Nonfiction

Table of Contents Granada………………………………………………………………………….1 Words Like Lightning…………………………………………………………...5 On Breathing…………………………………………………………………….15

Granada The line from the gelato shop snaked around the corner of the building, its patrons braving the hundred degree weather for a scoop of the soft Italian ice cream. Those in the back of the line stood forlornly, checking their watches against time and hoping that the serpentine would slither closer to the door.

I glanced at the clock that hung above the drugstore entrance. It read three thirtyfive. Pacing nervously in front of los correos, the post office, I waited for my friend to arrive. The city of Granada was waking up from its siesta, the plaza buzzing with the reemergence of refreshed sleepers. Where is she? I thought to myself, as I shifted the large cardboard box to my right hip. Scanning the plaza, I gazed longingly at the large fountain whose cool spray was the only relief from the heat. Sweat trickled down my brow as if in response to my vision.

Leaning against the rough-hewn stone of the building, I sat the box down, careful to keep it between my feet. Sun-soaked, the building radiated its heat through my t-shirt, warm but at the same time comforting. The minutes ticked by, dragging their heels through the haze of heat that surrounded the city. Three-forty. The temperature alternated with the time on the drugstore sign. One hundred and eight degrees. I was thankful that the region lacked the intense humidity of my native South.

Finally, Melissa arrived. She ambled up the sidewalk, her face reddened to a cherry. She had the inability to sweat because of a pituitary gland defect. Addled, she began to apologize, something about a bus being late and the driver not understanding her Americanized Spanish when she asked to get off. It was okay. I was just ready to get this over with.

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The post office in Granada is a highly organized affair. If you don’t know exactly what you want when you go in there, then you will be dismissed with a wave of the hand and an irritated glare. They don’t have time to fool with you there, or at least that’s their rationale. They don’t like to answer questions there. They just want you in and out, like the mail they process. Friendly hellos and smiles disappear when you enter into the post office. It’s a scary place.

We’d already tried to mail this package once, without knowledge of the heartlessness of the mail clerks for American exchange students. It was difficult enough to read a menu, much less a shipping chart. This time, we were ready. I was going to do the talking, to be the hero and have our souvenirs shipped overseas. I had practiced my Spanish with my host mother, asked her all the pertinent questions. But, still the fear of being rejected and humiliated, albeit by a mail clerk, haunted me.

Melissa swung her bookbag off her stout little body. She was short and nearly blind, her growth and vision stunted by her mother’s chain smoking. She hated smokers, detested the smell of their habit. This summer was a relief for her, an escape from the small house she shared with her mother during semester break. The fresh air agreed with her, even if the heat wreaked havoc on her sweat-less body.

Pulling the articles out of her bag, I admired the fans and the shawls we had purchased off the street vendors. They were cheap, but cheap. We packed the articles, securing the breakable items with the shawls and newspaper. Once satisfied that they would make it overseas, I slicked the mailing tape over the cardboard, sealing our memories inside.

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“Are you ready?” I asked her. She nodded, zipping the bookbag closed, and draping it back across her shoulder. “Si.” she smiled.

From our first visit to the post office, I had gathered that how much the package cost would depend on two things: how much it weighed and how I wanted it shipped. The air conditioned post office was such a relief from the heat that I nearly forgot my anxiety.

Stepping in line, I walked up to the first counter. I filled out the form, scanning my pocket dictionary for words I didn’t know, hoping that it was right. My palms sweated, but not from the heat.

I looked around, making sure I was in the correct line. Melissa and I chatted idly, going over Spanish phrases, and looking over the form. Finally, our turn came in line. “¿Quien es el siguiente?” the dark haired Spaniard called out. His glasses rode the end of his noses, and he looked down through them at me. I whispered, “Here goes nothing,” and strode to the counter. “¿Que desea?” He did not smile. Perhaps the postal workers in Spain have as high a suicide rate as the ones in the United States. Perhaps they detest the mundane-ness of their jobs, and wish they were anywhere but the cold dark cavern of the post office.

I put my package on the counter. “Yo quiero enviar por correo a las Estados Unidos por favor.” I spoke haltingly, my confidence in my communications skills dwindling as I told him I wanted to mail the package to the U.S. He glanced at the package, it’s bulk taking up a great deal of counter space. Raising his eyebrows, he resumed his questions. “¿Enviar por correo aereo o correo carga?” By air or by freight, it seemed to be simple enough.

