One Last Prayer...

Author's Note - This is the first installment of a two-part essay about Life and Death. You know, the easy subjects.

This Week's Song - Heartbreak Town - by the Dixie Chicks. This is not likely one you've heard, but it was our last dance, and what a dance it was.

Ernest Hemingway's words are appropriate as I sit to write this piece. "It's easy to write. Just sit in front of your typewriter and bleed." I have misgivings about sharing so much of myself in the essay to follow. It was the worst day of my life. However, there is a reason to share, and this week it is very much on my mind.

Andy turned fifteen this past Spring. Should a geneticist need evidence of the power of the female X

with Shelby and Andy - Summer 2012

chromosome, he need only examine this child and hold him up as Exhibit A. He is her spitting image. Last week, on the way home after picking him up at his girlfriend's house, we had a discussion we were destined to have - he asked about the day his mother died. After I caught my breath, I knew that I would have to dig in and tell it. Rarely do I find a reason to discuss it, much less write about it. When it comes to the mother he never truly knew, the focus has always been on the good times, the numerous warm and beautiful memories I keep close so as to easily reach out and grab a bit of her to share with him and his sister. Make no mistake about it, the three of us speak of her often, we always have, but it was time to drag out and dust off the one and only memory I bury deep in the cellar of my heart, just beneath the scar. While it sneaks up on me from time-to-time, and I especially brace for it on the anniversary, I've become adept at avoiding the subject with others. This was no time for cowards. So, on a long ride home, almost fourteen years after the unimaginable events of the day, I told our son the story of his mother's leaving. Whenever I tell it, I realize two things. First, I never get use to the how fresh the trauma and pain can be. I'm sure others who have endured such traumatic losses would understand. More importantly, in the telling I was reminded that something beautiful always happens. There is beauty in it. So, while I have it out and can't seem to put it away, I'll offer it to the page and to you who dare to read. Parts were written years ago when catharsis was a closer friend. I offer it as a gift to you. Yes, a gift. It has the power to change your perspective, even if just for a moment. Let it.

  

Spring 2014

"Put some salt and pepper in the shakers, honey," she instructed. She was telling everyone what to do. There was a baby shower to be thrown and a leader was necessary. It was her role, always her role, and she delighted in it. A properly thrown baby shower in the South is handled by committee, complete with formal invitations on linen-lined stationary, a summoning of each dear friend and family member through fretted-over calligraphy to attend a gift-giving extravaganza meant to arm the expectant couple for the glorious battle, a battle they are never prepared for. On this day we were to celebrate the impending arrival of a baby girl - Abbie Skladan, a child who would be the first of two lovely children born to Jason and Lee Ann.  Cheryl was one to appoint herself the head of such committees: No election necessary. Truth be told, the entire committee was unnecessary when my dear wife became involved. The conductor of the symphony that was our life was fully animated and on fire as she tied balloons, arranged furniture, and pulled covered dishes from cool places. She seemed to levitate across the floor, setting out baked goods adorned with pink icing and arranging pastel-colored packages containing items from the Baby's R Us registry. This was a time in our lives when my operation of the Baby's R Us registry was unrivaled and the subject of legend. Employees of the store would ask for my help. She barked out instructions to those of us who stood in awe of the control, poise and beauty. Those are the words, the perfect words - control, poise and beauty. She laughed that infectious laugh at the jokes and antics of those helping her. That laugh. It is the one I extracted so many times with my silly jokes and playful nature, the one she belted out when her babies did something, almost anything, and the one I lived to hear. I have a hard time remembering her voice, but I still hear the laugh. It was a happy day. We were young people having and raising babies and celebrating those who would soon join our ranks. Nothing could bring our friends together in a celebratory mood like a Tennessee victory over Alabama the previous day and the impending birth of a first child.

