The Throne

Traveling is a pastime beyond compare, though with gas prices as they are, it's becoming less and less possible. In 2001, when I was around eight months pregnant with my son, it was one of the few things we could do with ease, since I had some complications that caused me agony when I attempted to walk. On a trip to fix something on one of the station's towers, Ben had discovered a novelty that quite excited us. He had found Ben Jones's store, nostalgically called Cooter's. Ben had actually met Ben Jones there on his previous trip and I had hopes to shake the star's hand myself.

It was early October when just a few of the trees have started to adorn themselves with their fall colors, and we headed out on our adventure right after church. After an hour and a half, we finally found Cooter's, which surprised me by looking much like any other fruit stand that dotted the highways in the small community where I grew up. My baby desperately needed a stretch, apparently, as he began appparently auditioining for a rock band drummer's position with special emphasis on the base drum pedals played by the feet.

Ben and I meandered slowly among the bushel baskets until my eye found the fresh-squeezed apple cider display. I immediately had an infamous pregnancy craving and Ben bought me a half-gallon jug. I managed to make it back into the car before beginning my voracious consumption; I chugged all but one inch of the half-gallon with only one pause for breath. Wisely, Ben averted his face as he chuckled to himself at my antics. With my hormonal imbalances, it was wise to assume that I would always react negatively since if I was going to laugh with him, I would anyway. In this instance, I, too, found my need for the sweet cider amusing.

The humor ended for me in about 30 minutes, however, when the baby rotated and expressed his displeasure at being squooshed by the inevitable filling of my bladder as the apple cider processed. As he set his foot into my bladder and commenced auditioning for another band, I politely informed Ben of the urgency of my situation: "I have to pee! Now!"

Ben, just as politely, told me that he would pull off at the next place we came to. Unfortunately, the road continued on without a turn in sight. We had come to a strange pass in the mountains that did not veer even marginally from straight for an eerily long distance. Gorgeous trees overhung the barely two-laned road, growing right up to the margin of the road, leaving about four inches of well manicured grass that sloped to a well defined ditch that rose right up to the tree line. I had never seen such a well kept road that appeared like a garden path except for the asphalt and faded yellow lines striping the middle, but my appreciation for the diligence of its maintenance was superceded by the more pressing needs of my body.

As the miles flew by, my need for a toilet was eclipsed by the need itself and I told Ben that I would go in the trees if he would just pull off. This request was how I discovered exactly how manicured and impossible the side of the road was for pulling off. Ben slowed sufficiently to realize that he would not be able to get back out of the ditch if he did try to pull off on the little grass strip.

After another five minutes, I ceased to care whether or not he could actually get the car off the road and told him that he had better stop in the middle of the lane if he did not want a puddle in his seat. My desperation even led me to contemplate the cider jug, but I couldn't manuever my bulk in the small truck for the necessaries.

Ben's face began to get that familiar look he had perfected over the years, the one where he knew that I was being completely unreasonable and was not going to listen to his well thought out logic that I considered merely a cover for his Purtainistic morals. It was my bare behind on the line, and I never understood why he should care if I accidentally mooned strangers if I didn't. I had seen this look more and more often as the pregnancy progressed and my sense of privacy became eclipsed by the lack of privacy inherent in doctor visits and comments from well-meaning strangers.

Just as I was about to open the door and see if I could get out on my own, since I assumed he'd brake when he saw me open the door, the seemingly endless tree line broke into a clearing. Ben pulled a move worthy of the Dukes who had brought us out here to begin with and braked within inches of the marvelous gas station that had appeared. Despite its grimy, broken-down appearance and antiquated pumps, this station still rates as one of the most beautiful sights in my memory.

I waddled as quickly as I could inside where the most stereotypical, country gas station attendant I've ever seen glanced at me with complete indifference while actually blowing a pink gum bubble. Assuming that my giant belly spoke for my urgency, I asked her where the bathroom was, and she langorously popped her bubble, jerked her thumb in the vague direction of the parking lot, and said, "Out by the garage."

