This Life

“That those who are enslaved or live in poverty may need faith in God to carry on with their lives is not a reason to promote religious faith but a reason to abolish slavery and poverty.”
— Martin Hägglund

Sharon Elaine Long McNabb, Part 1

My Mom died this past April, at the age of 82. It was a haunting, terrible end; a slow motion, inescapable nightmare that concluded, for me, in quiet bitterness. All the way to her last breath I believe my Mom was still there, fully functioning, fully alive and aware, but trapped behind a wall of brain seizures that kept her hidden away and her body unresponsive. In those final weeks, on the few occasions she briefly awoke and broke through, we were filled with cautious hope that was quickly replaced by increasing despair as she slipped back under a wall of sleep. She was still there, the entirety of my Mom that friends and family knew and loved, my Mom who had walked this earth with me for all of my 54 years. She was there, trapped and unreachable, until her heart eventually surrendered and wiped her from this Earth.

In the end her medical doctors were rendered ineffectual; the scope of their knowledge and available treatment options ending where my Mom’s predicament began. They saw the rapid fire and chaotic brain seizures, but could not determine their source. The pharmaceuticals (and all combinations thereof) they tried all failed, and brought them no closer to understanding what was happening. They resorted to backwards engineering, eliminating potential sources and hoping they would, in the process, happen upon the actual cause or causes. But as the days passed the only thing that became clear is that the medical staff tasked to save my Mom, couldn’t. And at some point they stopped trying, and began ending her life as painlessly and quietly as possible, through a combination of dehydration and starvation, muted and smoothed over by painkillers.

There is no good way to lose someone you love. Tidy, dignified ends are undoubtedly rare, and happenstance; Nature is indifferent to individual beings, blind to the concept of dignity or love; doctors are only occasional saviors, and despite her unfailing spirit my Mom’s body had become fragile and tired after what seemed like a lifetime of physiological and pathogenic assaults. But she was my Mom, and we had so much more to do, and to experience, and so much more life to live before she left.

sleeping

I track where I lay my head each evening, more out of curiosity than anything, although it sprang from an original requirement while living in Europe to track my daily physical location for tax purposes.

I was home nearly 2/3 of the time, the result of the pandemic’s muting effect on travel in general. Which also explains why I did not have any overnights on a plane, which has happened once or twice every year in the past.

I spent two nights at the hospital, standing vigil with my Mom in her last days.

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The Friendly Skies

This year I will have flown around 40,000 miles on commercial airlines. Nearly 3/4 of those miles were on American, I fact I began to truly regret as what was an already terribly mediocre company began to buckle under the weight of the pandemic.

I passed through 50 airports, 26 security security checks, seven customs and immigration screenings, and—knock on wood—did not have any lost or delayed luggage.

Commercial airline travel has become something to be endured unfortunately, not enjoyed. It is an unrelenting gauntlet, a thousand opportunities to become stranded, lost, delayed, humiliated, offended, and/or relentlessly put upon by the least competent, least caring individuals who by some cruel stroke of luck have landed an airport job that imbues them with far more power and authority than what either their intellect or demeanor would otherwise ever afford.

Bear Spray

A few months ago Stewart and I visited the Grand Teton National Park with my cousins. All very beautiful, diminished somewhat from the smoke from Western fires, but since the human race has wholesale botched the entire climate change crisis I suppose that will be the new normal. Anyhoo, bear spray. Perhaps a little overkill in the front country where every third person has a canister of it and who collectively could expel an ecosystem full of bears from the forests, but on one of the last days I went hiking alone and so picked up a can at the grocery store before heading out.

The spray’s directions begin with the bear charging at you and still about 40 feet away, although it then clarifies that the 40 feet translates into 2 to 3 seconds before being mauled to death. So release the safety pin, aim like you life depended on it because it really really does depend on it, pull the trigger, and pray you are upwind of the bear. If you are not upwind, and/or the wind gods are not in your favor, the instructions state you may have to wait until the bear is quite close before initiating the spray. Just going on intuition here, 2 to 3 seconds feels pretty close to me, which is where the instructions started best case, so I’m not sure why they felt obliged to tell you to wait another..half second?…before letting the bear have it.

