-By John Armor
Actually, it was a dark and stormy weekend.
On Friday, right after the computer office closed, our tower-broadcast Internet access failed. It remained out until Monday morning. Meanwhile, Michelle and I had two articles each that were on deadline. But that was the easy part.
We have a good friend who is an adopted grandmother, named Gibson Jefferson McConnaughey, almost 91 years old. A week ago, she was fine for her age. Thursday she was in the hospital with serious complications from a blood clot. Saturday morning she died. Until an hour before she died, she was conscious and talking with us.
But each breath was coming slower and harder than the one before. Then one more breath was too much to do, and she slipped away. My parents both died the same way, but neither was conscious near the end. Both suffered long and hard at the end.
Gibson died the best way. A long and lively life, followed by a swift decline with a minimum of pain.
On Sunday night, as we were mourning our friend, and following Plan B to get our four articles out the door, one of the impressive thunderstorms typical to this territory, moved in on top of us. In a trice the soothing sound of spring rain on a tin roof was replaced by the crack of lightning very close to the house. All the lights went out, just before nine.
So, we lit some fat, scented candles and settled down a battery radio playing some Irish tunes, beginning with “A Reel for a Water Deviner.” We speculated briefly on how long we thought the power would be out. Also on whether we’d be able to take showers the following morning, because the supply of water depended on a pressure tank with a 12-gallon capacity. And that, in turn, depended on electricity.
The longest that the power’s been out was nearly a week, during a blizzard several years ago. We left switched on a bed table light. At 5 am that light lit up. Mercifully swift for our local electrical co-op.
This column is the last of our four deadline articles. Gibson’s memorial service will be in our church on Thursday. All the trees and plants are laced with vibrant green shoots. The 80 miles to the horizon is filled with low-lying remnants of the clouds which brought last night’s storm. Instead of merely foothills of the Blue Ridge, it looks like a huge, stormy sea out there.
Did you know that if you are close, I mean really close, there are two sounds from a lightning strike. There is the crash of the strike itself. But before that, there is a distinct click like a gun being cocked, when the strike first forms its channel from ground to sky, before the bolt itself happens and the suddenly overheated air explodes.
What is lesson from these experiences? All of life involves trade-offs. We trade off the wild beauty of our surroundings for the technical problems of remaining connected to the rest of the world, and living in a house of questionable functionality. We live among a small group of people, but we know almost all of them, and well.
Certainty is not possible in a house with five Franklin stoves and two granite fireplaces as the main source of heat. It can be very hot or quite cold, but seldom just right. Within an acceptable range is a valid goal around here.
But in this life, even on this dark and stormy weekend, it is worth it.
____________
John Armor is a graduate of Yale, and Maryland Law School, and has 33 years practice at law in the US Supreme Court. Mr. Armor has authored seven books and over 750 articles. Armor happily lives on a mountaintop in the Blue Ridge. He can be reached at: John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.