There are only so many tomorrows.

After weeks of hearing me talk about them incessantly, my friend, Lucas, came with me to visit Earl and Sarah about a week and a half ago. Their place really looks fantastic; a church group from Ohio came down for YouthFest and we were able to do a huge clean-up in the yard and paint the trailer. The results were remarkable, and Earl, Sarah, and their family were thrilled with them. And I was thrilled to have been able to help them to obtain something that they wanted so badly.

Lucas is a great story-teller, and I couldn’t wait for him to get to talk to Earl. Entering their home is always such a treat for me, and I was eager to share the experience with a member of my Jackson House family. Anything that’s worrying me outside their door melts away with Sarah’s bear hug and Earl’s kiss on the cheek, and I settle myself in for a visit filled with genuine warmth and hospitality. On this particular day, their son, Marshall, was over. He was freshly home from the hospital after nearly dying; he’d had a heart attack, and if his brother hadn’t found him in time, he wouldn’t have been with us that day. He filled me in on the details of his near-death experience. Forty-five years old, Marshall had almost a child-like quality about him. Despite his goatee and buzzed white-blonde hair, his perfectly round eyes and earnest manner in recounting the story reminded me of a kid trying to explain his way out of a broken window, baseball bat in hand. He lit up a cigarette as he detailed the shunts that had been put into his heart to prevent further complications. I allowed myself a small smile at this as I continued to give him my full attention.

We stayed for about an hour; Earl could have easily talked to Lucas about his truck-driving days all afternoon, but we had a few more stops to make before night fell. Earl and Sarah gave both of us big hugs, asked us to come again soon, and walked outside to bid us farewell. As we were pulling away, I saw Marshall with a new cigarette in his mouth. “Marshall,” I yelled out the window with a grin. “You just had heart surgery, dude. You gotta quit those things. They’ll kill you.” He smiled sheepishly, saying, “I know, I know.”

I attended Marshall’s wake tonight.

He was clothed in a white, slightly wrinkled polo shirt. His casket was very simple, with fake flowers adorning the foot of it.

I received word that Marshall had passed late this afternoon when Sarah called Family Advocacy - she’d apparently misplaced my number - and asked them to pass the message along, saying that she really wanted me to be at the viewing. I pulled into the funeral home’s parking lot, and was greeted with the sight of a huge group of people standing around outside the building. I walked toward the crowd, and spotted Sarah at about the same time she saw me. I saw her draw in a sharp breath, and she began to elbow her way out of the middle of her guests.

“There you are! I was afraid you wouldn’t get here!” She finally got to me and threw her arms around my neck.
“I’m so sorry, Sarah,” I spoke into her gray hair.
“Thank you, baby. He ain’t sufferin’ no more,” she replied, looking up with sad eyes. “Let me introduce you to the rest of my family.”

She took me around the parking lot, and I shook hands with the children I hadn’t yet met. Then she brought me inside to see Earl.

He was sitting against the wall, staring at the floor in front of him blankly. I’d only ever seen his eyes when they snapped with a bright blue flame in conjunction with a witty remark. Or when they endeavored - unsuccessfully - to hold back a sparkle under his hawkish white eyebrows in anticipation of a good story. Now, they were torn by an immeasurable pain that dwelled deep within them. It was as if I could see his broken heart through those eyes, and they caused my heart to break, too. He saw me, stood up, and hugged me. I told him how sorry I was, and his response was to ask about Lucas, to say that he thought the world of him, and to tell me how much he and Sarah loved me. Even at his lowest point, Earl took it upon himself to teach me about love.

Once inside the temporarily empty chapel area, I spent a few moments with Marshall and said a prayer for him and his family before the parking lot crowd began to make its way inside. While I was still at the front of the room, Sarah came in and slipped her arm around my waist. And that’s where she kept it as people began to filter into the room. At first, I was a little uncomfortable; I figured that her family would want to be next to the casket with her, and that I had no business standing there as she greeted the mourners. On the contrary, though, as each person came up to pay their respects, Sarah would hug them with her left arm - her right arm still firmly around me - and would say, “This is the CAP lady who painted my trailer. She’s my baby.” In between guests, she would rest her head on my shoulder, hold me close to her, and murmur all of her “why” questions into my sweater.

