Post 7: Bookends and Bucket Lists

Buffy: “Don’t pet me.”

Bookends and Bucket Lists

This story is bookended by two dear, long-time friends.

14 years ago my friend Anne remarked that she had no time for people who are unwilling to be vulnerable. She is blunt and honest like that, reminding me of my Uncle Ron, who, if you say “that’s interesting” will bellow at you “That’s interesting? That’s INTERESTING? Come on, that doesn’t mean anything!” I love this quality. Afraid I would be relegated to the bin of guarded people and lose a friend, I began to let down my decades in construction walls.

Anne, left, telling it like it is

Uncle Ron: “Why do you put her in boys pajamas?”

Fast forward to the present, Anne no longer lives nearby, but sends me articles and book recommendations frequently. This one, about bucket lists written by a 35-year-old mother with stage IV cancer, struck a chord with me. Kate Bowler writes:

“There is nothing like the tally of a life. All of our accomplishments, ridiculous. All of our striving, unnecessary. Our lives are unfinished and unfinishable. We do too much, never enough and are done before we’ve even started. We can only pause for a minute, clutching our to-do lists, at the precipice of another bounded day. The ache for more - the desire for life itself - is the hardest truth of all.”

For the first time in my life, feeling fiery and extra vulnerable, I sent in a letter to the editor in response. To my delight they published it. I know in terms of being “published” a letter to the editor is a low ladder rung, but I will happily swing on that rung the whole day. Hell, maybe even the whole week. Don’t we all crave a little external validation for that which we are passionate and vulnerable about?

In a major loss for Nashville, my friend Leah moved to New York City a few days ago. I asked her to pick up a copy of the Times, picturing the streets practically carpeted with the meaty paper. She wheeled her bichon Buffy to a Starbucks, two bodegas, and a drugstore before finally finding one at a Rite Aide.

A note about Buffy (that also gives you an idea of the depth of Leah’s heart): Leah went to a senior dog rescue and asked for their hardest to adopt dog. “Ah, I have just the one.” Two staffers carried Buffy to Leah’s car in a box, and when she went to pluck him out of it they stopped her, saying, “oh no, you can’t pick him up.” They slid him out of the box so he could climb into the car via small stairs they had propped up. Turns out old man Buff will bite anyone who touches him. Which is a raw deal, as he is one of those dogs who makes your hand need to pet him: bouncy fluff for days, tiny leather nose, a misleading smile by no fault of his own.

That he and Leah roamed the streets of their new city, risking Buffy doing God-knows-what to get the paper, made it all the more special.

Anyways, here is my letter.

Leah and Buffy leaving Madison for the Big Apple