Reflections - Chi
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| Girasole |
Jeff’s wife Carol emailed sad, sad news. Jeff’s “great and beautiful heart stopped beating.” The email arrived Friday, September 1 while Spence volunteered in Cleveland. He called on his drive home.
“Do you want to go to the memorial?” I asked. “I checked the obituary. The service is a week from tomorrow.”
Above the sound of wheels humming on pavement, his voice came fast and determined. “Yes.”
Jeff, Spence’s best friend at Lafayette College, was like family. A brother. Kind Jeff—poet, musician, songwriter, sculpture, hiker, nature lover, and activist for peace, justice, and equality—was a treasure.
“I want to go too.” Though Spence could have driven five hours to Easton, Pennsylvania, I couldn’t. Riding two hours to Cleveland in July, I needed a break from my restless legs. We walked around a country graveyard reading faded inscriptions on Civil War era graves until I could manage sitting again.
Scrambling, I made arrangements on American Airlines from Pittsburgh to Allentown— connecting through Philadelphia Friday morning and Charlotte, North Carolina Saturday evening for our return. A long way around, but my sister lives in New Jersey, a forty-minute drive from the Allentown airport. We hadn’t seen her since her son Michael’s wedding nine years ago—past time to visit rather than email, text, or phone.
Leaving at 4:45 a.m., Spence drove his Maverick through dark, fog, and four stretches of construction—though only the last had active workers. We got a health walk lugging bags and trekking through the economy parking lot then the extensive walkway to the terminal.
Ten yards from the gate, my cell phone rang with two messages. The first read, “Your flight has been delayed.” The second message rebooked us on a Philadelphia to Allentown flight that departed before we left Pittsburgh.
How would we get to Allentown? The attendant left our gate so I walked to the adjacent one. “I have a question.”
“I’ve got twenty things to do right now. Wait there.” The gate attendant pointed a stern finger at a vacant seat. “I’ll take care of you in a minute.”
Three minutes later, she barked. “I can take care of you now.”
“I’m going to miss my connection in Philadelphia. Can you book my husband and me on another flight?” I showed her our boarding passes.
“You’ve got two choices. There’s an evening flight to Allentown that gets in after nine, or you can rent a car in Philly.”
“After nine?”
“I can’t wait for you to decide.” She handed me a card. “Call this number. I’ve got to go to my next flight.” She grabbed her gear and strode off.
Get into the airport past my bedtime and miss Anita, or rent a car in Philly? Easy decision. I could probably make the hour and a half drive to my sister’s house.
I called her.
“Let me check car rentals.” Anita’s calm big sister voice reassured me. “Budget or Avis are the only ones that will let you pick up in Philly today and drop off in Allentown tomorrow.”
Spence growled beside me. “Thrifty’s computer won’t accept my cancellation. I’ve put their email numbers in three times. I’m calling.” He waited a half hour for a person to solve the problem. Then he rented a Budget car at three times the Thrifty price.
“It would have been easier to drive,” Spence mumbled.
The bumpy flight to Philadelphia ended with a slammed-brake stop propelling passengers against the seats in front of them. I hoped this ended our drama for the day. But we’d gotten lost the last time we rented a car in Philly to visit Anita. Maybe this time would be better.
Spence handed the young woman at the rental gate our paperwork and asked, “How do we get to the highway?”
She gazed over his head. “I don’t know. Use your GPS.” She lifted the gate and looked at her computer.
Spence Driving Kia Soul
We don’t use GPS. Living in the country with no cell service, we rely on maps. I had studied Google maps and wrote directions. None included Philadelphia.
“We’ll check into the Holiday Inn.” Spence drove through the open gate. “Then we’ll drive to Anita’s.”
Yikes. Would so much driving aggravate my restless legs? But Spence knew the way to Easton from Philly. I could rest at the hotel. This might work.
Circling downtown, Spence pointed to a road sign. “Six-eleven. That’s how I traveled from Lafayette.”
“You need to switch lanes.” I leaned left in my seat. “We’re in a turn lane.”
Traffic didn’t let Spence in. We drove by stone houses with potted plants and through ghettos with cars backing out of gas stations. We passed factories, parks, and shopping districts. We crossed the Delaware River on high bridges into New Jersey several times. No signs for Route 611. An hour later Spence said, “Look for any road with a number.”
“If it leads to the hotel, we’ll go there,” I said, desperation clogging my voice. “If it goes to Anita’s we’ll head there.”
Spence stared out the windshield. “Agreed.”
North 95 came first. I called Anita. “We got lost in Philadelphia. We’re on north ninety-five.”
She instructed me to take N95, N 31, and W78. “Use exit twelve. Make a dogleg onto Charlestown Road. Call me when you get to seventy-eight. I need to get the dogs out back so you can get inside without them going crazy.”
