Day One

The other day, a good friend of mine who I complained to about being depressed and anxious having just moved from my home of 29 years, said, “Beth, what you need is a hobby.”  Even in my mentally ill state I had to laugh because during those 29 years I’ve had about 50 hobbies:  quilting (it lasted about six months and I never even finished a single square!), needle-point, preserving jams, cooking like Julia Child, interior design, gardening, croquet, journaling, scrapbooking, beading, making jewelry, dog obedience training, horseback riding--dressage and western, embroidery—just to name a few.  I might have taken up underwater basket weaving if the instructor had been LDS, single, and fairly good-looking.

Yeah, I needed another hobby like I needed another hole or mental illness in my head.

“You’ve got to get out of yourself,” she continued in her older, wiser, sisterly tone I love and hate at the same time.  “The one thing I know about depression is, it gets you wrapped up in yourself.  Do something.  Start writing again, blog, anything--just do it.”

Years ago I had taken up writing, and unlike quilting, I spent ten years writing twenty novels (two of which I’ll never claim I wrote because they are that bad!) and twenty-seven journals.  Being one of my bestest-buddies, Taz had read many of those novels and loved most of them—and I hadn’t even bribed her to like them.  When she said I needed to start writing again, I wondered if I had enough mental and physical energy to do it—believe it or not, it takes a lot of physical effort (the sweat is beading off my brow even as I write this—and it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that it’s 100 degrees here in Farmington, New Mexico!)

After a couple of weeks of mulling it over—when you’re depressed, mulling is an all-day activity—I decided she was right—dang-nab-her-smart-alec-ness!!

OK, I’ll start writing.  But what about?  I did the novel thing, and I knew there were more stories in there somewhere, but the research and the mental effort thing—well, it would be too much for me.  I got out my copy of “Julie and Julia” not only for inspiration but to drool over the food.  And what came to me?—nothing.  Absolutely nothing!! 

I could blog about cooking, but Julie covered that one pretty well.  I could blog about my life—but everyone does that—even Julie complained that blogging is a “me, me, me” thing.  Who out there in the blogosphere wants to read the depressed ramblings of a 50 year-old-spinster, soon to be ex-school teacher?  I sure didn't.  So what to write about?

Every morning about 8 a.m. I take my two Boston Terriers for a walk.  They loved it, my sister loves it because I am moving instead of lying in bed with the covers over my head.  But the nearest place to take two small dogs that has grass (New Mexico doesn't grow grass, it grows sandy-dust) and shade trees was the cemetery, a half a block away—The Memory Gardens. 

The dogs love sniffing around the grassy edges and on occasion I’d let go of their leashes to chase the ground hogs, ground squirrels—oh, whatever the heck they are—the pesky little rodents, who dig holes around the graves with an abandon a professional ditch digger would appreciate.

The Memory Gardens Cemetery

Then one day on our rounds, I started reading the names on the headstones, the shady benches and the above-ground tombs.  No, I'm not death obsessed.  I'm depressed, not suicidal.  It's just interesting to see people's names, the dates, how old they were when they died.  Hey, we're all going to end up in similar places, and I'm sure someday someone will see my name and have a good laugh at my birthday.

Let me state for the record I don’t have e.s.p.!  I’m not psychic—a psycho, yes, but I don’t see dead people.  OK, occasionally I hear dead people talk to me, which I made the mistake of telling one of my doctors,  He asked if those voices ever told me to hurt myself or slaughter ten or twelve people at a Denny's,  I said of course, not.  He wasn’t LDS, so he doesn't get the still, small voice or the personal revelation thing we Mormons really hang our hats on to.  He looked concerned until I told him the voices were just my dead parents telling me to get out more, find a nice guy and bribe him to marry me.  Since I don't have any money, that didn't work.

One day, on our walk after Mr. Bean and Buster Brown had worn themselves out chasing burrowing rodents in the vacant section of the cemetery, I saw a short, well-dressed Latino woman hovering over a flat grave marker which are so popular with cemetery lawn mowers.

Gathering the loose mongrels, I made my way over to her.  I didn’t know what I was going to say but nosy curiosity got the better of me.

When I neared, she lifted her head, tears in her lovely brown eyes, which were nicely shaded with expensive eye-liner and powder.  She was older than I thought when I saw her from a distance, but there was still a shadow of beauty that must have made her stunning in her twenties.

I muttered something about being sorry for her loss and glanced at the marker which clearly she had purchased three years earlier.

“He was my son,” she explained. 

The chiseled name and dates didn’t give much information about the man--what tiny piece of metal plate can tell a man's entire life? 

“He was a good boy,” the woman said, as if the thirty year old was still the small boy she had chased around a neighborhood before it got too dark to see, had bandaged hundreds of skinned knees, and had spent hours teaching him to ride a two-wheel bike that later became a motorcycle that had killed him.

Then a weird thing happened.  As she talked about her boy, how he had come to visit her, had fixed clogged toiles, and had eaten the elaborate meals she had lovingly created for him, I felt the slightly taller, dark-skinned man standing next to this wonderful petite woman, the memories swirling around her like the red New Mexican dust.

I knew he hadn’t lived the best life—he drank too much—which had caused him to be a bit slow in avoiding the truck he had crashed into—and the drugs he took too often which had used up the money he had always intended to give to his widowed-mother—who usually gave him money for food, gas and rent.  Sometimes that money didn’t go where she wanted it to.

His remorse at his poor decisions surged through me—so did the love he felt for his mother.

We spoke for a little while longer, talking about how her family had come to live here—how I had come to live here.  Then before I could stop myself, I said her son was standing next to her, trying to comfort her.  She cried a little, nodding—she knew it too. 

“It’s not right that a mother should out-live her son,” she said, voice soft, emotional.

I nodded, even though I couldn’t really relate to losing a child—a child who had been part of her heart, her soul, her life.  I think I said something like he loved her very much, but I was trying to keep the dogs from chasing after a lizard.

All she was unable to speak, her heart in her throat. 

I told her she would be in my prayers; she thanked me, and I left, dragging the dogs after me.  By the time I got to the front of the cemetery where the pups paused to sniff at something stinky, I looked back.  The tiny figure stood next to that expensive bronze plaque for another moment, savoring the good parts of her lost son’s life, the might-have-beens as thick as the scent of the flowers she had placed next to his name.  She bowed her well-coifed head, crossed herself and headed for a shiny silver SUV.

After that, I decided I loved walking in the Memory Gardens as much as the dogs.  You meet the most interesting people and hear the most interesting stories—and they don’t always come from the living.