Tossing a thank you over my shoulder, I hurried out the door and spotted the even more dilapidated garage across the rough pavement. As I circled the corner, worrying about the state of the bathroom at such a place, I beheld with horror a bright blue port-a-potty leaning against the wobbly walls. A split-second's pause was all allowed for my shock because the baby chose that moment to push just hard enough on my bladder to wet my pants slightly. I opened the door and stepped inside.

I've always wondered how I managed to get so big in pregnancy since I was large to begin with. People often questioned whether I was having twins, which is really only funny to the one doing the asking. My pondering renewed itself as I had to actually stop and think about how to turn around in the confined space to lock the door. Of course, the manuvering was made more difficult by trying to pull my pants down while turning and the significant cant that the floor had.

When I said the port-a-potty was leaning against the wall of the garage, I meant it. The floor and seat were tilted at almost 45 degrees. Normally when I use a port-a-potty, I use my thigh muscles to hold my body above the seat so that the germs that adhere to me from such places are hopefully lessened. That day, as I hurriedly turned around, the angle of the seat and floor combined with my awkward pregnant imbalance to literally knock my legs out from under me as I plopped onto the black seat more fully than I ever had before. Not only was my butt on the toilet seat, my back was forced against the lid, my knees were perfectly bent by the edge of the container, and my toes were just brushing the floor. I'll admit that it took me a minute to register just how gross this all was as the relief of finally emptying my bladder eclipsed all else for what I'm pretty sure was a new record of peeing for me.

There's a cliche about a pregnant woman being stuck on a couch as she tries to swing her body enough to get the necessary leverage to hoist her weight up; this is a cliche for a reason.

When my drastic need had abated, I realized my predicament. Not only was I touching way more of this public and disgusting place than I had ever touched before, I was tilted to such a degree that the normal shifting would not get me forward. My center of gravity was quite firmly placed at the bend where the lid met the seat and without being able to plant my feet, I was well and truly stuck.

Being the reasonable person that I am, I contemplated my alternatives. The first thought that occurred to me was to try to rock the entire port-a-potty until I could shift my center of gravity sufficiently to get my feet on the floor and push up. I began to execute the plan, but it was immediately dismissed as I could hear the slooshing of the unmentionable in the hole beneath me. I looked around the interior for help and spied my salvation. They had installed a sink in this port-a-potty!

I curled my fingers over the edge after stretching to reach it and planted my left hand on the base beside me. With an internal count-down, I pulled for all I was worth and managed to shift forward enough to get my feet under me. When I finally righted myself, my enormous stomach actually hit the door!

Feeling filthy beyond my ability to express in words, I pulled up my pants with difficulty and then turned to the sink, marveling that they had even included a bar of soap. My irritation climbed, however, when I couldn't find the water faucet. What kind of people put in a sink with soap in it and make the water too hard for a stuck pregnant woman to find?

About this time, my brain caught up, as my eyes continued frantically searching for the water. It released the information slowly so as not to further shock my system: this was not a sink, but a urinal; this was not a bar of soap, but a urine cake. The fingers of my right hand were still well curved down inside.

My exit from the port-a-potty was apparently epic. Ben had pulled the truck forward so I wouldn't have to walk far, and his version of the rocking involved when I pulled myself off the seat created a story that many found amusing over the years. He also loved adding the part where I used half a bottle of germ-x on my hands and requested he pull off and use what was left on my behind. He even included the two of us crying together in his version of the tale, highlighting that his tears were from laughing and mine a mixture of horror and anger at his uncontrollable laughter.

Many of our friends found his story hilarious. I suppose I will, too. Some day.

The Seconds

I never really realized how much my husband loved me. I'm not saying I questioned if he loved me because he showed it every day we were together, but I never comprehended just how deeply we were bound. The last minutes of his life were the ones that made me realize exactly how much I was losing.