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“¿Cuantas cuesta para correo aereo?” I questioned back. How much will it cost me? He hefted the package onto his shoulder and walked to the back of the cubicle without a word. I watched as he placed the box on the scale, and the meter registered 12.5 pounds. I gulped. I had realized that it weighed a bit, but twelve pounds. I felt my heart flutter at the cost I was about to encounter and knew that airmail would not be an option. “¿A donde vas?” He was gruff. His nametag said his name was Augustin. I wondered if Augustin had a family, if he was nice outside of the post office. “Voy a Carolina de Norte. En la ciudad de Lexington. Es..es…” I did not know the word for zip code. My broken Spanish was becoming shattered.

Then, a smile. Augustin’s olive skin broke at the corner of his mouth, and his soul seemed to return to his body for a moment. “Escribas la dirrecion pada mi por favor.”

Grateful, I took the pen, and wrote the address in large, plain letters. He took the pen and the paper and keyed it in the computers. “Voy a ochenta euros para enviar por carga y cien y setenta para enviar por correo aereo. ¿Que prefieres?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Yo quiero enviar por carga por favor.” Digging in my pocket, I found the cash that Melissa had withdrawn earlier that day. Augustin’s fingers tapped the numbers into the keyboard, and he printed a bill of sale for me. “Gracias,” I said, hoping to see the smile again. But it was gone. He nodded his head, and I stepped out of line. “¿Quien es el siguiente?” I heard him call out as I met Melissa by the door and walked out into the blaze of the afternoon.

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Words Like Lightning Peals of thunder echoed across the mountain, shaking me from my sleep. From my bedroom window I saw lightning scar the sky and heard the torrents of water slake across the windowpane. I reached across the sheets, but the cool gray plastic seemed to evade my grasp as I fumbled for the alarm clock. Blue light glowed from its face as I punched the buttons. Too early to be awake, but too late to go back to sleep. Pulling the covers up around me, I let the drone of the rain surround me, lulling me back to that place between sleep and awareness.

In the haze of almost sleep, the thunder claps rolled over the valleys of my mind, their echoes rousing memories from its hidden crevices. I shift, changing position, and find my dream-self resting in my father’s arms. His coarse laugh harmonizes with the sound of the thunder, and we swing together on my grandmother’s porch, legs in unison against the worn old wood. The chains creak against our weight. “Daddy, why does it thunder?” I ask, too young to have learned it yet in school.

He laughs again, his face young and handsome, less worry-lined than it is these days. Leaning back, he takes a deep breath, inhaling the sweet smell of summer rain mixed with red clay dirt. I imagine that this is what heaven smells like. Fresh. Clean.

Pure.

Staring out over the backyard, we watch gold strike from the sky, illuminating the soft, sloping hills. Beautiful, but deadly. “It’s God bowling.” He says it seriously, unflinchingly. Gullible, I stare at him for awhile, trying his explanation with my eyes. I have no reason not to believe him, he’s my dad. But, it doesn’t seem like that can be true.

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Does God really bowl? Then, a twitch from the corner of his mouth. I glare at him, understanding that I’ve been had.

“Daaaaaddy! That’s not true.”

“Of course it is.”

But he can’t keep it in. The dimples dig deep into his full cheeks and his mustachioed face swallows the sky with laughter. Tree-like arms stretch out to protect himself as my five-year old frame lunges from the seat, pigtails flying. I dissolve into giggles as he hoists me above his head, tickling my sides until I can’t breathe. Throwing me over his shoulder, he calls me his “sack of potatoes,” and lets me catch my breath.

Still writhing with laughter, I regain my seat, find my place in the crook of his arm and snuggle up to him. I amend my perception of heaven, adding his aftershave to the concoction. Yes, then it will be perfect.

“You know that lightning is dangerous, right? And, that you should always go somewhere safe when you hear thunder?” he asks, wanting me to fully understand the power of nature. I nod, the lightning thrilling and scaring me as it dances across the sky.

The next crack of thunder shakes the whole earth; the storm is moving closer. His arm wraps around me as I shudder in response. My question forgotten, I still cling to him as the earth is washed clean.

Again, thunder. I kneel on our battered old couch, my arms propped on its cattorn back, and stare out the window. I’m alone. My sister is at daycare, my mom and dad at work. Summer vacation is long and boring, the neighbor kids gone to camp, and I’m stuck at home in Lexington. The sky is dark. I hear the birds stop their singing, a hush

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falling over the outside. The television flickers behind me, and though I’m not watching it, I leave it on for company. The phone rings.