No bear sightings that day, so I felt fortunate, but hardly comforted by the orange can I held in my hand for most of the hike.

Traveling

This year I’ve completed a number of helicopter cross countries; one from just outside of Philadelphia all the way down the U.S. coastline to the Lesser Antilles. And then no less than three round trips between San Diego and Sacramento. Can’t imagine the mortifyingly large carbon footprint one creates by going such distances in a helicopter, but on the bright side I feel personally enriched by the experience.

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Wild Horses

One of the routes I take when mountain biking in San Diego is multi-use, with hikers, walkers, bicyclists and people on horseback sharing the dirt track. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember, and I’ve generally not encountered any issues.

Until yesterday.

While passing a horse who was consumed with eating a patch of golf course grass growing beyond the fence, an older lady felt compelled to call to me and explain I must give a heads up before passing horses, and then when passing only to do so quite slowly. She seemed passionate, and so I listened as long as I could stand and then lamely said something like ‘will do!’ as I started pedaling away with her in mid-sentence. Unfortunately I was in the middle of a looping subsection of the trail, so 15 minutes later I came upon her from behind again, this time with them slowly sauntering along. I shouted out my presence, clearly startling her, but she recovered enough to determine I was going too fast and so barked out ‘slow! slow!’ to me as I passed. I smiled and waved but kept pedaling this time. Regrettably our paths crossed a third time, thanks karma, with similar results. If she hadn’t hated me after our first encounter, she certainly did after the last.

I get it, with horses. No need to spook them unnecessarily, and create unnecessary drama. But a few observations: these horses are for the most part utterly defeated, middle-aged animals who are resigned to their fate of cramped, hot, spartan captivity, and being occasionally ridden by (mostly) middle-aged women who thought horseback riding might be a really cool hobby. Two, I am a middle-aged, generally not-athletic guy who does not pedal much faster than 8 miles an hour on level ground. The horses probably hear me several hundred yards away, and my blazing speed has never elicited more than a bored glance from them. And, perhaps more to the point: it’s your horse, just like for dog walkers it’s their dog. If you can’t control them around entirely predictable interactions with other people and bicyclists, perhaps you should choose a more isolated trail.

Red Lines

Yesterday I was texting with a friend whom I’ve known for many years. Funny, affable, and intelligent, I have always appreciated and enjoyed her company. During the conversation I randomly happened to ask her if she had any travel plans coming up; she said no, while simultaneously, obliquely hinting she had not been vaccinated after noting she couldn’t travel on commercial airlines. I was completely taken aback. When I pressed her as to why, she curtly stated it was an ‘emergency’ vaccine that she apparently felt was too dangerous and/or unproven. It became clear I had crossed a red line for her, and the conversation abruptly ended.

Fringe pseudo-news sources such as Fox News, and the Fox News wannabes like OAN, have always angered me. They peddle the absolute worst kind of journalism, via the worst possible frontmen and women, and their effect on the political atmosphere in the U.S. is unconscionable. And yet a not-insignificant number of my family, and a few of my friends, have been partially or wholly taken in by their conspiracy theories and endless partisan fear-mongering. With family there is not much one can do, but with friends it is utterly baffling to experience, and more than that it’s incredibly sad, as it carves out an area of the relationship that is out of bounds and that has to be navigated around. It feels like something has been lost, or that a barrier has been erected.

And for what?

Not because we’ve taken reasoned but opposite positions on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan or the proper role of welfare programs for low income Americans, but because of a patently absurd, unfounded conspiracy theory about the way in which the COVID vaccine was created, tested, and distributed. And to have that belief at the very moment when the country’s healthcare system is reeling from exploding hospital/ICU admissions rates, caused by those very people who bought into the conspiracy theories.