Diana looked it up once for a school project. He served about two years in San Quentin.

His life turned out to be a waste. He became a Certified Public Accountant in San Francisco and had a nice house near Lombard Street, but he went through three wives and a whole lot of alcohol. He died of cirrhosis of the liver.

My only lasting memory of him: he was visiting our house in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania and he was showing off his literacy in French, holding court in the living room with a drink in one hand. My sister Diana (who had to be in elementary school) pointed out that he had mispronounced a French word. He stared at her, blinked, and said, “You are absolutely correct.” During the rest of his visit, he must have retold that story seventeen times, always ending it by poking his finger emphatically in the air and saying, “And she was right. And she was right!”

My mother used to tell me that I most reminded her of her brother Hafis. We both had mean-looking eyes. Yikes.

Addendum: I just found out from my sister Meredith that he was sentenced in 1939 to four years, but only served seven months. And it wasn’t San Quentin, it was a prison in Washington. Damn! I’ve taken the ferry past San Quentin at least ten times, often thinking nostalgically about my uncle. (And Karen says my eyes don’t look anything like his.)

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Pescatarians for a week…

photo by internet

Well, almost a week. Tomorrow morning will be a week. I got the idea when we started hearing about all the Covid problems in the meat-packing plants. Rather than hoarding meat, it seemed like we could explore other options. Karen liked the idea. Both of us realized it would probably be good health-wise. My third motive was curiosity—I had no idea if it would be hard to give up meat for a week.

Originally, I suggested vegetarianism. Karen pointed out that we have both wanted to add more fish into our diet, and this would be the perfect opportunity. We agreed to approach it gently. We’d go one week. We bought a nice salmon filet for Monday night. Since fish doesn’t keep, and we’re trying to avoid the grocery store, we planned on going with tuna later in the week. With bread and eggs and cheese still on the table, even a hearty eater like me should be okay.

I expected it wouldn’t prove too difficult. Both Karen and I hoped we might drop a few pounds. I knew it would make my youngest sister, a die-hard veg, happy. I already had it in my head it could lead to a blog post (two essays a week isn’t that easy!).

It has played out just about like I thought. Staying away from meat was easy. (Way easier than Dry January!) I always have the same breakfast when I play golf anyway—a yogurt, a banana, a pack of cheese crackers or a granola bar, and one or two cuties. My customary beer (drinking in the parking lot, social distancing) after the round has no meat. I can make a mean grilled cheese for lunch. (My granddaughters even ask me to.) And our dinners, mostly engineered by Karen, were as delicious as pre-pesca. And as of today, I lost one pound.

The biggest benefit of doing something like this is spiritual. If you read my blog, you can tell I do a lot of the same things every day. That’s not a bad thing—it’s a blessing of retirement. But I have to remember that change is good. If you’re not changing, you’re not growing. Routine is an enemy—it lures us into complacency. And I’m pretty sure less meat in our diets would have a beneficial effect on our planet.

So what about tomorrow? I’m thinking about two of those frozen White Castle sliders for lunch. Karen and I are both way too conservative to waste food that we’ve already bought. But I’m also going to carry an awareness that what I want and what I need are frequently not the same thing. It’s not a bad thing to lean to the side of need. Most of all, I want to keep changing things up. Life isn’t meant to be a routine—following God never is.

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“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together…”

St. Dorothy’s Catholic Church and parochial school (my house would be in the upper lefthand corner)

I didn’t get off to a very good start with The Church—thankfully, we have developed a mutual respect over the years. Just beyond my backyard was the St. Dorothy Catholic Church and parochial school. I was not Catholic. My mother and grandmother hated Catholicism—not sure why. (My sister Diana recently told me that she attended St. Dorothy with a friend one Sunday. The whole next week she got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the jelly from Dowanee. She asked her why. “Let your Catholic friend give you jelly,” Dowanee told her.) Most of our neighborhood friends were Catholic. The Church permeated my life. There was a basketball court on the school playground and I shot thousands of baskets there. My brother taught me to ride a bike on that playground, and I taught a couple of sisters too. There was a big hill at one end of the playground that lead down to a small creek. Eight to ten foot banks lined one side of the creek. In the winter we would fly down the hill on our sleds and skid to a screeching halt right at the edge of the creek bank. More than once I overshot the stop and tumbled down the bank and into the creek, a baptism of fear and fun.

