A lot to say

I sure had a lot to say about the third day of my recent Bucket Trip down the Dolores River in Utah, when our boat capsized in the rapids. A friend who reads my posts said, "You tend to go on and on."

What, half a dozen or so posts concerning a single minute on (in?) the river is going on too long? Well, maybe.

But since I returned, I have related the story of my minute underneath the overturned boat to a few select friends, and have had the good fortune of receiving in return two excellent commentaries about travails on the river. The first one is from J, a running buddy of mine.

J was tubing on the Snake River many years ago, and because he was much younger and less wise, he wasn't wearing a life jacket. He can't say for sure, but he might have had one or two.

The rushing river took him straight into a large rock, where the current swirled around and around in front of the standing impediment creating a fierce mini-maelstrom. Perhaps you have never truly been on (in?) a river; but I can say from close experience that the incredible power of the water is both unrelenting and unforgiving. It can kill you like that.

The whirling well of water drove J down and he could feel the inner tube he was gripping being torn from his hands. An inner tube has buoyancy and is likely to return to the surface at some point whereas a human body might stay submerged within the center of a deep, rotating pool of water for a long time.

J held on for dear life as he was swallowed up. A few seconds later the inner tube was ejected from the whirlpool and discharged downstream, with J still clinging to it.

To this day J credits his death grip on the inner tube's handles with saving his life. In a subsequent post I'll relate what I learned from a river guide friend of mine.

Incidentally, J was practically the only person who gave me unbridled support after I ascended to the presidency (short lived) of my former running club last year and vicious board infighting broke out. He watched my back when I stood up after my last board meeting and I was, um, closely confronted by four belligerent young alpha male board members who had been disruptive throughout the meeting.

Giving thanks

I went to church today for the first time since my life-altering moment under the boat on the Dolores River in Utah on Cinco de Mayo, to give thanks for discovering the strength within me when I was in the river to get out from under the boat before I drowned. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, you know?

I was relating my nascent faith to a friend today and she pointedly asked about me delaying for two Sundays after I got back before I made it to a service if that's how I now felt about it. She's actually not much of a believer herself, and views my belief with skepticism.

I just laughed. Two Sundays ago, today, it doesn't matter really, not to me anymore. (Right: Tough times on the river. We all came out alright, thank God.)

I think I've changed a little, actually. Tomorrow, for all my non-readers out there, we'll recover the overturned boat and learn the truth about "dry bags" as the cold night descends.

On Finishing

Has anyone ever died in your life? I hope not, but probably so.

Her final summer was it
And yet we guessed it not
If tender industriousness
Pervaded her, we thought

A further force of life
Developed from within,--
When Death lit all the shortness up,
And made the hurry plain.

We wondered at our blindness,--
When nothing was to see
But her Carrara [marble quarry in Italy] guide post,--
At our stupidity,

When, duller than our dulness,
The busy darling lay,
So busy was she finishing,
So leisurely were we!

I remember going with a friend, not so long ago, to see her friend die. As he lay in cancerous agony in a hospital bed, with some remote relatives in the room, we came in. He knew who my friend was, and was glad to see her. She had come a long way to see him.

I stayed in the background. My Dad, and then my Mom, had died of wasting, lingering illnesses and I think I knew that people who are departing are working at leaving, but they want to leave at the exact right moment. They want to leave on their own terms. I think this is hard to do.

Somehow a political squabble developed in that hospital room. Those remote relatives weren't liberal enough or something, and ever more fervent messages, couched in subtleties, started getting passed back and forth by strangers. I looked at the agonized man. His eyes were closed tightly as the retorts gained quiet stridency.

Suddenly he sat up! Get out! Get out! he commanded. Then he sank back into his hospital bed. We all left in hushed reverie. He died a day later, with no one there. This has always bothered me. Some succor!

So busy was she finishing,
So leisurely were we!

The poet is Emily Dickinson.