I Wonder Why?

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In all the time I’ve known her, sixty-three years and counting, the woman who has been my companion and wife for most of that period has uttered this phrase more frequently than any other: “I love you!”

She has said it to me, of course, to our daughters and their husbands, to our grandchildren, to other family members, and to friends (of whom she has many). And we all appreciate it greatly.

Her next most-frequently uttered phrase is a question: “I wonder why?” I assure you, however, she is not wondering why she loves us. The two phrases are completely separate.

My wife is an accomplished woman of insatiable curiosity, a bona fide lifelong learner. There is very little that happens around her that does not provoke that critical question.

“I wonder why the fruit store is sold out of bananas today?”

“The forecast said it would rain today. I wonder why it didn’t?”

“I wonder why the mail carrier is late?”

“I wonder why more people don’t follow the science?”

“I wonder why…?”

Once upon a time, I didn’t realize that more than just a few of these utterances were rhetorical. I mistakenly assumed she wanted me to essay an answer to all her questions, but I’ve been disabused of that notion. And that’s just as well, because for many of them, I had no idea of the answer, anyway. In those cases, in order to appear attentive, responsive, and a willing participant in the conversation, I would simply make something up.

“Ah…I think the banana-pickers are on strike.”

“Um…atmospheric conditions shifted when the sub-arctic air flow was diverted by wind-shear.”

“Hmm…the mail truck probably broke down.”

“Well…a lot of folks don’t understand science. Or don’t care to.”

Being an intelligent woman, my wife saw through these lame attempts to satisfy her curiosity, and scoffed at or ignored my answers. That, naturally, put me in a position of having to champion them—to defend the indefensible, as it were. As a reasonably intelligent person myself, I soon decided not to bother. Nonsense is nonsense, whether defended or not.

Mind you, asking questions, seeking answers, are innately human things to do. We are naturally a pattern-seeking species. We seek to know who we are, why we are here, what happens after we die, and so much more about the world around us.

My wife is a sterling example of that trait—always probing, questing, examining, interrogating, quizzing, grilling—ever in search of an answer to satisfy her curiosity.

I, on the other hand, although not a completely incurious clod, am much more willing to accept things at face value. In most cases, when presented with a situation, I am less likely to ask why something happened, more likely to get on with accommodating it.

“Who cares why?” I tend to ask. “It happened, so let’s just deal with it.”

Consequently, my fallback position when faced with my wife’s questions has morphed into a sort of fatalism, stoicism, ‘take-it-as-it-comes-ism’. Over time, I developed variations on a standard answer that, I hoped, would satisfy any question my wife might ask.

For instance, if she were to ask, “I wonder why the grass on our lawn is dying?”, I might reply, “Who knows? It could just as easily die next door. It’s random.”

Watching birds flit about on a walk, she might ask, “I wonder why some birds can fly, while others can’t?”, I might say, “Random selection. Nothing more.”

If she were to ask, “I wonder why Tom got sick after the party, when no one else did?”, I’m likely to answer, “No reason. Illness strikes randomly.”

A wise person once wrote that asking pointed questions is the gateway to knowledge. I certainly can’t dispute that, and have in fact done that very thing all my life in areas of study that interest me. But I confess I do not have the unquenchable thirst to know the reason for everything, for I fear my poor brain could not accommodate it.

In truth, I do not believe there even has to be a reason for everything. I tend to think some things truly are random happenstances. I know a tree will fall when it rots from within, for example, but I don’t trouble myself to question why this tree and not that one.

Of course, if I happened to be napping under one of those trees, I might care to know…but never mind.

On occasion now, familiar with this idiosyncrasy of mine, my wife will ask, “I wonder why you’re like that?”

At my age, I’ve ceased to worry about it. “Who knows?” I’ll reply. “Just the way I am, I guess. Random.”

Thank goodness, despite everything, she still utters that other phrase—“I love you.”

And sometimes, I do have to admit, I wonder why.

Under the Lawn

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The weekly prompt from my Florida writers’ group was “the lawn”, and this is my response. An additional challenge was to tell a story with a twist.

My daddy complained each time that it rained,
Soaking into our green, front lawn.
“The rain makes grass grow!” he’d curse, soft and low,
Wishing it just would be gone.
But when the sun came, it also got blame
For helping the grass to grow.
For that always meant my daddy got sent
Outside in the heat to mow.

He had a lawnmower with which he would lower
The height of each blade of grass,
But it took him hours, avoiding Mum’s flowers,
Or she would hand him his ass!
He’d curse and he’d moan, a tad overblown,
Back and forth across the lawn,
Cutting the grass down, his face in a frown,
Until at last he was done.

But then one sad day, he looked o’er my way,
Saw me lounging by the pool.
“It’s ‘bout time we shared this job,” he declared.
“You’re makin’ me look the fool!”
I wasn’t impressed at ending my rest
To take over his irksome task,
But I gave it a go if only to show
All he had to do was ask.

But Daddy was quick once I took a lick,
And soon the job was all mine!
I sweated and toiled while Daddy, well-oiled,
Got a tan in the warm sunshine.
And now it was him who went for a swim
While I pushed that mower hard,
Cursed the rain and sun, just like he had done,
For growing grass in our yard.