The Catholic grounds formed a compound shaped in a half oval. To the right of my backyard was the priests’ house. We all stayed away from that place. Then came the church itself, a place I remember entering only once. After that was the school building, a long brick rectangle, two floors, as dreary as any public school I ever attended. Finally, to the far left adjacent to our sledding hill was the rectory, where the nuns lived. The nuns had a brilliant cherry tree growing in their backyard. My friends and I would reconnoiter, sneak along the banks of the creek bed, steal past the large fenced-in compost bin full of leaves from the past autumn (I tasted my first alcohol in that bin, homemade wine that someone had stolen), and sprint up and into the branches of the cherry tree. We would pig out on the cherries, spitting the seeds down to the ground below. The nuns soon became wise to our sport, and they would sit, peering through the blinds or curtains of the rectory, waiting for us to make our mad dash. We called them penguins. They would come tearing out of the rectory and we would drop from the cherry tree and disappear down the banks of the creek, and I believe everyone had a very good time.

I never got confession. To this day I don’t understand telling someone else your wrongdoings, reciting a litany, and being restored to spiritual health. I was known for having an inventive mind, so my school boy friends would come to me for help with their confessions.

“What do I tell him?”

“Why don’t you tell him what you’ve done wrong?”

“Are you crazy? I don’t want my parents to find out.”

“Would he tell?”

“You never know.”

“So what do you want?”

“I don’t know. Something that’s a sin but doesn’t seem that bad.”

“Say you took money from your mom’s purse.”

“Hey, that’s pretty good. I like that. How much?”

“I can’t do everything for you.”

One of my compadres got the bright idea of taking me to mass with him. When I got to his house, his mother made me take off my clothes and put on a pair of his slacks and a dress shirt. I had never been in a church before, and St. Dorothy’s was dark and scary and awe-inspiring. Lots of candles. I had already been told I could not take communion. Imagine my surprise when I learned I couldn’t even sit with the family, but had to go to a special section in the back. Then came the ceremony. The priest didn’t speak English, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand a word he was saying. Everything was rote and repetition. I made a quick decision that I wasn’t missing much in my spiritual darkness and left the building.

Back then I had no inkling that God was personal and loved me and wanted to have a relationship with me. After I learned that (many years later), church became more palatable to me. It’s not even about the building.

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To shave or not to shave

photo by karen

I have never liked shaving. During my teaching career, I went by the every-other-day rule—or tried to. Part of the reason I shaved is because Karen wanted me to. Much as I tried to sell her on the Harrison Ford stubble (I even purchased an Indiana Jones hat!), she never bought it. Another reason I shaved is because she is right—I just can’t pull off the “beard” look. It would be a kindness to call mine scraggly. I admire a fine beard (my former student Tyler Collins has a fabulous one!). But when you look at a bearded guy, don’t you make an internal judgment as to whether he’s doing it out of a sense of aesthetics or laziness?

But we do things differently in the time of corona. With Karen’s blessing, I decided to let it grow. I had tried it once or twice before, generally when Karen was traveling to spend time with our kids/grandkids. The results were not encouraging. And it never grew long enough to stop itching! I was resigned to remaining beardless. However, now all the conditions lined up perfectly: the only people who would see me regularly were my golf cronies (who care even less about how I look than how I play), and my family on Facetime, and bi-weekly grocery store patrons. And I even had my wife’s approval.

As you can tell from my intro photo, now I have decided to let it go (the half-and-half look did have a fleeting appeal to me—wasn’t it Springsteen who sang “Two faces have I…”?). Why? I gotta admit, the not shaving was a definite perk. And grown out more fully, my beard didn’t look as bad as I expected. But the minuses outweigh the plusses. Two months on, the damn thing still itches. We’re not supposed to be touching our faces, and that’s more difficult when you have a beard. If you toss and turn in bed, the beard can become insomnial. Though you don’t have to shave, you still have to trim. And I just don’t feel quite as clean after a shower with a beard.