I let the answering machine pick it up, and when I hear my dad’s voice, I interrupt its recording. “Hey, I’m here.”

“Hello, pumpkin. You doing okay? I heard a storm’s moving in.” His voice is light-hearted, though a little weary. He doesn’t like his job, wants to get a new one, but doesn’t think it’s possible.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just hanging out. Where are you?” I look out the window again.

It’s starting to get really windy out. “The storm’s coming pretty fast, it started thundering a minute ago…umm… Dad, doesn’t it get quiet and greenish before a tornado?”

He pauses, thinks about what to say. “I’m in Charlotte, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.” I hear the tinge of concern in his voice. “Just stay inside, away from the windows.

Same as any other storm. Go next door to your grandmother’s if you think you need to.”

Curious, I go to the window, against his directions. I see lightning strike the hill at the edge of our property. The thunder applauds its mark.

“Dad, it sorta sounds like a train.”

He stays on the phone with me, as I huddle in the bathroom, until the tornado jumps our house, tears the neighbor’s barn off its foundation, and the sky clears. His voice drowns out the thundering wind.

The glow of the computer illuminates my dad’s face, emphasizing the lines that have etched themselves into his skin. His face is rounder, fuller; depression sunk into his eyes. He doesn’t know he’s depressed, and if he does, he won’t admit it. My footsteps are

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hollow on the tattered linoleum. The floorboards groan in our old doublewide trailer as I come in through the backdoor, shrugging past the coats that aren’t content to stay in their space. My mother is curled up on the couch, napping.

He doesn’t look up. I pass him, dropping my backpack beside the couch. The cat looks at me, meowing. Only it notices the tears on my face.

“Can I use the computer? I need to talk to Angela.”

He drags a weary hand across his face. He’s worked sixty hours this week, and he’s submitting his timesheets. I shouldn’t ask.

“No, not right now.”

“But, Dad… I need to talk to her.”

“No. Didn’t you just see her? She was at the football game, wasn’t she? You can wait.” He makes the decision for me, and turns away.

“Well, how long will you be?” Headstrong, I persist. It’s 10 o’ clock, too late to call, but I need to know how she is.

“Brandy, you can wait,” he replies, annoyance burning in his voice, the sound of distant thunder. “It’s not that important.”

“Yes, it is! Her dad died today!” My throat clenches on the word died. The threat of tears sears the back of my throat and finally, he looks at me. Searches my face, but does not comment. He gathers the leaves of paper, and steps away from the desk.

I log onto the instant messenger program, mis-keying my password through blurry eyes. We don’t chat for long; her house is full of grieving relatives that she can’t get away from. She manages to tell me briefly how he died, how they found his body

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crumpled inside his truck after work. A heart attack. Her mountain of a father, lifeless and laughless.

Tears well in my eyes, and I feel my own heart contract at the thought. What if it had been my dad? The image of her father clutching his chest transforms into my own father before my eyes. I can’t handle the thought.

We finish our conversation, me giving my condolences, her thanking me for being there this morning when the guidance counselors came to tell her. I tell her I love her, and sign off. I push the rolling chair from the desk, the wheels skating across the floor.

Standing, I start to leave the living room. But, my dad is there, blocking the five feet to my bedroom door.

“What happened?” he asks, concerned. He means well, but I’m still shaken by the thought of Angela’s dad morphing into mine. They had the same features, both tall and stocky. They even had the same eye color. Had. I shake my head, and try to go to my room.

“Brandy, what happened to her dad?”

I don’t want to talk about it. It’s still too raw. “Can we talk about it later?” I shut down, escapism at its best. I close my eyes, and think better of it. The mental image is still there. He persists.

“Did he wreck?” He doesn’t try to hug me, just stands there in my way, prolonging the awkward conversation. How do you tell your father you’re afraid he will die, too?

I had long ceased going to my dad for advice. We lived together in the same house and didn’t even know each other. His depression made him uninterested in the

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things that I had to say, and I did not know how to get him to pay more attention to me than whatever was currently on the television. We had nothing in common except our genes. We didn’t even look alike.