Shelby and Andy
2000

Our children scampered to the kitchen door for my mother's car. Shelby was four and pulling her brother's shirt, dragging him along, "Come on, Andy!" she instructed. Andy, 19 months old, a pacifier in his mouth, his blanket dragging the floor behind him, made his way through the kitchen, stopping only to observe the cookies, and jumped into the waiting arms of his mother.  Good manners required that they would enjoy a few hours with their grandparents. I would soon be thankful for their absence. The bossy child, the one with the porcelain doll-like complexion, the beautiful blond locks, the big entrancing eyes that were a gift from her mother, was going to be an awful busy little girl that Sunday. At four, she knew when and where we were all suppose to be - all the time. She knew there was the baby shower, then a birthday party, and, finally, her first concert later that night. Mommy and Daddy were taking her to see the lady who sings "Big Wheels Keep on Turning (Proud Mary)," the song the four of them danced and sang to in the living room, around the coffee table, before dinner and after dinner. There was always so much music, dancing and singing. She was ready for the day. Cheryl, the woman who planned Shelby's multiple wardrobe changes the night before, the woman who kept a journal documenting our children's every move, their every meal, the woman who arranged play-dates, who kept detailed scrapbooks of each of their young lives, who made her husband take car-seat, CPR and infant swim classes, walked them to the car. There, she lifted them into the air, strapped them in their seats, because no one did it like her, including the man who had taken the classes, and in her sweet voice inflection, the tone reserved for the two who had once been a physical part of her, said goodbye for the last time.

"I have a headache," she said, softly, as we stood in the kitchen. I asked her if she'd taken anything. She said she did, and that was it. There was no more warning of the storm that was coming. In the days, weeks, and years to come I'd revisit the time leading up to that unseasonably warm October Sunday still looking for a clue. It was just a headache, right?  Who could possibly know that the junction of veins and arteries near her brain stem had not formed correctly while she was in the womb of her sweet and adoring mother or that the weakness was in the process of failing? How would anyone suspect a frailty of any kind in this strong woman or that an imperfection of this nature would have staying power through her adolescence, two term pregnancies, or 14 years with such an aggravating man who'd dedicated his life to making her laugh that laugh?  Everyone was there. The food was out, the guests were hungry, the conversation bounced from baby to Tennessee's victory the day before, to the house we were building, to life, to those subjects of simple everyday life. Then, she uttered a last request of me in her sweet whispered voice, "Would you say a prayer for Jason and Leanne and their baby?" I did. As I prayed, I felt the warmth of her hand on my back. The touch, as it always did, sent an electric current through my blood stream straight to the center of me giving my offertory voice power, my measured words impact. I thanked God for the friends who were gathered and the family who had traveled. I thanked him for the food. I thanked him for the beautiful day and the many blessings he'd bestowed on the entire, unworthy lot of us. I thanked him for Lee Ann's continued health and that sweet Abbie would be safely delivered to this magnificent world and allowed to grow up healthy among us, a truly special group of friends. Amen. It would not be the last time I talked to God that day.

She was confused. She had to be. Unknown to anyone and without a warning or word, she went upstairs as the packages were brought forward. What little measured bit of judgment was left, as the vessels were giving way, erred on the side of not disturbing the perfect baby shower. After all, she wouldn't want to create a disruption. As packages were opened and the strollers and cute outfits and diaper genie's were welcomed, she laid down, alone, in the floor of Andy's nursery, next to a crib where she would watch him sleep and from which "Momma" was the first word called every morning. She was within but an arm's reach of the chair where she rocked him to sleep every night, whispering that he was, without a doubt, the sweetest boy ever born as I would listen through the crackling of a baby monitor from our bedroom. I like to believe through the fog created by failure of her vessels it was her heart that led her to lay down in the place she was the happiest. I was watching the accumulation of wrapping paper and genuine "thank you's" being offered downstairs. "Where is Cheryl?" I asked, to no one in particular. She was, after all, the customary scribe - the one, in grand Southern tradition, who took down the names of the gift-givers and their gifts so the honorees could, as protocol required, write thank you notes for the items received. I searched, careful not to disrupt the celebration, calling her name as I went from room to room. I found her with her trembling hand on her head. She needed me. She said so. I went for a waste-paper basket in the bathroom. When I returned, the life was leaving her eyes.

When did I know? When did it hit me that the world had truly come to an end? In hindsight, I suppose it was the look on Dr. Lee Ann Skladan's face when she arrived at her side, having cast aside gifts on her special day to tend to a friend in need, and after a momentary assessment of the situation. She implored me in her kind but stern way to "talk to her, Robbie." I did. I begged her to wake up. I demanded her to answer me. I told her I loved her and that her children needed her, that I needed her, that so many people needed her. As CPR was administered and emergency personnel arrived, I told her she could not leave me. My demands carried conviction, yet I was unable to convince myself she was really sick, much less dying. Nothing bad could happen to us. We were invincible. Everything was going according to plan. We were building a house. My career was taking off. We had tickets to Tina Turner. Outside, in the hall, friends and family turned away, looks of disbelief and shock covering their faces.

