Oklahoma Dreaming: Bob and Mom

by Donna Schoenkopf

last time: lightning

This morning the sky was on FIRE. The sunrise rose in the east, then bled into the southern sky. You could tell it was going to be a humdinger by the way it started. The first inkling of light was an INTENSE orange-red. Then, as it unfurled, the color rose high into the sky and turned the southern sky that pastel pinkish apricot color with an aqua sky.

wow

Have THAT start your day in the morning.

The weather forecast is wind. Yikes. I'm about to go outside and try to tie down the stuff I've thrown on the 9x9 concrete slab that Peewee put there for my shed. The one that he moved from point A to point B after I changed my mind on its location. The one he put the iron poles under after lifting up one side with a backhoe, then pulling the whole dang thing with a huge chain.

That one.

OK, I'm going out there now.

workworkworkworkwork

OK. I'm back.

United States Forester Ken is coming sometime in the next two weeks to walk the propiddy and tell me what would be good to put in as windbreaks. This wind is running me ragged. Everything on the place that isn't tied down has sailed through the air and landed somewhere else. Usually far away.

ANYWAY, Forester Ken and I have already decided, over the phone, that Vitex bushes would be good (they have bunches of lavender flowers and grow fast) and we do want evergreens for the north wind in the winter. Pines probably, although I'm toying with the idea of bamboo. Snakes in the bamboo, you ask? The guineas will get 'em.

Have you ever seen a guinea? I think they're pretty. They look like quail to me. Really pretty speckled feathers. They are native to Africa. They LOVE ticks. They kill snakes. They are fabulous watchbirds. They need practically no care at all. They are curious and become attached to you and wait for you to come home. Once they know they live on your property they don't even need a coop. They nest in the trees where the ticks are. But I—I shall make them a coop. It's cold in the winter.

I got the name of a guinea guy from the feed store guys. Bob Cook. They said he had the best birds anywhere.

I called. He said come on out. Didn't give me an address. Just described what his house looked like and directions. That was kinda cool.

So out I went.

Bob lives in a sweet yellow house with four pickups out front. He has a LARGE penned area for his birds with wire and metal bird coops. I knocked on his door and he came out.

He's a big man. I think he's Indian, or at least part. He's not gregarious. I can tell he has deep feelings. I can also tell that he loves his fowl. He's a Marine vet. Wears a camouflage jacket and hat. Doesn't smile.

He took me on a tour.

I saw the most BEAUTIFUL white peacock, with a tail at least 6 feet long. He sat on his roost with his tail flowing to the ground. He looked like a picture from a fairytale. I have never seen a bird that beautiful. He had a mate, a snow white peahen.

I saw white turkeys, banty roosters and hens with their feather pantaloons, a huge herd of geese honking and hissing at me, chickens and roosters, a passel of ducks, and guineas, all with pens and open places and feed and water and lots of loose feathers and at least two feet of packed bird shit that made a rock hard floor on which we walked.

After the tour we talked a little, leaning against one of the pickup trucks. I told him that my mother would have LOVED his place. I told him that she had always wanted to live on a farm and that she just couldn't hold out long enough and had died before I could get back to Oklahoma and scoop her up in my arms and carry her to the prettiest 13 acres you ever saw. I told him that her favorite animals were the chicken and the goat. A small smile edged into his face. (No, it wasn't even a smile ... more like a lightening of the muscles in his face, his big, strong, face.)

Then I told him about when my mom died.

The night before she died she had a bourbon and coke and a cigarette. (The cigarettes are what killed her. She once said, "Donna, I love cigarettes so much I could EAT 'em.")

She had had a stroke and had been in the hospital and I had flown out to be with her. The doctor had told me (and not her) that she was going to die. She hated the hospital and wanted to be home. I talked to the hospice nurse about what to do and she arranged things and I brought her home. She wanted a cigarette but then said, never mind, she couldn't, the doctor wouldn't let her. I told her the doctor said she could have anything she wanted. Then blind washe said, with no expression on her face, "Oh. I'm going to die." Very matter of factly. She never said another word about dying.

Instead we continued talking. She told me she was scared and she didn't know why. I told her the nurse said her illness (COPD) made her feel that way because when you aren't getting enough oxygen your brain goes into fear or flight syndrome. She sipped a little more of her bourbon and coke and had a little puff of her cigarette. My little, tiny mom sat with her feet tucked up under her, sideways in her big, soft living room chair. She said, "Donna, please don't leave me." And I said, "I'll never leave you, Mom. I'll stay with you forever."

I asked her if she would let me know that she was with me after she died. She said, "Oh sure, honey, I will."

Then she had a wrenching stroke. She went completely rigid. My brother carried her to her bed. She couldn't move at all. I asked the hospice nurse what that meant and she said that Mom didn't have much longer. After a while I climbed into bed with her and held her. I wanted her to know I was there. Her breathing got more and more shallow and her breaths were farther and father apart. Until ... she was gone. She just floated away.

As I've said, she loved chickens. And my totem is the chicken. The next part of story is ... well, you be the judge.

Mother had taped the names of all her children and grandchildren on the bottoms and backs of every piece of furniture and knicknack in her apartment. So after we had her funeral we came back to her house and everyone took their special treasures home and I collapsed into a deep sleep in the guest room on the remaining bed. I hadn't slept in days.

About 1:30 in the morning I awoke with a start to the loud crowing of a rooster in the corner of the room. It kept on and on. I made my way over to the corner of the room in the dark and felt around until my hand felt her purse, from which the crows of the rooster came. I reached in and pulled out a watch that I'd never seen before. A blind person's watch that told you the time and crowed the alarm.

The cigarettes had not only stolen her breath, but also her sight.

It crowed and crowed and crowed. I couldn't figure out how to stop a watch I had never seen before. And it was in the dark. Finally I figured it out and turned it off.

I sat in the dark full of feeling.

She was true to her word. She had let me know she was with me. Forever.

I told Bob this story.

He told me he knew a cattle rancher who had a watch that mewed like a kitten.

He also told me to come back in May. Get the guineas when they're young. They'll stay with you and eat ticks and fleas and snakes and be good watchdogs.

I could tell he loved my mom.

She would have loved him, too.

next time: two cities