His downward spiral started after his mother was diagnosed with cancer, when I was seven. He lost his job a year later, because he had worked there too long and was paid too much. When his mother died, he became intolerable. Short-fused, anger and insecurity permeated who he was. Ten years of depression takes its toll, especially on relationships.

As a little girl, nothing was more important to me than making my father happy.

Part of me still longed to do so now, to open up and talk to him, to tell him my fears, but I couldn’t get past the shadow of a monster on his brow. I didn’t know what to say.

Fathers expect their daughters to be little girls forever, always needing their help and advice. Teenagers know that it can’t be so, and somewhere along the way, build up walls saying, “Keep out. It’s time for me to try to figure it out on my own.”

“No, Dad, just… I’ll talk about it later. I have to call Wesley.”

This is the end of it for him. His temper flares. He can’t understand why I would rather talk to my youth pastor than him. “Fine. Go call him.” Attempting to control his feelings, he moves out of my way, toward the couch. But the demons of depression need to shrug his hurt onto someone else. He throws the words over his shoulder, carelessly, callously. “If his daughter was anything like you, he’s better off dead.”

When lightning strikes, it creates a channel that collapses back on itself, creating sound as the vacuum is filled. Sometimes the rumblings of thunder can be heard long before the actual cause is seen. But, whether seen or unseen, there is always lightning

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involved. The closer the storm is, the sooner you will hear the sound of the thunder follow its predecessor. Thunder is simply the reverberation of lightning.

His words cut to my heart, and I knew he was sorry the instant he said them. It didn’t matter though. Once lightning has struck, it is irreversible and cannot be called back up into the clouds. The channel it creates closes instantly, the crack of thunder sealing its path. Proverbs 18:21 says that the power of life and death is in the tongue.

Words never go away once they are spoken, and they have the ability to build up or destroy someone in their entirety. No one is exempt from this basic truth, and even God’s own word does not return void.

It was then that I stopped, staring with my mouth agape. The tears I had held back caused my throat to ache, and slowly began to carve a path across my cheek. They burned.

The apostle Paul urges his followers to “tame their tongue” as with a bit in a horse’s mouth, because of this dangerous power it possesses. In the Book of James, the apostle describes the tongue as “an unruly evil, full of poison.” Words don’t just sting and ache for a little while, they kill. My mother, woken by the growling voices, stared in shock, but held her own tongue. Her silvered hair hung limp around her face. She did not defend me, did not argue with him. She just sat there, unsure as to what was going to happen.

“Fine. If that’s how you feel, then I’m gone.” Spinning on my heel, blinded by tears, I went to my bedroom, grabbed a bag and stuffed whatever was nearby into it. I

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could hear them arguing in the living room, voices thinly concealed by the paneling of our house.

“Where are the truck keys? Get them before she can leave.” I heard him say.

I patted the pocket of my jeans. They weren’t there. Oh well, I would walk. It didn’t matter, as long as I wasn’t there. I opened my bedroom window, dropped my bag, and then climbed through the frame. Rain fragranced the air and I was glad I had remembered a jacket. Everything inside of me ached, as if someone had reached in and torn out my soul, maiming the remnants in the process.

I ran. Ran as far as I could, for as long as I could, my lungs heaving with every step. Ran to forget that my father hated me because he hated himself. Ran to forget his scathing words. When my lungs and legs finally gave out, I found a grove of trees away from the road and collapsed, weeping. It was cold for October, the rain-chilled wind sweeping around me. Thunder rolled softly in the distance and I huddled against the base of a giant pecan tree, my knees drawn up to my chest. I couldn’t breathe for the tears.

Victims who survive a lightning strike are often left with seriously debilitating injuries. Heart arrhythmias, loss of vision or hearing, or post traumatic stress disorder are common. They almost always have burns. Deep lingering scars that testify to their experience – and justify their existence.

I went back that night, the imprint of his words branded on my soul. Opening the door to the house, I heard him on the phone.

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“If you see her, let me know….I just don’t know what to do with her, she’s so independent…. Yes….. Okay, oh, wait. I think she’s here. I’ll call you back.”

Breezing past him, I went to my room, and with a click of the lock shut him out.

He knocked softly, said something about being sorry. I ignored him. Pulling off my soaking wet clothes, I changed into warm clothes, brushed my hair and crawled into bed.

The rain washed out the lightning, and I drifted to sleep under its roar.

