Alpha to Omega

I sit in a smoke-filled room, engulfed in second-hand smoke that my wife Mary will surely notice tonight, while 74-year old Dorothy wheezes and strains with each breath. Cigarettes are killing her, but she would rather die than not smoke, Edith confides. Dorothy’s labored breathing sounds like an iron lung (I saw these when young–polio) that needs ball-bearings replaced. A short talk (“I love to talk” she says) exhausts her. She slips away, her eyes mostly closed while she struggles for oxygen. I sit and look at her thinking of Susan Sarandon’s character in the movie “Shall We Dance”, explaining how we are here to witness each other's lives. I witness Dorothy, witness conversations about her, her life and her children– “three ducks lined-up along the west coast; San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle”. What work it is for her to breath. The will to breath, to live, centers in her throat, contracting, pulling in air, chest rising up. Then the end of the intake, and silence fill...

I have left the world. Television/cable is gone (my 19 and 26 year old sons are starting to wonder how they will get their SF Giants fix; it was something we all enjoyed last year together). I have stopped reading newspapers. I refuse to listen to the news on radio. My window on the world (I just realized) is http://news.google.com. I am in the world but not of the world, waiting for the justice of karma to correct the good old USA. I know it will be a long wait. I pray not too many more will suffer and die while the madmen inside the beltway have their way.