We watched for N31. The New Jersey Turnpike came first. I called Anita. “Should we be on the turnpike?”
“You’re way east of me!” Rustling noises came through the phone. “Get off. I’m looking up how to get you back here.”
We exited, pulled into a motel parking lot, and waited.
“Okay, turn right . . .” She gave us another set of directions—206, 195, and 295 to the illusive N31. And she listed exits. “You’ll pass over route one for Princeton, route two-o-six for Rider University, another one, then route thirty-one. It’s at Pennington.”
“What’s the other one?”
“Something small. Looks like Mercer Meadows.” She paused. “You’ll know if you get off at the right place because Princeton Community Church is right there.”
I scribbled detailed notes. “Thanks.”
Finally on I 295, I studied each sign, determined not to end up in New York or Connecticut. We passed Anita’s landmarks followed by a sign reading “Pennington” without N 31 or Mercer Meadows.
Dilemma.
“Get off,” I said. “We can always get back on.”
Spence pulled off.
“Did we pass a church?”
“Yes. Right as we got off.”
We drove through a residential area. We passed Pennington Road. A short while later a sign announced Mercer Meadows. “Turn around and get back on the highway. We got off one exit too soon.”
Anita texted: Did you find 31?
I texted: No. Got off exit before. Looping back.
Construction closed the northbound entrance.
“Circle back and take the road into Pennington,” I told Spence, setting my directions aside and rubbing my eyes. “Maybe we can find thirty-one there.”
Spence drove into Pennington, waved at the school crossing guard, and passed through a commercial area into a residential section. He sighed. “Call Anita. Tell her we didn’t find thirty-one.”
“What do you mean?” Her voice held a touch of panic. “Thirty-one runs right through the middle of town. Give me the name of the cross street.”
“Wait. We’re coming up to a traffic light.” I laughed in relief. “It’s thirty-one!”
Four hours after leaving Budget rental for an hour and a half trip, I spotted the most beautiful sight of the trip—Anita trimming bushes by her front door.
“You made it,” she said. “Let me get you settled. Then I’ll let the dogs in.”
Mr. Mumbles
Once the joy of welcoming abated, they rested around the living room. Anita sat in her chair and we talked, mostly about the Tibetans. Anita volunteers for Tibetan Terrier Rescue. She regularly accepts groups of Tibetans into her home and cares for them until she places each dog into a perfect forever home.
Four of the five dogs resting at our feet were Anita’s. Three were rescue dogs. Hair combed in three ponytails, Smidge, a sixteen-year-old female, moved from one cuddler bed, in a row of five, to another. She barked telling the others she was in charge. Mr. Mumbles, an eleven-year-old, black and white Tibetan, stood still while I focused my phone camera but moved his head when I clicked the shutter. Button, a one-year-old female named after a California mountain pass, stayed beside Anita’s chair. Button has potential to be a therapy dog.
Two of Anita’s friends bred Gilbey, a five-year-old male, to be a show dog. Anita kept him for socializing. The dark sable dog grew too large and, as Anita said, “would probably take the hand off the judge who tried to open his mouth” anyway.
Bentley, a two year old, had a steel plate in his leg due to a birth deformity. His foster family vacationed in Germany. Bentley happily visited with Anita’s dogs because he’d been in Button’s rescue group. Anita watched him carefully. “Don’t let him jump onto the couch. I don’t want the plate in his leg dislodging.”
Three or four dogs jumped and ran each time Anita tended the food in the oven. She adeptly maneuvered the gate so only one could follow her and said, “I don’t want to get burnt.”
They all rose again and swarmed around our nephew Michael’s legs. He came after his work at a high school counseling job. Weary, he scratched the dogs’ ears. “In one week, four female students didn’t come back.” He shook his head. “Two married and the other two are pregnant.”
Anita fed the dogs their dinners. The house quieted. We sat at the dining room table for her yummy cream of spinach chicken and roasted vegetables. Roasted to perfection, the veggies melted on my tongue. Comfort food never tasted so divine.
When Michael talked about parking and flying to Puerto Rico with his wife Lisset, Anita’s phone rang. “I can ignore that.” She waved her hand, but looked at the caller ID. “Oh, it’s Todd.” She put her older son on speaker phone for all of us to join in the conversation.
Todd said, “I’m driving to Champaign.” He worked for the Alzheimer’s Association in Illinois and towed a trailer full of supplies to set up a fundraising walk.
Comfort food plus stories from Todd, Michael, and Anita dissolved the trauma of the trip. I’ll never forget Anita being at the end of the phone, calming, and providing information needed to make the moments in her home and around her table possible. More than that, her calls and texts enabled me to make the drive without squirming from restless legs. And her visit gave me the respite needed to compose myself for the second part of our journey—the service in memory of Spence’s best friend from college, Jeff.
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| Gilbey |
End Part 1