Lightning strikes when there is too much electromagnetic tension in the clouds. It builds and builds until the charge is so great that it has to be released. It takes out its anger on the highest point, the nearest possible thing: a tree, a tower, or a glassy ocean.

The danger is in the proximity.

I did not forgive him, not until years later, after time had had the chance to smooth over the deep scar. It took two hundred miles and five years to ease the tension that had built up. Now, we talk nearly every day, the distance allowing for safety. With the space between us, we can see the threat of storm clouds building and have enough perspective to step back and run for shelter if we need to.

He watches his words, and I watch my scar, waiting for it to fade to just a memory of a distant storm.

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On Breathing The rhythmic beat of the monitors greeted us as Melissa and I passed through the curtain, denoting a weak, but steady heartbeat. Leads sprung from at least five places on Genie’s arms and hands, and her sedated body was held fast to her bed by soft white restraints. I looked at my friend’s mother, and saw the gentle fall and rise of her chest as the respirator breathed for her, its thwump thwump filling in the harmony of beeps from the other monitors.

Sleepily, she peered through the slits of her eyelids, her mind rising out of its sedated cloud. It was strange to see her like this, quiet and frail, no make-up. She had not been able to repaint her eyebrows today like she had done for so many years after she singed them, when she was learning to cook as a young married woman. I thought it odd to stare at her face, so I concentrated on her hands instead, the many needled hands with the age spots starting to show, and reached out to hold them. Melissa walked around the room, checking the charts and talking to the nurses, because it was her mother who was lying in this bed, not mine. The doctors had said it was pneumonia on top of her emphysema, and she had worsened it by dragging on a pack of cigarettes a day, heedless of her doctor’s instructions to quit.

My thumb trailed across her hand, and she squeezed back. She tried to raise her arm to hug me, but the restraints pulled her back against the bed. Consternation flooded her face as she realized she was bound and she struggled to pull free, nearly ripping a needle from her right arm. Her constant insistence to move and get out of bed was the reason they had restrained her in the first place. She gasped for breath as she struggled.

The nurses came and pressed against her shoulders, soothing her with calm voices. She

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relaxed, then, and her body drooped back against the sheets. I listened to her raspy voice as she began to moan, asking why she was here, what they were doing to her, when she could go home. Her words came out broken, cracked, and dry: A file against a piece of steel. The respirator thumped on through the night, as she drifted in and out of sleep, filling her lungs through the breathing tube in her nose, the suck and release of oxygen giving her life.

Breathing is one of the most basic functions our bodies perform. It is involuntary, mandatory. We inhale and exhale automatically, never thinking about it until we are deprived of our ability to breathe. The flow of air through our nostrils or mouth satisfies the needs of our lungs, brain, organs and cells. It is intrinsic to the nature of life.

But our ability to breathe is constantly under attack. Different diseases assail our lungs in life: cancer, emphysema, bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma. All threaten to steal away the first thing in our life that was ours. Pollutants find their way in as we inhale, and further damage our abilities to breathe. Carcinogens can latch to the walls of our lungs, blackening them and destroying their ability to draw in air properly, inhibiting the conversion of oxygen to carbon dioxide, and our breath is stolen.

We feel suffocated by work, choked by fear, drowned by circumstances. We hold our breath in hope, in anticipation. Moments steal our breath away. We deprive ourselves, or are deprived, of the very thing that would give us life.

Our very words are breath. Each one made by forcing air in and out of our mouths, manipulating it through the larynx and with the tongue. We label people who speak for extended amounts of time “longwinded”, and tell those we don’t want to hear to

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“save their breath.” It is no wonder that words are so powerful, so easily constructive or destructive. They carry the very breath of our being in them, the very essence of life.

As the days went on, they slowly decreased the levels of oxygen being pumped into Genie. Her lungs began to heal, and they found their own rhythm again, needing only oxygen to help on occasion. Weeks later, during our Christmas break, she was released from the hospital with an oxygen tank and the instructions not to smoke. She didn’t listen.

As a sufferer of chronic asthma myself, I was adamant that she should follow the doctor’s orders and stay smoke-free. I joined ranks with Melissa to stop her from picking up the habit again. The thought that someone would willingly give up their ability to have unrestricted breath appalled me, when it was something I longed for. Melissa and I spent our time suggesting ways that Genie could curb the cravings, offering up options from the patch to herbal remedies. I think hypnotism was even brought up once and then quickly dropped as an option. When all of our efforts failed, we chastised her when she did start again, hoping we could appeal to her conscience.

