Category: Essay

Heaven Might Be Anywhere

~ Harlan Didrickson

One of my greatest fears in life is that this life, this practice life, will be our only life, and, of course, one doesn’t hear the punch line. This moment of truth, this day of reckoning, this day of judgement, is the religious revelation of the existence of evil and the evil dominion of bête noir: The introduction of fear as consequence of a wayward behavior in this life.

What if the moment of truth, the day of reckoning, and the day of judgement were all about the earthly presence of beauty, of grace, and of winsomeness? What if in your minds eye you were witness to all the mystical magic of earth? What if the magic of life was overlooked because our treasured gift of life was fettered away in a foolhardy gaffe to get somewhere-anywhere, because somewhere-anywhere promises joy and laughter and intimacy and beauty which is sorely missed from right where I am.

What if the hereafter punch line was: Heaven is right under your nose?

IMG_0423 IMG_0424 IMG_0414 IMG_0416 IMG_0413 IMG_0401 IMG_0376

Related articles

 

Rich Didrickson (1955-2013)

~ Harlan Didrickson ~ 7 Comments

“Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.” — Herman Melville

It sent me back on my heels and against the ropes.

I was so surprised that time stopped.

It’s disappointment struck like a head-on collision.

When I answered I heard the life expectancy; but I expected a little empathy;  not the credibly, relative destiny. 

It was a bombshell aimed dead-center to insure the greatest damage.

It was the end of one of several episodes.

It was the start of a new episode.

It was colorless. Soundless. Sightless.

It’s coldness remained near me, like walking out of a freezer.

It underestimated its infliction of cruelty.

Rick had the courage and nerve and right to refuse pain medications, food, and finally liquids. His pledge to himself guaranteed freedom from his hellish suffering that heroic measures caused, and found his real life patiently waiting at the gates of heaven on Tuesday, October 1, 2013 at precisely 1:00 p.m.

It’s impossible for me to estimate the number of people who now have holes in their hearts where Rick used to be.

The Short Reach of 9-1-1

~ Harlan Didrickson

What does fifteen minutes mean to you?   To me, it’s a short walk with Jenni or the edgy, flinching time I endure, while sharp picks and mirrors and a fistful of rubberized fingers examine my mouth.

To a heart attack it’s pay dirt; to a stroke it’s a killing; to an overdose it’s long enough; it’s 25% of your critical hour.

It was the way he answered the phone and repeated “nauseous”  that prompted my intervention and a feeble attempt at reassurance, “I’ll call 9-1-1,” which began a 15-minute byzantine pursuit through a labyrinth of indifference, ignorance, misinformation, unyielding tenacity, irrationality, and finally the grossly delayed ringing of the fire department serving my brother‘s address.

In this age of instantaneous access to millions and millions of useless and the occasional entertaining tidbit of useless information, we assume that a federal infrastructure would be installed and activated and by dialing three simple digits you would be transferred to the emergency department serving your father’s address.

But there isn’t.  Instead you’re passed along with great indifference until, smartphone in hand, you’re barely capable of performing search after search of increasingly familiar street names and coverage maps and administrative offices which you call in desperation and quickly evaporating hope.

Fifteen minutes while your brother or sister or father or mother follow your misguided instructions based on years of same-city-9-1-1-calls.  Who would ever think that soliciting an emergency service would be impossible.  Impossible?  Really?  Impossible, while your brother or sister or mother or father sits alone in their home slowly dying.

Without question, the federal government should appropriate whatever amount of money it will cost to rebuild a one-city call center into a network of transferable calls to the exact city where emergency help is needed.  Please, spend less of our money on bombs which kill scores of innocent people in faraway countries and use it here at home for emergency call-centers purposefully designed to assure the caller that first responders are on route to your brother or sister or mother or father’s house to save their lives.

 

Related articles

 

Just Ask and then Listen

~ Harlan Didrickson

aaapaperworkI’ve struggled for months with a question:  How do I accomplish, with zero tolerance for failure, the assessment, strategy, implementation, occupation, research, study, report and application, monitoring, compromise of personal values, extortion, catastrophic emergency, invasion of personal papers, rehab facility decision, $1,000 down payment, retaining attorneys to guide strategy for Title XIX approval (zero tolerance for failure), leading the unraveling of real estate, bankruptcy, discharge, fraud, malpractice quagmire and retention of law firm to defend our interests in our private property, without allowing sobbing emotions, hopelessness, and the fact that my older and only brother will never return home?