To understand, I have to describe his death. Ben had metastatic melanoma that started as a mole on his right arm. He had several other tumors crop up over the five years after the initial diagnosis, but the ones that killed him were three tiny tumors on his liver that eventually made him look as distended as a nine-months pregnant woman. The story of his illness and the too coincidental events of his last hospitalization is an amazing tale in itself, but the last night was the stunner.

Because the liver tumors had so distended his stomach, Ben hadn't eaten any food since July. His last meal, appropriately enough, was a chili dog. His love of junk food is definitely in his genes as both my children eat nothing else. For the past month and a half, he'd been kept alive intravenously. When he came home to hospice care, he elected not to continue the nutrition, but to pass from dehydration instead of a more lingering and painful death as the tumors continued to grow and compress his internal organs.

Death from dehydration involves several stages and I have no great desire to elaborate. If you're interested, look it up. Suffice to say, for the last two days, he had been completely gone mentally, speaking occasionally to people who weren't there and muttering incoherently. His eyes were rarely open probably due to their dryness and his hands moved constantly in a gesture that imitated scratching, but actually wasn't, according to the doctor.

The nurse had informed us she didn't think it would be too much longer, and after nine days of watching him slowly disappear, we gathered around his bed to wait. My mother sat beside me and my father beside her. His mom walked in and out of the room and his youngest sister was upstairs trying to get a little sleep. My baby girl, ten days old, was with my aunt upstairs and my 2 1/2-year-old was watching The Lion King in the living room.

I sat beside his bed and held his hand. His other randomly patted across his body and he breathed softly. I looked at him and felt a swelling of love. The waiting was killing me. For two days, he'd not really spoken a complete word, let alone a thought, and sitting beside the shell that he had become was wearing. The Ben I knew had gone several days ago and I longed for peace for us all. I leaned over and kissed his hand, then began to pray under my breath for it to end soon.

At that moment, I saw my final miracle.

Ben opened his eyes and looked at me. He wasn't gazing about the room or randomly blinking, but looking at me. My eyes caught his and he held my gaze as he hadn't in two whole days.

"I love you," he said clearly, and he smiled, completely back to the man I fell in love with.

Everyone in the room froze in shock. I gasped and read in those beautiful eyes the same message that I had seen so many times in so many places over the years. The silent communion of two people who know each other so well share passed between us so quickly. I drew breath to respond, but even that little time was too much. His eyes closed as I breathed in and his breath left him in a great sigh. I replied, but I know he never heard me.

I've been blessed in so many ways in my life. I have family who've supported me, marvelous children who amaze me daily, and friends who laugh and cry with me, but the greatest gift God ever gave me was three seconds of clarity in Ben's eyes and the words, though usually insufficient to fully express the sentiment, that showed me how deeply I was loved.

While I know he still can't hear them, it feels appropriate to say them here: "I love you, too, Ben."

The Titanic

One of my husband's and my favorite ways to pass a weekend was to find a road that looked like it went nowhere and drive it. A couple of times we had significant adventures, and we frequently got lost. Not lost as in, turn-around-and-go-back-the-way-you-came lost, but are-we-still-in-the-state-and-I-don't-think-we-can-get-around-that-tree-a-second-time-if-we-turn-around lost.

On one Sunday trip, we drove for about six hours. We were, of course, the second type of lost and I don't remember very much of the journey that got us that lost. I do remember a vista of a mountain valley spreading as far as I could see when the goat trail we seemed to be on wobbled a bit too close to the break in the trees that revealed the edge of the cliff. I leaned over and saw the top side of an eagle. I only wish I was joking.

At the time, I didn't really recognize my own mortality, being only 20 and stupid in love, so instead of panicking about the drop, I became really, really excited about the eagle. So excited was I, in fact, that I even forgot how low we were on gas. As I bounced and tried to catch another glimpse, Ben clenched the steering wheel and navigated a tight curve. He said nothing to temper my enthusiasm, probably because the babbling was better than the nagging I had been doing moments before when he pointed out the gas needle and the fact that it had been three hours since we'd left a recognizable road to venture into this wilderness.