Me and my children still Zoom on Saturday nights. It wasn’t a group decision, but all four of the men started letting their facial hair grow when we began quarantining. Now there’s only one left (though several decisions to shave were influenced by work proprieties). Mine came off today. I look younger and Karen likes it better. It’s all good.

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Fate vs. Chance

It’s the age-old debate—so ancient we no longer think about it. Put it another way: God’s will vs. man’s choice. or predestination vs. free will. In my post-adolescent years, we’d debate about it into the night, and in my early Christian years, we’d search the Bible for pat answers to it. It never has been resolved to my satisfaction.

Why do I bring it up? It seems especially relevant to me in these times, and the relevance lies in our decisions to go out that front door. My wife and I see the choice a little differently, as I expect most couples do. Neither of us takes an extreme position: I do not throw caution to the wind, and she does not huddle in our house.

Here is my side of the coin: God really is in control of my life. I try to make the best choices I can make, but I can’t control the ultimate outcome of those choices. It is impossible for me to get Covid-19 without God knowing about it. That would be fate. Don’t get me wrong—I don’t want it. But I am not going to worry about getting it because God loves me and will use whatever circumstances to draw me nearer to Him.

Here is how I imagine the other side of the coin: God gives you a brain because He wants you to use it. Yes, He will bring you through whatever circumstances befall you, but He is going to expect you to live with the consequences of your choices. You know the best way to avoid Covid-19: stay home as much as you can, practice social distancing, wear a mask, wash your hands… If you don’t do that, you might very well be okay; but if you do get Covid-19, don’t blame God. That is chance.

I’m willing to bet most of my readers lean toward that side of the coin. I don’t blame them—it makes perfect sense. That is the intelligent response to the virus. But do you see that I am right, too? If you are a person of faith, you probably hold all of the statements in my paragraph to be true. The two sides of the coin are compatible. Mine is about attitude and the other is about action. Faith without works is dead.

God is speaking to me more about balance these days. Karen and I are living together more intensely (as we all are), and we’re learning that balance works between us as well as within us. Take things in stride, shake things off, be kind to each other. There are many spiritual lessons available to us in these times.

I don’t think the God’s will vs. free choice dilemma is supposed to be resolved. This is the best explanation of the conflict that I have ever heard: Life is a journey and I am walking on a railroad track. The rail on my left is fate, and the one on my right is chance. Every step forward I take, the left and right rails remain on my sides, equidistant from each other. Step after step. It is only when I look to the horizon, at the end of the journey, that the two rails meld into one.

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Ascia

Portrait of Ascia by Karen

As distant and estranged as I felt from my father growing up (hmm, Father’s Day essay?), so I seemed attached and connected to my mother. Not in a cloying, spend-lots-of-time-together way–in fact, I don’t remember ever spending much time with her. But somehow, my mother got me. There was one stretch, somewhere between grades five and ten, where she had a spy planted in the midst of my life. No matter what prank, misdeed or devilment that I performed, my mother was aware of it before the sun went down. My sisters swore their innocence (and how would they know, anyway?), and my brother’s loyalty was beyond question. Truth is, I didn’t mind her peephole into my life since she observed my deeds more with bemusement than moral reserve, perceiving the antic inside of the crime. No, if I truly displeased my mother, her response was always the same: “Wait until your father gets home.” (Please don’t use that tactic, current mothers!)

I have often wondered how Ascia would assess her own life. I suspect she would express disappointment. I believe she felt called to greater things than being housewife and mother to a husband and six children, which is an accurate if cold assessment of her accomplishments (albeit she left most of the actual housewifing and mothering to Dowanee, my live-in grandmother). Ascia was a dreamer, not a doer. In fact, I believe I share a hidden trait with all five of my siblings–we ascribe to (but would never acknowledge) an underlying belief that we are somehow superior (intellectually? morally? spiritually?) to the common masses–that we are of a higher ilk. We got that from Ascia. Come to think, Carl probably shared that conviction–he was always attributing things to our tartar blood–so it’s a recessive gene! (Lest I appear a raging egomaniac, I’d like to state that 70 years of observation have taught me that the trait is delusional–but present nonetheless.)