“Think of Megan and Hannah.” We’d plead, suggesting the environment she was creating with her secondhand smoke was unfit for her grandchildren.

“I only smoke in the bedroom.” Genie would reply, nonchalantly. In her mind, the bedroom door was barrier enough to protect their young lungs. It apparently did not occur to her that they slept in that room when they came to visit, and that she was probably scarring their young lungs with her filthy habit.

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All our pleading, cajoling and chiding was to no avail. She was back to a pack a day in no time. Then, a pack and a half. She learned to use the oxygen tank as a crutch, dragging on it in alteration with her cigarettes. Regular doctor visits to check the progress of her emphysema did nothing to deter her. Realizing there was nothing we could do as long as she didn’t want help, Melissa and I returned to college for Spring semester, disappointed that she cared so little about something so important.

Back at school, I worried for Genie’s health, even though I knew that I had done all I could. Melissa’s sister, Elizabeth, kept us updated regularly on her progress. I worked out and played intramural sports, using my own lungs to their full capacity, with a renewed thankfulness for them even in their limited abilities. I conditioned them to the point where I needed my inhaler only on occasion, and I did not have to rely on it as heavily as I had in high school.

I discovered I had asthma in high school. I had always had some trouble breathing when I ran, but basketball tryouts my freshman year pushed me over the edge. The first weeks of basketball practice are conditioning weeks, and the practices are designed to really work every area of your body, pushing you to the limits to see if you can keep the pace of the team. It’s competitive, it’s hard, and it’s meant to hurt.

At the end of each practice, our coach would have us run suicides. I cannot think of a more apt name for such an exercise. Every one on the team lines up on the baseline of the basketball court, waits for the whistle, and then sprints to the foul shot line, and back. A quick pivot, and it’s a dead sprint to half court and back. Then to the foul shot line on the opposite end of the court and back. The exercise ends with everyone running

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full speed, headlong from one end of the court to the other, baseline to baseline, shoes squeaking against the hardwood, breaths heavy and ragged.

The catch is you’re pressed for time with each sprint. If one person doesn’t make the whistle, then the whole squad has to do it over. You don’t want to be the person who lags behind. So everyone pushes with everything they have, pushing each other to be the very best, to be the strongest. With every stride, your muscles strain, stretching and lengthening, burning against the push and your lungs work at full capacity, sucking in air as quickly as possible, desperate for breath.

It was at the end of one of these practices during the first week that I had my initial onset of asthma. Racing against the clock, I slammed my body into the blue mat hanging from the gym wall, gasping for air. Each breath was like hot razors across my esophagus and lungs.

I tried to lie on the ground, hoping to ease the burden on my lungs, but my teammates refused to let me. They hoisted me back to my feet.

“Don’t lie down. You’ll just make it worse.” Brooke, one of the girls wheezing alongside the rest, said. She instructed me to hold my arms above my head. “If you put your arms up, it’ll help your lungs expand.”

I paced the court, arms crossed across my skull, gripping my elbows. It was an hour before it didn’t hurt to breathe, before I could draw a full measure of air in. This happened every day after suicides, with different degrees of intensity, until I finally decided I had had enough. I quit basketball. The ache in my chest was too much to handle. It wasn’t until it was time to get a physical for softball that I discovered the cause of my breathing pain was exercise induced asthma.

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Like the emphysema Genie dealt with, asthma is a chronic reactive airway disease. There are many factors that can induce an asthma attack, and they vary in degree from person to person. When an attack occurs (and that’s just what it is, an assault on your defenseless lungs), your airways swell, producing mucous, making it difficult to exhale and clear the way for new air. I knew the strain she felt on her lungs firsthand, and could not comprehend why she would continue to inflict that sort of pain on herself. Why exasperate something that inhibits your breathing? It just didn’t make sense to me.

In March of the same year, Genie ended up in the hospital again. This time I couldn’t go see her. School was in full swing, and to steal the time to drive three hours home was impossible. I felt bad for not going since I was Melissa’s most convenient way to Lexington. She couldn’t drive because of her poor eyesight, another consequence of Genie’s adamant refusal to give up smoking. Genie’s insistence to push her lungs’ capabilities welcomed another bout of pneumonia, further weakening her lungs.

Elizabeth described her mother’s wheezing and gasping to Melissa, who relayed it to me. The reports worsened as her illness went on. But, still, there was nothing we could do.

