Contemplating Mortality

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We learned this morning of the too-swift passing of comic George Carlin, soon after the abrupt death of Tim Russert. Unexpected, both, though likely predictable, given their health histories.

Deaths happen abruptly every day. And all you who stop by here from time to time readily recognize those names. If not, go google...

Because right now, I'm contemplating mortality in a much more personal way. Friday evening I got one of "those" calls...a dear cousin, now half a continent away, had died from a massive stroke.

We're too young, we baby boomers think. Such does not happen to us. And yet it does...

Before she was a mom and a wife and a grandmom and a watercolorist and all the other things that formed her adult years, Mary Jo was Aunt Irene's little girl, the only girl with four brothers, Sandy's year-younger cousin—our birthdays only hours apart from being the same date. We shared growing-up years in the way cousins do, family gatherings and holidays, but also walking together to the old Fairgrounds, and sitting on her mom's bed to giggle over who was the cuter Beatle, Paul or George. I still say George.

At 59, she was far too young to go.

There are a lot of families who think those thoughts. The statistical 850 a day who die abruptly from heart attacks. The victims of car accidents or urban violence or the violence we have allowed to be inflicted in Iraq based on lies. The flag-draped coffins coming home under cover of darkness—too young to go.

Some say be patient, just wait, there's change coming, as Frank Rich posited about the future, whoever gets elected, this morning on the Imus Show. But there is also the fierce urgency of now.

There are things that can be done now. There are things that must be done in the future. FISA's immunity for telcos must be stopped now. Democracy where people are valued for more than the money in their wallets must be renewed, and I'm one that doesn't think that can happen without truth and full accounting and accountability for these years.

Our legacy, Mary Jo's and mine, was grandparents who immigrated from Germany long enough ago that we qualify as a Dakota Territory pioneer family, my dad fought in WW II as a Marine. The legacy I crave for my grandson, for her grandchildren, is one of honor and wisdom and the restoration of the promise that drew our ancestors to this land.

Mary Jo Yales...cherished and missed by those who knew and love her still. JoY at her heart, and so I will remember her.
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This Is Our Moment

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For all of us, children of immigrants whether one, two, three or more generations back, who are in this land because of its promise, Barack Obama's win—and it was a win—marks a new moment of promise.

All the rest, today, is dissonant clutter.

The Long War

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War Talk takes on many forms. "Shop, shop, shop..." Or, this morning on CNN, Admiral William C. Fallon telling Kyra Phillips his recent (forced? ya think?) retirement isn't the story, confidence in the chain of command is. Or last night, on The Daily Show, John Stewart grilling Scott McClellan about the intent to mislead as pretty much the prime directive of George Bush and his administration, and ultimately Bush's ability to deceive himself. Mary Cheney shootin' off 'er mouth to the rightwing AIPAC organization about confronting Iran....

Today, on the final primary day of the Democratic nominating process, the attention is understandably focused on whether Barack Obama will lock in the nomination tonight. Will the speech in Minneapolis be "the" speech that kicks off the general election campaign.

But we need to take a moment and consider again why these votes all matter so very much.

This morning, Marine sergeant John (D.J.) Guerrero is undergoing his second surgery on the amputation of his right foot at Fargo's VA hospital. It's been a long, often painful journey that this old soldier has made. First, from the barrio of Sacramento to service in the Marines. And then, when schrapnel shot up the left side of his body, embedded, and took part of his left hand, life brought him to Fargo, where he found a home.

And where he became a good neighbor to a whole community. Tirelessly volunteering for organizations like the NDSU Teammakers and the ND Special Olympics. Co-authoring a series of books with Father William C. Sherman on the various immigrant groups who settled our state. Looking forward to the next book in the works, from the diary of a long-ago immigrant across the plains.

Visiting John yesterday, we chuckled over old times--the peaceniks and the Marine sergeant--for our friendship goes back decades.

John calls himself a poster child for the consequences of Agent Orange, because it's been some 40 years that he has, with too many other servicemen and women like him, struggled for acountability for the damage that weapon of war inflicted upon him...40 years, while it silently ate away at his body.

John was recently at the reunion of A Company, First Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment in Albuquerque when he went to the local VA hospital because his foot was in pretty tough shape. We know about such matters, even if their origin was not war. Rather than staying in Albuquerque for the necessary surgery, he had them bind him up, and he drove the long drive back to Fargo. Back home.

So today, we see the great tapestry of life weave some interesting strands. Two men, old friends, commiserating on the long road of disability ahead. Two men, who when they were young, vagabonded from Fargo to San Diego on a long ago quest for adventure. Now, timeworn and life-tested. One a disabled American veteran. One, my own sunshine.

When a certain politician jokes about Iraq and says 100 years, why not... just remember, even if we're not there in combat, the consequences are indeed that long. It's been four decades, and the consequences of Viet Nam still live within us, all of us.

So send some good karma to prairie country for John Guerrero today. And for all the John Guerreros this current war is making.

Cross-posted today at NorthDecoder.

Migrant Mother

Christmas time brings an image of the iconic Mother. Mary the Virgin, great with child, betrothed, not yet wed, on a trek to be counted.

But another mother has long haunted me. To me, she is the face of the Great Depression, and the face of America. You’ve likely seen her picture, too, captured by the lens of photographer Dorothea Lange. That picture is an iconic image of Mother, too, a product of the Farm Security Administration’s documentary project in those years. Still available, to those who will see, via the Library of Congress' Prints & Photographs Reading Room.

Lange captured more than one image during the time she spent with Florence Owens Thompson and her seven children near Nipomo California in 1936. There is a common thread to all those black and white pictures, freezing out the distraction and din of color and telling a plain unfettered story.

Mothers struggle in all kinds of ways, and in this season of squander and spoils in some quarters, we must make an extra effort to reach out to and honor those struggles.

The mother who, having raised her children, now finds she is raising her grandchildren. The first time mother who worries over her newborn and the medical tests which have so much power to determine the course of future days.

The mothers buffeted by the wilderness winds of subprime mortgages and a vampire economy determined to suck the lifeblood from workers while dancin’ with pearls on and stuffing each other’s pockets with graft.

Mothers worrying about educating, feeding, housing, caregiving for the wee ones they have nurtured into the world.

Mothers who, having lived long and vibrant lives, begin the slow and slipping pathway into life’s next stage.

We live in Depression-era times, we live in Dickensian times. We give power to Gentlemanly C’s who have no command of history nor will to learn from it. Who never learned to value every mother as they would value their own.

A brooding note for this holiday time, perhaps. But before Ebenezer could shout “Merry Christmas” and bring a turkey to the table of Tiny Tim’s Mom, first he had to experience with his spirit guide the true mirror of the values of his life.

There’s still time. Time to make a difference, to reach out, to help. To live the best of the values Mothers instilled in childhood. Do unto others…. I’ll be taking blankets to a local homeless shelter this morning, because they gave blankets to the children and need blankets for the grown-ups, too. Because there’s still time before Christmas…and the need goes on.

Because 32-year-old Florence Owens Thompson’s family sold their tent to buy food. Because there was no room in the inn. Because a homeless man came to Fargo from Chicago and froze to death in a bus stop kiosk.

Because they continue to come, in waves past the inn to the manger, past the memory of Ellis Island, as my grandparents did. Immigrants, migrants. Mothers, children. On the move toward the hope of a better life.