The ambulance took us to the Hospital where nurses and doctors, who wouldn't look me in the eye, whisked her to rooms for diagnostic films. Finally, a nice man, a neurosurgeon, asked me to come to her bedside. He explained, with props and demonstrations, that her brain no longer functioned, that only machines kept her breathing. Films against fluorescent backdrops showed circular masses where he pointed - blood at the brain stem, lots of it, he explained. Then, his words, his scientific words, just floated past me like fireflies on a Summer evening. I'd shifted focus to solutions. Pryor's have or find solutions to problems. "So, what next?" I asked, the naive let's-get-this-fix-started attitude. I felt a sense of anger. I was in control. I was always in control. He was telling me it's raining but not handing me an umbrella. He looked directly at me, and, as clearly and emotionless as a teacher telling a student 2 + 2 = 4, he said she would not recover, all was lost, and that I had to say goodbye. How do you say these things? I was speechless. What followed were topics like organ donation, preferred funeral home, and other matters addressed to me by people I didn't know on a Sunday afternoon in the prime of our life. How could I speak of donating her organs when there were still gifts to be opened? "We have to take Shelby to a concert," I thought. "We have to be at a birthday party in 20 minutes,"  I wanted to say. I wanted to fire back and ask them all which among them would tell her she was dying, because she wouldn't like it one damn bit. It would take her consent. Everything did. Nothing happened unless she allowed it. Nothing. Knowing her better than anyone, I believed that if we just told her she was dying and never going to see Shelby or Andy again that she would just sit up and say, "that's enough. Let's go home."  She just wouldn't allow it. He explained the cruelty of allowing her to stay on the machines. Her parents couldn't be reached, and were on their way home from Florida, I told him. He told me she was gone and made it clear that the trip to the hospital had been perfunctory. There was no hope. I remember asking him, "Why are you saying these unbelievable things to me?"

Where is the beauty I promised?

June 2000

Outside, they gathered. Friends from the party and from across the city sat and stood outside awaiting word. The Burris's held my hand through registration and until my family arrived. The Reeds read to my children back at the house while I was listening to a man in a white coat tell me she was leaving. Friends from far away began a pilgrimage to my side. My mother, my father, my brother, my sister, my sister-in-law, and select friends stood by her bed. The harmony of tears and wails, of unreserved, incorruptible and unconditional love, burst from deep inside each of them as I conceded the disconnecting of machines and lines. There was no reservation in the pain, no stifling of the impact of the trauma, but neither was there mitigation of the appreciation for her life and the absolute devotion of each to her and to me. There was no mistaking the meaning of her existence and her place in our lives on this planet. The joy she gave us all was returned in a glorious display of the most awful pain as they touched her and begged and pleaded and prayed. The lack of decorum, composure, and, in some instances, good taste, was beyond beautiful. Prayers emanated from mouths that had never spoken prayers in my presence. We joined in our despair in reverential harmony. Anyone there that day unknown to us left with no doubt as to how special she had been to the crowd there gathered. Outside, upon delivery of the news that she was not going to survive the blow dealt by a silent killer, I was greeted with an overwhelming physical manifestation of emotion from our friends. Chris Leach, one of my dearest and lifelong friends and one of the strongest men I know, wept uncontrollably on my shoulder - a scene that would play out with so many in the coming hours and days. People, who knew not what to say, said nothing and just held me and each other. The unleashed power of our humanity, pure 100% love, was on full display and it was so damn beautiful. I wanted her to see it all. Then, I was left alone with the only woman I'd ever loved.