Earl came in to check on Sarah at one point, and he put his arm around her, holding onto my wrist which was resting on her shoulder. The three of us stood there in a familial embrace, the two of them exchanging looks full of hurt and worry for one another, and my heart threatening to burst at having the privilege of once again bearing witness to their simple and overwhelmingly authentic love story.

As the evening wore on, I came to understand that my role there wasn’t “transient volunteer.” It wasn’t even “CAP lady.” For some beautiful reason that continues to be beyond my understanding, Earl and Sarah had made me a part of their family. I didn’t have to ask for it, and I didn’t even know it was happening until I was already in love with them. They allowed their broken hearts to expand to include me. And for that, I consider myself to be incredibly blessed.

Angel

I’m partial to the FoxNews channel.

As such, I’ve never watched a single broadcast of CBS Evening News. Nor did I ever catch Katie Couric in her role as the perky wake-up call on the Today show. On the whole, I’m fairly unfamiliar with much of her work and, frankly, entirely uninterested. The same cannot be said for Clara.

Clara is the roommate of one of my participants who currently resides in a nursing home. My participant, Violet, is a doll. Her hands are crippled beyond repair or use with arthritis, and one can tell by spending time with her that her mind is starting to go, but she bears the carriage of a true southern genteel lady. She is reserved and soft-spoken, but entirely warm and graceful, with impeccable manners. When I give her a hug, her head of wavy white hair fits perfectly under my chin, and I could easily wrap my arms around her tiny frame twice.

If the proprietors of the Owsley County nursing home searched the entire county - no, the entire state - I don’t think that they could have possibly found a roommate for Violet less compatible than Clara. She isn’t old; I’d place her at about fifty. She has brown hair cropped close to her head, and she’s a big lady - in size, presence, and volume. She’s definitely a few fries short of a Happy Meal, so to speak, but I really love chatting with her when I go in to see Violet. Granted, she bogarts the conversation in such a way that I often have to bring Violet someplace else in order to catch up with her. However, the resulting laughs make the minor inconvenience totally worth it.

Clara is the biggest Katie Couric fan I’ve ever met. I mean, I wish I loved anything as much as this woman loves Katie Couric. When she first found out that I hail from New York, her round eyes grew wider, her mouth hung agape, and she asked in an awe-struck voice, “Do you know Katie Couric?” When I answered in the negative, she threw her hands up in the air, sat back, and said, “I’m ashamed of you.” Well.

In the visits that were to follow, we often touched upon the topic of Ms. Couric. Over time, I was able to alter my original answer to the point where I could speak freely about my numerous discussions with the anchor, referencing our BBM correspondence and frequent coffee shop conversation. During my last visit with Violet, Clara handed me a piece of folded yellow paper and gravely gave the order to pass it along to my good friend, Katie. The following passage is a faithful duplicate of the words written therein:

#1 Reporter in the World

To = my best friend Katie Couric =

I want to meet you in person, you can say you are on assignment. I have watched loved you and admired you for years.
fly into Lexington Ky., rent a red Toyota Camry, come to Booneville, Ky., the nursing home. Make sure you make it interesting.
Your best friend Clara

(over)

Eventually, I want to be called Angel.

Katie, I asked Charlotte at the Hazard hospital how you were, I was told I was you. Katie, will you it was or is possible, help me and let me tell you the truth about God and Jesus and me.

I will tell the truth.

As I took the note, Clara looked up slyly at me and asked, “Are you an angel?” I smiled, shook my head, and said, “No, but I’ve been told that you are.” She threw back her head and howled with laughter. As Violet and I slowly walked down the hallway lined with people forgotten and discarded by society, I could hear Clara’s laugh still, punctuated by the exclamation, “An angel!”