“The hospital’s the best place for her,” Melissa would say, “it’s the only place she can’t smoke. If nothing else, it’s a blessing she’s there.” She said it almost vindictively, a spiteful glee in her voice that her mother was forced to give her lungs a break. Angry that her mother never considered how her selfish smoking affected everyone else in her house, I think Melissa was glad that Genie had been readmitted.

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In all honesty, I’m not sure that Genie herself really understood the ramifications of her actions. Her restricted airways were an inconvenience, sure, but she wasn’t an athlete; she was barely mobile. Before her extended hospital stay, she spent her days on the couch in her little house in the woods watching day time soaps. Sure, she was short of breath when she played with her granddaughters, but she didn’t blame the cigarettes. It was old age and being over weight that were the culprits in her mind.

Over the months, Megan began developing an allergic reaction to smoke, and she coughed and spit when Genie lit up. But, it didn’t matter. Why should it? It hadn’t mattered to her enough to stop smoking when she was pregnant with her own daughter.

Even afterward, with the visible results of congenital eye defects and stunted growth presented before her in her daughter, she refused to make the connection between her smoking and the consequences of it.

The last trip to the hospital resulted in an ultimatum for Genie. The doctor laid it out quite clearly, in no uncertain terms: quit smoking or die. Her lungs were shot, another round of pneumonia would destroy them completely. The thought sobered us. It was up to her now. I can’t say we didn’t worry.

I shouldn’t be so quick to judge Genie, and I know that. It irks me to no end that she willingly trades her breath for an addiction. But, we all do that. We let our days catch up with us, and forget to breathe. How ironic since it is an involuntary function. We spend our time rushing around, denying our lungs the oxygen they so desperately need to fulfill their role, and then wonder why we are exhausted.

Our air is filled with smog, chemicals, dust and dirt, and pollen and it all serves to choke us a little more. We drink carbonated drinks, further limiting our lung capacity,

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and we hang out in smoke filled bars and bowling alleys, welcoming the pollutants into our lungs. I think the most exasperating thing is when we give up the ability to breathe ourselves, trading busyness for breath.

The other day, I forgot to breathe, and had to be reminded by my friend, Dana. I found myself overwhelmed and unable to escape from the worries and stressors in my life. They just seemed to close in around me, growing tighter and tighter until all I could do was focus on the tightness, forgetting to do something wholly automatic like breathe. I let the moment rob me of breath. My breath became quick and shallow, and I felt the effects of the limited supply of oxygen as I slipped into the beginnings of an asthma attack. Only when Dana said to me, “just breathe,” did I understand that I had the choice to control my breathing, to slow down and just breathe.

I took the moment, closed the door to my office, and sat in my chair. I let the air fill my lungs, drawing deep, my stomach rising with my chest as they were filled. I held it for a second, feeling full, and I as exhaled, and let the carbon dioxide out of my body, I felt the little things roll off my shoulders and back, and felt myself relax. Calm overwhelmed the panic rising in my chest, just from the simple act of breathing. I gained new perspective, and cleared my mind, so that I could focus on everything I had to do.

No longer did I feel helpless.

Melissa’s mother may have made the choice to ignore her body’s vehement reaction against the self-inflicted torture of her lungs, but I would not do the same. I would not let myself become trapped by something that was in my control. As I regained composure in my office, I thought about how breathing is all about the rise and fall of the

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chest, slow and steady. I allowed my mind to wander, settling on a memory of Ilana, a young girl I hadn’t thought of in years.

I held Ilana in my lap, and let her rest her head against my chest. Her five-yearold body clung to me as I rocked back and forth in the old wicker chair, and I smoothed the long black hair from her face. I was babysitting her while her mother was at the gym.

She sighed deeply, and her breathing pattern changed. “I can feel your heartbeat,” she said.

“Yeah? What’s it sound like?”

She sighed again. “Slow. Kind of like a quiet drum.”

I realized then that each time she sighed, she was slowing her own breathing down to match mine, to keep in time with my heart and breath. I remembered doing that with my own father when I was a child.

As I sat in my office, it made me wonder what my breath was in tune with now, what gauge I could use to steady it, so that my heart could again be a quiet drum against my chest. I decided that when all else failed, I would just make the choice to breathe. Not quick and shallow, but long, deep and slow. In and out, in and out, a rhythm all its own.

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