The doctor told me it would take 5 to 10 minutes for her heart to stop. They told me to take all the time I needed. Can you imagine saying such a thing to someone? Again, words followed from medical people that meant nothing and were not processed. Switches were turned to the off position. The curtain was pulled, and except for the beeping of the heart monitor, all was quiet. It was so quiet, peaceful even, as if the entire hospital ceased business in reverent appreciation for the extraordinary life passing. I reached for and lifted her hand in mine as I had on so many occasions. It was warm and adorned with the simple ring I bought from Mr. Difler, the one I made payments on, the one she loved so much. I held her hand to my face, closed my eyes, and the magic came. We were in the back of Ms. Carroll's sixth grade class listening to a 45 record during recess - Whip It by Devo. She was wearing her big glasses and had the Dorothy Hamil haircut. We were smiling for a camera on a hay bail at the 1985 Sadie Hawkins dance, the glasses and haircut distant memories. We were in the commons at Farragut High School, kissing to a terrible Spandau Ballet song. We were in my camaro, T-tops out, driving down Concord Road, singing loudly to I Can't Fight This Feeling, the wind blowing her hair into her face, those eyes peeking at me between strands. We were in a room, trembling and laughing, as we attempted to solve the mysteries without any clues. We were pouring water on an overheated engine in Cade's Cove. She was laughing. We were laughing. She was walking down an aisle toward me while I was waiting and watching with tears rolling down my cheeks. We were jumping up and down to the news of my Bar Exam results. We were dancing, just dancing. We were in an apartment in Birmingham, Alabama, screaming and knocking over drinks as Sid Bream slid into home plate. We were watching in awe on an extraordinary early Spring evening as God saw fit to dump 17 inches of snow outside our window. We were laughing and crying in the bedroom of our first house, holding each other as the pregnancy test fell to the floor, two pink lines visible through the clear plastic.We were marching around a coffee table with our precious little girl singing along to a Christmas movie and then clutching our children together in a hospital bed, immediately after Andy was born, our family complete. Finally, with Shelby in our arms, head on her shoulder, we were wrapped up in each other, slowly dancing to "Heartbreak Town" just 24 hours earlier in the sun room, believing without question tomorrow was a promise that would never be broken.  If the scientists were right, she didn't hear a word of what came next, but I put it all out there. We all want one more minute. We all want to believe we said it all and that it was heard. I don't know. I simply don't. But I do know she knew everything that came from my mouth. She already knew. There were no commands, no begging, no rage, no self-pity, and no regrets; only gratitude and promises and love in the purest form. I remember every single word, and, forgive my arrogance, but it was beautiful. Pardon me if I keep that part for myself. I don't wear faith on my sleeve, but I tell you this with absolute certainty - In a moment when I'd be forgiven anger or even hatred toward God, when the questioning of his existence would be allowed and even encouraged, I never felt closer to what awaits beyond, and it is beautiful.

I walked out of the hospital into the fading warmth of Indian Summer. A long Winter was before me as I concerned myself with how to tell a four-year-old her mother was never coming home, convinced I would never smile again.

Abbie Elisabeth Skladan was born 35 days later. I continue to take particular interest in her precious life, faithfully believing that a prayer given as the last request of an extraordinary woman carries her still.

Abbie Skladan and her baby brother, Ryan
2014

Precious Time

This Week's Song - Precious Time by Van Morrison. Van's voice is ear candy.You cannot help dancing to and/or feeling uplifted by the basic lesson held in its lyrics. Try it out and take to heart the message in the words, but make sure the furniture is out of the way and your girl/guy is within arms reach. I've danced some great swings with beautiful women to this one.

The Author and The Coleman
 July 3, 2014
Fripp Island, South Carolina

The glorious bridges of Beaufort County, South Carolina, traversing miles of lush, undisturbed marshland, delivered us to the shore of Fripp Island this past week for the annual Ackermann family vacation. On Thursday morning I sat in a beach chair watching the back end of Hurricane Arthur out on the salt as it moved north and away from our island, sparing our final days in a magical place. It was my time for reflecting on the enormity of my good fortune to be among the Ackermann family. For the past 12 years the Ackermann children (Dori, Nancy, Andy and Jill) have gathered beside a large body of water with their spouses, children and parents to enjoy a week of sun, water, laughs, and love.  In recent years, as the children age, we are sometimes without one or two. This year we had the full lot - 22. In 2002, my young children and I were graciously invited to enlarge the group by virtue of my exquisite and easy decision to marry Bert and Judy Ackermann's second-born child, Nancy. It is always a wonderful week. It is also time to renew my intimate relationship with a gray Coleman cooler.

