sharing oxygen
Someone’s hand was on my shoulder. In the distance, I heard words forming, nearly obliterated by the rising sound of water rushing, cascading into my head, saying, “I’m so very sorry about your sister.” And, “I had no idea she was that ill.” Or, “How are you? If there’s anything I can do ...”
My sister Judy had passed away quickly, unexpectedly, and I was struggling to make sense of it all. I stood in the back of the room for quite a while, too uncomfortable to make my way to her casket. I talked with my family, greeted old friends, and chatted briefly with others who had come to pay their respects.
In a genuinely affectionate manner, I’d become the object of other people’s discomfited pity. I neither disparaged nor rejected the sympathies; they were meant honestly, and it was no one’s fault that human language so poorly serves unfeigned emotion.
When I finally made my way to my sister’s casket, I thought about a whitewater rafting trip I’d taken years ago with a group of friends to New River Gorge in West Virginia. Although they were seasoned rafters, it was my first time (and yes, I’ll blame it on being a very pale redhead who hates the sun). We were in class three and four rapids, pushing hard into the roil. Suddenly our bow got caught in an undertow, stopping us cold; as the raft shuddered violently, the rear flipped upwards throwing several of us out. I landed on my knees on a gravel bar, tumbling into the water, out of control and searching for oxygen. I briefly panicked not knowing where my friends were, but as I came up, I saw them being pulled into the raft. Relieved, I did as instructed: I relaxed back in the water, fifty yards downstream from the ejection, and more moderately buffeted, hearing shouts and conversation garbled through the garrulous water.
Mildly surreal, disconnected beneath the hazy sky and above the sunken ground, I sucked in air that I’d read somewhere had been breathed by Jesus, Einstein, Newton, Aristotle, and untold others.
Suddenly, another of my sister’s friends came upon me and pulled me back to that late November day. As I considered the weight and warmth of her hand upon my shoulder, the softness and depth of the eyes that evaluated my own, the words pouring in to which I made a conditioned, autonomic response, I inhaled sharply and remembered that I no longer shared that oxygen with her.