The first time he asked, “Am I ever going home?”  I did everything I could to keep my composure so I could ask him to hold the line as I bellowed through a weeping and deep, deep sorrow for my partner to pick up the line.  And then my sanguine veneer burst and the mourning and loss aaaweepingand sadness and exhaustion and anger were released like Pandora‘s evils of humanity.  It was then that I damned myself for my own humanity; it was this humanity that undermines brotherhoods and best friends, silently damning a single vein then discarding the blind, the weak, the imbalanced to . . . exist among other damaged examples until his emancipation appears upon his death.

“Where am I supposed to find the strength to yet again marshal a campaign to establish and confirm his welfare for the entirety of his now crippled life?  I screamed as a fresh bout of sorrowful nausea racked my formidable frame!

And then I heard it.  Faintly, breathlessly, as though it had traveled a great distance at extraordinary speed.  And then I heard it again clearer, distinct, simple.

“It’s your job,” it said, “Not your Life.  Administer his guardianship with authority and leadership.  Then one day after you’ve navigated his life through a dangerous channel you’ll surrender your charge and let him set his own course.”

The following day I began the intrusive deconstruction of his financial, legal, medical and administrative life with the same degree of organization, tenacity, and dominance as I’d done quite frequently and consistently successful my entire career.

That was my job.  

aaatriumphant

 

When Intrinsic Value Is Devalued

~ Harlan Didrickson

 

She was a Beaut!  

It was one month past the age of nineteen when I first spotted her dowdy aunt (an Edwardian relic steeped in the ritual doctrines of affected,aragtop-3 isolated, and bête noir) leisurely roll to a stop at a red light.  Her continental bearing and hardly-subtle style seduced me at once; her polish was ablaze and yet I was smitten and took a step toward her admitting my daily longing and nightly lust for one just like her. As I daydreamed the light changed and off she went like horses out of the gate; I dashed after her but my pursuit was fruitless when she suddenly growled and hesitated, and then she divinely disappeared as capriciously as a shooting star.

I stood there addled and breathless and cognizant that her type was bridled for the Favored, for the Eccentric, for the Careless.  She was beyond agawdyhousemy reach; she’d look silly in my hometown, not gorgeous, not dazzling, not alluring. My hometown was suspicious of flash or flair or fins!  If I dared to bring her home, the circle of neighbors in our cul-de-sac would gather like bits of dinner in the strainer, then march like a flock of flamingoes en masse, arriving at our doorstep and determinedly ring our bell and demand her removal (like last year), as though she emulated (like last year) Dad’s proudly draped home of  109,621 (+/-) twinkling holiday lights!

For three months shy of 35 I remained abstinent; I knew that only one would provide any sense of pleasure.  The others?  Others, really?  Monotone, pedestrian, uninspired.  So I behaved, in every respect like the rest of my pals: humbly thanked  aacorvair1comb-overed, remote, and little known of uncles looking to dump their  waning, wooded, wagons onto culturally clueless yet utterly anxious sons of far-flung and holiday-sighted siblings or sibling-in-laws to make room in their attached garage for every middle-aged man’s nocturnal emission: the rear-engined, rear-wheeled, aluminum air-cooled 164 cu in 1960 Motor Trend Car of the Year: the Corvair!  All I remember as he handed me the keys was a brief exchange between he and his wife:  Him: “I’m going to get a real boss car with a floor box,” to which she replied coolly, “Great! A middle-aged candy-ass who’s all show and no go!”  

From there I picked up whatever ride I could afford and stashed a handful of dollars into “My Beauty” account.  And finally, amini-1finally after almost forty years of waiting I walked straight into the dealers showroom, pointed at the loaded burnt orange rag top, whipped out thirty-three, one thousand dollar bills said, “Give her a nice wash will ya’?  I don’t want to bring home a dirty girl!”

The first two years were idyllic: It was the third when things began to change, slowly, like late fall maple leaves. We tried, we gave it a go, we even put-off annual holidays to Northern Italy, but to no avail.  It was simple economics: I couldn’t afford to keep her.  The stratospheric maintenance was, once again, a wicked reminder that I wasn’t one of the favored or careless!  I would always be a part of the prudent.  But time after time after time her visits to the shop cost thousands!  Not hundreds, but thousands of dollars!  We kept her insured three more years, but even that couldn’t . . . couldn’t promise a pardon from age . . . it simply put a pause on life’s timeline.

Intrinsic Value never seems to be a placeholder on any balance sheet I’ve read. “And Intrinsic Value” , I’m told by my accountant, “is not an asset; the item(s) might be.  But this intrinsic value you keep bringing up. . .its value is to you, not to the IRS, or car salesmen, or insurance agents.  Intrinsic Value is always devalued by everyone except you.”

Related articles