A Dozen Ends I Would Not Regret
1. In the Spring my heart could stop under the lilac bush with hummingbirds darting about overhead, or by Karl’s roses if I tarry too long to inhale the heavenly fragrance.
2. If I fall and hit my head tying shiny flags onto the fig tree to keep the Jays away, I could take my last breath lying in the dirt and laugh wondering why the California poppy seeds never sprouted.
3. The brakes could fail on the way to Brim’s Garden Center - my car careening into the bay where I would drown in the cold water with fishes swimming merrily by as though nothing were amiss.
4. I could have a fatal brain hemorrhage by the birdbath in the East garden - the one with Sartre’s Being and Nothingness I put there a few years ago for the birds to read as a joke.
5. I remember the balmy Summer afternoon sitting on the garden bench between Cait and Liam when time stopped for a few breathless moments in harmony with the Universal Pulse. I could have died then and there rapt in the Perfection.
6. I could look up into the heavens one morning, see the face of Father Lance filled with compassion, hear his welcoming words and surrender. “Come. Fear not.” [He’s been looking after my sister until I can get there.]
7. I could collapse from a massive stroke gazing into the sky watching my garden visitor, Jack the Crow, fight off a huge raptor to protect the chicks in the nest of the tall fir. Olga can’t do it by herself.
8. My house could catch fire and I could die from smoke inhalation trying to save my dog. Toby would die in my arms. He would sneak me into heaven with him.
9. In my mind’s ear I could hear Eric’s perfect bass note that evening during a concert in Longview, or I could hear three-year-old Robin say, “Mama, I don’t want you to be throwed away” and just fall over dead, my maternal heart burst, love and joy spilling out.
10. I could freeze to death with Dale in his cabin in Alaska, where he tries to hide from the combat nightmares. His suffering no embrace could heal, though I’d try. [I’d finally know the two angels who visited me when I was five were us!]
11. While I was distracted tugging out the woody lavender, the cougar spotted on Fourth Street could find me, pounce and tear out my throat before I knew what hit me.
12. I could even pass away in a dream, enthralled, waltzing through a vision of the millions of luminous threads connecting me to all living things within my garden--and without.
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