And yes, I am absolutely sending that note to Katie Couric.

Another mark against flip flops.

Since I’ve come here, I’ve had to defend my flip flop wear on more than one occasion. Granted, I had to do that all the time in New York, especially during the winter months. But there are enough people on Long Island who forego the comforts of closed-toed shoes to make me look relatively normal or, at the very worst, like a rebellious bohemian (thanks, Dad). Here, it’s generally regarded as nuts. Presumably, this is because shoes were such a precious commodity for most of my participants when they were growing up, so the idea of someone choosing not to wear shoes - particularly in snow or mud - is pretty crazy.

Nevertheless, as I have for over four years now, I continue to stubbornly wear my multi-colored collection of two-dollar, rubber-soled podiatric noise-makers. So, when it was decided that my housemates and I would help to clean up our street with some of our neighbors in recognition of Earth Day, I thought nothing of setting out with a pair of basic brown flippies. We split up upon leaving the house, armed with bags, gloves, and a tenacity that would have put Al Gore himself to shame.

My friend Kristen and I headed up towards Camp AJ. We skipped our way along the road, looking for pieces of trash to pick up, bursting at the seams with a burning desire to rid Sandlick Road of any and all refuse. Imagine our chagrin when we discovered that there weren’t nearly as many “trashes” on the road as we’d anticipated. Not wanting to be the team that came up short, we started to look off-road for our treasure. I suppose it was about fifteen minutes into the project when we thought we’d hit our payload.

We both spotted it at the same time: a neat little row of cans and bottles down the embankment, resting comfortably on a bed of dry leaves. We knew what we had to do. For God, country, and Mother Earth, we had to get down there to retrieve them. We picked different places at the side of the road to make our way down the steep slope and gingerly began to sidestep to the bottom. Kristen made it down quickly and successfully. Me? Well, not so much.

I slipped and slid the short way down which, in and of itself, was nothing to write home about. It’s no secret that grace is not a God-given aspect of my nature; I mean, let’s face it, how I’ve made it this far without major catastrophic incident is miraculous. Kristen and I both laughed at me when I stopped. Mid-snort, though, I looked down to address a sudden, sharp pain in the bottom of my foot. And, wouldn’t you know it, there was a broken soda bottle stuck in there. It’d gone right through my flip flop and directly into my heel.

Kristen and I just sort of contemplated it for a while. Then, given that the puncture was on the bottom of my foot, it started to bleed pretty freely. Kristen sprung into action, removing the bottle and promptly cuffing my jeans so as to avoid blood stains (following the order of my own priorities). We were pretty much at a loss for what to do next after that, so she helped me back up to the road and I began to limp my way back to the house, leaving Valley Forge-style bloody footprints on the pavement.

Lucas intercepted us and graciously offered to help me back up to the house, volunteering himself as a human crutch. I swear, it really wasn’t that bad. It looked much worse than it actually was. All the same, he patiently cleaned and bandaged the wound, and I nearly felt as good as new. I carefully limped out into the kitchen, where I was asked by the housemates coming in - fresh off the victory won from an hour’s work of picking up trash and beautifying the earth - when my last tetanus shot was. I couldn’t remember, but reassured them that I’d be perfectly fine and that the inoculation would be entirely unnecessary. I was quickly voted down, though, and when the threat was made to call my dad about it, I consented to bring myself to a Booneville clinic.

The waiting room of this particular clinic is decorated appropriately for its clientele. The beige walls sport three different mounted animals, and I overheard one patient telling another about the coon he’d killed in his yard just a half hour before. When everything was said and done, though, I got the shot. I did not get lockjaw. And I will continue to wear flip flops until my arches fall. But, given that my grandmother’s reading this, I’ll make the promise to wear thick-soled shoes for the next trash clean-up.