I just heard on the news about the death of William Buckley, the conservative writer/pundit. He had a distinctive manner of speaking, rather akin to a really cross, judgmental deity. There will be other conservatives ready to replace him, though lately, the voices of the conservatives tend to be the idiot sort, not the well-educated. I can listen to and tolerate and even engage in discussion with conservatives who don't immediately resort to name-calling and knee-jerk bandwagon sentiments. The offshoots of Rush Limbaugh, though, I cannot abide.
Joe Williams, an extremely important voice in Rhetoric and Composition, author of the widely used Style: Ten Elements in Clarity and Grace, has also left us. He will be missed. The reports haven't hit the news--what does the general world care about a brilliant writer and theorist of writing?--but on my listserv, it was reported that he died peacefully in his sleep. If I actually believed in punishment and reward of a heavenly sort, I'd have to say that the best reward for a life lived well is to die simply and quietly. To heck with Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gently into that good night. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light." Although--I must confess--I wanted my father to fight dying, but he was too weak. He simply slipped away. The older I get, as much as I fear death, as much as I want to keep living and learning and being, the more I understand just getting too damned tired to fight or even to care.
On what is (I hope) a happier note, it's my sister's birthday. She was born in 1963, but she looks older than I do by far. Her poor health, missing teeth, addictions--these have ripped youth from her face with a crowbar. I'll call her later today, and to be bluntly honest, I almost hope I don't catch her at home. The last time I saw her was at Christmas, and I don't think I've talked to her more than once since then. She was bemoaning her family's poverty, telling us that she and her husband might have to divorce so that they can keep medicaid for their daughter who has cerebral palsy. It's been a very, very long time since talking to her was an uplifting experience, and I should not avoid her, but I do. I should not have to feel guilty for being reasonably successful, but I do. Every time I contemplate spending money on anything that doesn't go for life upkeep, I think of my family, of their poverty and despair, and the guilt rides over me like an army of fire ants. Gee, surprise, surprise. This turned out not to be a happier note at all.
I want it to be, though. If I could tell the world about who she used to be--if she could still BE that person--that would be good. So here goes with the telling: I was ten when she was born. She was an adorable butterball of a baby, with curly brown hair and big blue eyes (that later turned green). She was good-natured, loving, gentle, and everyone's favorite. To virtually everyone in the family, she wasn't just Sally. She was "Sallybaby." Said as one word. When she was still a baby, she developed whooping cough, which delayed her walking until she was nearly two years old. We carried her, we big sisters and big brother, and if we had a reason to set her down, there was always someone else to pick her up.
We've been picking her up ever since. She's made one dumb move after another, it would seem. She barely finished high school. She refused to go to college. She married the biggest lump of dumb that had ever graduated from their high school. They had several babies. Amanda, the oldest, was killed one cold December night while riding as a passenger in the car of a school chum, who was also killed. Sally blames herself for letting Amanda go with the girl. They were too young to drive. It was the girl's mother who lost control of the car. The mother walked away from the accident, but the two girls died. Another baby (also a girl) was born too early in the pregnancy and died nine hours later. Another baby was miscarried. The last child was born too early, but survived and has cerebral palsy. With such tragedies to endure, it is no surprise that Sally became an addict. First it was food. Then pills. Then alcohol. Then cigarettes. I think she's still taking pills because she is so erratic, her voice so slurred.
Now she is in her mid-forties and lives on disability. Her house is such a wretched stinking cesspool of filth that I can't bear to be inside it for longer than it takes to say "Hello." I don't want to eat there, drink coffee there, or go to the bathroom there. How her daughter survives, I don't know. She stays sick, facing at least one life-threatening illness after another. But I can't help. I worry that if I send money to Sally, she'll use it for something like pills or cigarettes. When I send "things" to her, I know they'll wind up misused, broken, pushed into a corner with the trash, drug into the yard and torn up and left to degrade the appearance of the house even further. (An expensive electronic chair, the kind you see on the commercials that older people and the disabled use to get around, sits torn up and rotting in the yard. It's been there for at least a year.)
I've stopped believing that one day, things will change for them. What will happen is that Sally will die prematurely, her child will be institutionalized or given over to the care of someone who won't give a damn about her, and the hole that has lived in my heart for so long will grow even larger with the loss. That said--I still hope Sally has a good birthday. Dr. S.
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