Before me and before the trip became an annual event, Andy Ackermann walked into a Galyon's in Atlanta in September of 2000. She sat among those other brands of coolers in a display, poised like an orphan, waiting for a prospective and loving parent to pick her from the others. She was a bland gray among much sexier and higher priced competitors, but fate was to intervene that Fall afternoon as my future brother-in-law was on a mission to find a cooler for a Tennessee-Georgia tailgate party in Athens. Red wasn't an option. Orange was no where to be seen. A price-efficient-nondescript-basic Coleman seemed to do. Destiny was set in motion. In the last 14 years, the gray Coleman has seen tailgate parties, neighborhood functions, family reunions and a myriad of other celebrations and happy occasions, but it is that one week in July every year where she is put to the full test of service and where my loving relationship with her is annually renewed. I met her in 2003 when my arms were stronger and my hair darker. Since I was the new kid on the block, I took it upon myself to fill her up and get her to the beach, a task of strategic planning and hard physical labor. The rest is history. Each and every morning she waits patiently for me to remove yesterday's sand, empty cans, and bottle labels from the two inches of warm water sloshing on her floor to clean her anew, fill her with beer, water, Diet Coke, Mountain Dew and other beverages so that we may escort each other on the long walk to the beach. Down boardwalks, through sand, along gravel paths, and across lagoons I've dragged, carried, floated and pushed her to a place beneath a tent where she sits contently in the shade watching this extraordinary family age, serving as silent witness to the precious time slipping away. Despite the abundance of men, young and old, I rarely relinquish control of the glorious task and always take offense when she holds the hand of another. I'm a jealous man. The right of passage has become ritual and worship. I know she is smiling along with me as we go. She has been there for it all. Boys who wore life jackets and drank from juice boxes now have facial hair and jobs. Girls who wore swimmies and said, "look at this shell Daddy," wear headphones and talk of college orientation and sorority rush. If you think about it long enough it will break your heart. The gray Coleman continues to serve us through it all, even now as we curse, accept, and brace ourselves for the escalating effects of a terrible disease that steals memories, the memories we have worked so hard to cultivate, from our sweet JuJu. Judy has Alzheimer's disease.

The unconditional and unrestrained love of this family for its matriarch was on full display on the windswept- low-country island this week. The children care daily for their ailing mother at home and, of course, on this trip, but the entire family's devotion to this wonderful lady this past week stands as a testament to what true love is. It is patient, it is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast and it is not proud. This includes the love of grandchildren. They are committed to her, asking their JuJu if he/she is her favorite, playing along with her to Family Feud, getting her beloved Sprite and peanut butter, and quizzing her about her youth, those precious memories that will be the last to go.  Then there is the love of the man from whom she has been divorced over 30 years. Bert and Judy divorced in the early 80's. Since that time, life has continued to throw them together - birthdays, weddings, births, holidays, and, yes, vacations. He has been twice more married and divorced, but his love for his family has not wavered, and his love for her has never been so obvious. It is not the passionate love of youth or courtship, the constant, the dutiful or reverent love of a middle-age, or the familiar feelings and companionship of decades of marriage, but make no mistake about it - it is love. He walked her to the beach, he made her lunch, he retrieved her blanket, he searched for "Everybody Loves Raymond," her favorite show. They do not share a home or a life together, but the strength of once-upon-a-time, cultivated and sprinkled with the magic of what and who they created together, is enough. It is enough. On Friday, she and I sat beneath the tent with the gray Coleman and sang along with the ipod. We sang with Charlie Pride and Charlie Rich. We swayed with the Shirelles and Elvis Presley. Without accompanying music she offered up a rendition of "Sweet Caroline," with the youngest grandchild, Lauren Turner, who giggled and sang along. When I hit play on the playlist I made especially for her, Connie Francis's "Lipstick on your Collar," bled onto the sand from the speakers, bringing the voices of each Ackermann child to join in, the lyrics ingrained in their memory from evenings long ago, dancing and singing along as children in the family kitchen. Not one of them can sing a lick, but the sound is as beautiful as any Hallelujah Chorus ever heard. Precious time is slipping away.

Author, Nancy, and JuJu
July 3, 2014

I know as well as any the frailty of life and the precarious nature of our existence. I suppose that is why I know, at least most of the time, when to allow myself to fall into moments of this life that hold simplistic beauty. Those moments are easy to miss if you don't "get it." Unfortunately, the gift comes with great sacrifice, for it is a gift born of death and grief and love and one which cannot be taught or simply given to another. In the wake of my worst time on this planet, a friend told me with a wink and a smile "No one will acknowledge it, but not one of us is getting out of here alive." Van Morrison delivers the same message to the beat of a Carolina Shag. So, as I sat beneath the tent atop the gray Coleman on Thursday, listening to JuJu's and Connie's voice mix with the surf and the dysfunctional harmonies of the middle-aged Ackermann children, I smiled and turned the key, locking away another memory I will hold "till Hell freezes over and the rivers run dry," ever thankful for the precious time.