Raskelnikov comes to mind. In my mid-twenties I went on a Russian literature jag. I read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, the stories of Chekhov, even some Solzhenitsyn. I loved their extremism–the extremity of their depression, of their joy, of their aspirations and their cataclysms. And in retrospect, I realize that I was bonding with my mother.

A second topic of wonderment regarding my mother is what she actually did with her time. I just don’t remember her being around very much even though she was always there. (Dowanee was the omnipresent one.) She was a voracious reader, she loved to play bridge, she enjoyed the company of her neighborhood friends (“cronies,” she called them). I don’t remember her gardening much, but she must have because we had lots of plants and our yard was well-maintained–I’m sure we wouldn’t have hired someone. Perhaps the reason I don’t remember her being around is because I avoided her even more than she avoided me.

There was nothing she liked to do more than outrage and shock. My parents did some entertaining–cocktail parties, Christmas parties, barbecues. Those of us who were home would dutifully greet the guests when they arrived and then be banished up to our rooms while the grown-ups partied downstairs. I remember there would be intermittent burst of wild raucous laughter, and I knew it was inspired by something my mother said or did. She was no great beauty–her features were Slavic, almost homely–but there was something about her face that held your interest. She would meet your gaze with a vivacity, an audacity, a composure that was daunting. I know my father thought she was beautiful. There would sometimes be fights between my mother and father after these parties ended. I believe my mom was a tremendous flirt, and my dad would get jealous.

She didn’t confine her outrageous behavior to her own social circle. She loved to corner our friends and engage them in “soulful” conversations. Her best trick was to steer the conversation in a certain direction, set her victim up, and then drop a bomb. Her favorite target was girlfriends:

Mom: So, Karen, Dallin tells me you minor in art. What do you do?

Karen: Well, I like to draw.

Mom: Oh, yes. Dallin’s old girlfriend–Lou, did he tell you? She was a

guitar player and a singer. She was fantastic. She sang right here

in this room.

My friends either loved her or feared her.

She was just as bad a grandmother. Our first family reunion was in Seaside, Oregon when Bethany was seven years old. She had spent very little time with either grandparents on my side since they had moved to the West Coast before she was born. My old friend Randy lived near Portland, so he came to visit for a day and brought his six-year-old daughter Alex. My mother, responding to some self-perceived slight from me or Karen or Bethany, proceeded to shower all her attention and affection on Alex. Bethany was devastated. I’m sorry to say that both of my parents were crappy grandparents, their overlying attitude toward all their grandchildren being one of apathy. My dad used to say that people didn’t really interest him until they were old enough to hold an intelligent conversation. By time my children were there, he was dead. One of Ascia’s crowning gestures came at a Christmas we celebrated in Texas. Some of my family and some of Karen’s family were present. Nathan and Zachary eagerly opened their gift from Grandma Ascia. They each got a box of condoms. Nate was fourteen and Zack was twelve.

I think she took all her pent-up familial love and diverted it toward animals. You never met a woman for ooohing and aaahing over creatures–dogs, cats, ducks, and birds. She hated zoos. She considered it her ministry to care for any stray, lost, mistreated or just out of sorts animal that appeared on the horizon. She was effusive in her affection, and that’s the only place I ever saw it.

She was a hard woman, a difficult woman, but I loved her and she loved me. She came to visit me shortly after I went to prison, and when I came to the glass window, beaten and bloodied, her look contained such love and compassion and sorrow–it steadied me.

Ascia went out on her own terms. She had said for the past few years that being an “octogenarian” was plenty for her. One day she took her dog Tut out for a walk, got tangled in his leash, and fell and broke her hip. She decided not to recover. My sisters who lived on the West Coast contacted those of us who didn’t, and we all gathered to sit by her deathbed. I remember when I walked into her hospital room, fresh from Texas. She looked up at me, the ghost of a smile flickered across her face, and she said, “I have AIDS.”

We took shifts sitting by her bedside as her consciousness faded, as her breathing became more and more shallow, as her face became skeletal. When Karen and I were alone with her, we blabbered in her ear about Jesus and God’s love and eternal life. If anything registered, she sure didn’t show it.

But I don’t think she would have.

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