But now, I don’t mow the lawn when it grows,
I just let it go to seed.
And nobody’s there to utter a care
That everywhere there’s a weed!
I’m back by the pool, and everything’s cool,
For at long last, Daddy’s gone
To his final rest…and have you already guessed?
I buried him under the lawn!

The Lonely, Silvery Rain

_{The thirteenth novel in my Maggie Keiller/Derek Sloan crime series will be published later this year, titled The Lonely, Silvery Rain. Here is an excerpted chapter from that book, slightly modified for this blog-post. If you have read previous books in the series, you will recognize the two characters here.}

When Old Scratch, as Senator Nicholl disdainfully referred to death, came calling for the final time on a warm, drizzly, late-morning in October, he found Nicholl dozing in his favourite rocking chair on the wide, open-air verandah of his century home. The rain was thrumming on the shingled roof, dripping off the overhanging eaves, spilling like a shimmering, crystalline waterfall to the gardens below.

Before his spectral visitor crept in, Nicholl had been engrossed in a pleasant dream, delivering a stem-winder of a stump speech on another political campaign trail, surrounded by a throng of friends and constituents in someone’s farmyard. Balancing on a rickety, upside-down milking-bucket, he stood above everyone, so even those at the far reaches of the crowd could see him. He felt he’d never been in finer voice until, gearing up for the customary, full-throated culmination to his peroration, he discovered he’d forgotten what he was about to say. The shock was profound.

Groping vainly in his dream to remember the remarks eluding him, his mouth continued moving, though no sound emerged. Then, without warning, the bottom abruptly dropped away beneath him, as if someone had kicked the bucket out from under his feet. The world whirled and spun dizzyingly as he toppled, flinging his arms out in a futile attempt to catch himself. Despite the confusion and fear engulfing him, however, he still tried to finish, a campaigner to the end.

Wait! My speech! I’m purt’ near done…

But the dream turned nightmarish, and a misty, reddish haze descended across his eyes, and then…and then…

Senator Milford Nicholl, the simple, hometown boy-made-good, eased back in his rocking chair, sighed a fare-thee-well, and went to his eternal rest.

The many well-wishers who stopped in later that afternoon found Gloria, his wife of sixty years, shaken but composed, unbelieving but accepting, sad but relieved that her husband’s travails were over.

“He knew he was on borrowed time,” she told them softly, “and I could tell he knew his days were winding down. A wife always knows these things…” Her throat filled up, and she stopped to wipe away tears.

“Just a few days ago,” she whispered after a moment or two, summoning a small smile, “we talked about the possibility of one of us dying. And you know Milly’s sense of humour. He said something to the effect that he wasn’t afraid to die, he just didn’t want to be there when it happens.”

The mourners laughed at that, and a few shared more of the homespun witticisms they remembered flowing from Nicholl’s febrile mind. Eventually, Gloria told them she really would like time alone. “I’ll pray a little,” she said, “cry a little, laugh a little. There’ll be time enough later to reminisce some more. And I’ll call you if I need to, I promise.”

As everyone took their leave, Gloria waved from the verandah, then sat and rocked slowly in her husband’s favourite chair, his abandoned walker standing forsaken beside it. The rain was gentler now, but its sibilant pit-a-patting on the roof was still audible, its runoff still dripping off the eaves into the lush gardens below, covered by sodden, autumn-hued leaves. The unseasonably warm breeze caressed her, enveloping her in a blanket of solace.

She already understood she’d be missing Milly constantly from now on—his irrepressibility, his cornball turns-of-phrase, his devotion to the community—and most of all, his love for her, his very presence. She counted herself lucky to have been his partner and to have known such happiness.

Her grief over losing him would linger long, of course. She knew mourning is not something that can be quantified or measured by time. But at this particular moment, she was at peace with his passing, attuned to the happy memories she would cherish forever, resigned to the loneliness she knew would envelop her from time to time. They were all part of everyone’s journey through life.

But for right now, she was snuggled in Milly’s chair, at one with the inevitable rhythms of life and death, at one with herself, her soul in harmony with the comforting cadence of the rain.

The lonely, silvery rain.

Love in the Morning

Sunlight,

Slowly streaming, peering, through tree branches

Seeming reaching up and out to touch it

And be touched.

Dark shadespots, never-lasting, shift on forest-run

And up the stretching trunks,

To dance ‘cross leaves turned up to see the sun.

Water,

Reflecting morning back to bluing sky

Above, from fiery diamond-dance of light

Atop the waves.

The lake awakes as light turns trees of green to gold

And traps their images

In mirrored mere, quicksilver, green and cold.

Mist,

Wet, wraithlike trails of dew that do not seek

The morn, but rather gather, clutched, and drift,

And look to hide

Until, discovered by the sun’s relentless rays,

Surrender to the light

That thrusts elusive phantoms from its gaze.

Breezes,

Approaching shyly, coming on to shore,

From jigging o’er the watertops and waves

That lap the land.

With sighs they softly rise to stir the trees awake,

Then us, through mesh that screens

The out from in, and stubborn sleep from wake.

I stir,

And lying on the bed in my repose,

With eyes still closed, I draw a morning breath

Into my soul.

And then, eyes opening to the world dawning anew,

I also turn to see the morning sun…

And it is you.