For Lora…

I’ve been very fortunate to have remarkable women in my life.

Blessed, above and beyond, I have to say; you certainly should be very jealous of me for this. You should be so jealous in fact that you stop reading this and immediately pull up a separate Word document and begin typing out your own list of names.

Because, I have no doubt, you could list several remarkable women yourself.

As a matter of fact, I think this is exactly what you should do.

Go on.

I’ll give you five minutes.

I’m more than happy to wait for five minutes, don’t worry.

Five minutes later…

Believe it or not, my mother made my list.

It took some convincing on my part, but, hands down, I will openly admit that she is, nevertheless, a most remarkable woman.

Sometimes, the flaws are what give you your color. But never let it be doubted that I love her.

There were a few that you might expect to make my list, as well, if you read this blog often enough, and they certainly did make the list, so let me put your mind at ease about that. I’d rather not have a list if it didn’t include Annie, Nana, YaYa, even GamVa and Aunt Rub with her brave wheelchair, or Aunt Ruth with her toilet paper folding obsessions.

And of course, and always, there’s Tigi.

Tigi, who once when I was upset about something, I was hardly halfway between five and six years old, so God only knows what had upset me. Probably an episode of Godzilla, but whatever it was, I cried and cried and cried and she stepped out from the kitchen and asked me what on earth was the matter.

Whatever it was, I told her, and she walked over to the couch, sat down on it, patted the empty space beside her. I obliged, still in tears.

She cupped her hands together and told me to give her some of them. The tears.

I distinctly recall crying over her hands, and soon after, I stopped. She lifted her hands to her eyes and said, “Hm.”

Curiously, I stretched my neck up, higher, to see what she saw, in my tears.

I asked, “What, Tigi. What?”

And she said, “I’ll swan, there’s not a thing in here to cry about. Look,” and she brought her hands down to my level, so I could see inside them, “There’s nothing dirty in you at all. You’re just a sweet, pure angel, with not a thing in the world to cry about. See? You can look clear through them.”

She was a remarkable woman.

She died when I was eight. I was always secretly enchanted having known her, born in the 19^th century, while here I am, mulling my days in the 21^st.

I dreamed about her for a long, long time after her funeral.

It used to frighten me, to see her in my dreams; sometimes, it would keep me up at night. I always thought of sleeping as my safe place, to get out of the day, or the world, and away from the Plaguing Life.

But, not even a year later, I lost Annie. This was another terrible, deafening blow in my childhood.

Annie was one of my three pillars. I eventually began to realize then that sleeping was nothing other than a an invitation, a party with a living photo album. I could miss these women all day long, and then talk to them at night, in my dreams. I began to look forward to it, on occasion.

And not a moment too soon, because it seemed that every two, three years or so, I lost another one of my remarkable women.

Sadly, I lost another one this week.

I may have come late to the glory of Lora, but it wasn’t out of reluctance, or disinterest. And anyway, what has made all the difference is that I made it at all. That I came, even if late.

I came late because she was so quiet, it was often easy to forget that she was there, in the background, and yet never the background. I think she preferred that, in a lot of ways. Lora was a solid, strong, independent woman who quietly gave support to the things she believed in.

I’m grateful I was one of those things.

I think that now, after feeling the pure warmth that her quiet sense of glory gave me; I see that now, after she faced her own red devils, head-first. I say that now, after spending hours on the road with her, to and from the hospital, hours in those cold waiting rooms, hours at her bedside.

I’m not, in any way, trying to suggest I did even one little thing that made a difference, in the long run. I just gave what I could, and that, you see, is what made her such a beautiful and remarkable woman.

Because she never asked for more than that. Than what you were, who you were, or just that you were.

I, personally, have never known what it means to be remarkable, myself, but I know exactly what it feels like.

It feels like making jokes about chemo and its dietary effects, while watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta, while trying to grade papers with aggravating tubes shoved in your arm, while circling the parking lot because she wouldn’t leave Flowood without making my buy that book I’d wanted, while playing Find the Item at Target, while dodging a TV crew at El Potrillo filming their latest commercial, where we ate a quick dinner one afternoon and she and Nana got to meet each other, while stopping for French fries and Diet Cokes on the way back to Starkville, while “stealing” face masks from the front desk at the University Medical Center, while running back to the car to get the umbrella, while reminding Pattye that I’d easily earned a bottle of champagne after that particularly long wait for the treatment, while laughing, while laughing, while laughing, while laughing.

We did it all while laughing.

And that’s what it feels like, that’s what being remarkable feels like.

She made the Every Day good.  Even when it was so very, awfully bad.

I finally cried today, and then right smack in the middle of my tears, dirtier now than they used to be, I laughed. That may seem trite to hear, or read, but I laughed.

I recalled an afternoon when I misunderstood what I was supposed to do at the hospital and barged in on Lora fully undressing for a rather intimate exam. I stood frozen, embarrassed, apologetic, and she looked up at me, and said, “Well, take a seat. We’ll make this a teachable moment. Kris, this is Dr. Thigpen.”

I learned more in that one afternoon than I have yet to date.

And now, I can’t wait to see Lora in my dreams.  I’m hoping she gets through her Tour Upstairs and soon.  I still have a few things I’d like to talk to her about, a couple things I really meant to say, and there’ll be introductions to make: Lora this is Annie, YaYa, say hello, and so forth.

I’m afraid that she’s taking her sweet time, Upstairs, though, and on purpose.  I can’t blame her; she’s clocked enough car time with me to know that once I start talking, I talk.

But she never said a word about it, and no, it wasn’t because she couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

It’s because she could do even the simplest things remarkably, like listening.

And the thing is, she never knew just how remarkable something like that really was.

. . . . .

So, with a smile on my face and firmly so, please let me say: I’ll talk to you later, Lora.

…just let me get some gas, first.

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