The road meandered away from the cliff side and trees draped to create a tunnel again. After a couple more minutes, while I replayed the eagle vision in my head, we came around another bend where the sunlight just broke through the trees across a small pond, or a giant puddle depending on your viewpoint, created by a dip in the road and left behind by a rainfall.

The majesty of the place was indescribable. Still on a high from seeing an actual eagle, Ben stopped the truck and we just looked, instinctively holding hands at the majesty that nature had spread before us.

As we looked, I noticed a leaf, perfectly cupped with its stem bent into a perfect curve, floating docilely on the surface of the puddle. Between the tree tunnel, the majesty of the mountain view, and the perfect ray of sunlight highlighting the area, my ever-present romance took over.

In a hushed whisper, I said, "Ben, look! It's a fairy boat!"

And it was. If one drew a leaf so that it resembled a gondola, this leaf is what it would look like. When it drifted into the sunlight, I could almost see the little fairy poling it along. I created a whole scenario in my head in seconds and Ben, knowing my penchant for fantasy, leaned over and gave me the sweetest kiss, looking into my eyes and saying, "I love you."

Then he withdrew his hand from mine and reached to put the truck in gear.

"No!" I protested. "You'll sink the fairy boat!" This event would ruin the picnic they had planned later in my imaginary scenario.

Ben didn't protest or laugh at me; he actually looked pained to have to spoil the perfection of this little scene, but with a glance and a gesture at the gas gauge, he began to pull through.

I don't know why, but this deeply disturbed me. It seemed somehow symbolic of my childhood being run over by the cares of adulthood. Ben tried to reassure me, "I'll go really slow and straddle the leaf," but after we crept through and looked back, the little boat was listing slowly to the side as the very edge of one prong broke the surface tension of the puddle.

I didn't say anything because what could I say? I knew it was just a leaf and just a puddle and I didn't really believe in fairies anymore. But something on my face must have shown the actual devastation that I was feeling.

My wonderful Ben put the truck in park, got out, and walked into the puddle, wetting his shoes, to scoop up my fairy boat, shake out the water, and set it sailing properly again.

When he got back in the car, I simply gave him a simple kiss. I didn't say anything because what could I say? It was no longer just a leaf and just a puddle, but a magical world where true love conquers all.

With him, it truly did.

The Love

Rarely in life, we have moments of crystal clarity when all the stars in the heavens seem to align perfectly, and we know our place within the cosmos to the point that the nagging little doubts of life vanish and contentment fills our souls.

For around 10 years, we lived near Harrisonburg, Virginia and in our fourth year of marriage, I had one such moment sitting at a stoplight across from the mall.

Ben and I had been to our favorite little Mexican restaurant that night, followed by a quick stop at BigLots for the usual odds and ends we didn't really need. We had ambled around the store for a little while, not acting our age in the toy aisle, and just generally enjoying being together.

As we pulled up to the stoplight in the late afternoon, I briefly felt the effects of the earlier Mexican lunch and passed a very small amount of gas, so small that I thought nothing of it. After four years of marriage, who does?

The sunlight slanted golden through the windshield and Ben's blond hair lit with a halo. He cast a glance in my direction and the angle of the sun was perfect to turn his blue eyes into a glowing fire that still blazes in my memory these many years later. I felt the planets align. My moment of clarity centered in this beautiful man, and my heart swelled so full of love that I actually felt a physical pain in my chest. Good God, I loved him! The sensation was so overwhelming that it needed an outlet, but words are such a poor substitute for such purity of emotion.

I looked deeply at him, trying to beam my feelings through my eyes. "You have such beautiful eyes," I began.

He turned those beautiful eyes towards me, fracturing the sunbeam into a million diamond-like sparkles and my heart lurched as I drew breath to tell him I loved him.

"You," he replied with feeling, "have a very stinky butthole." And then he cracked the window.

So passed my moment of completeness with a waft of fresh air and tears mixed in with my semi-hysterical laughter.

"Love is a many-splendored thing," Han Suyin wrote. I wonder if his wife liked Mexican, too?

The Cheeto Story

I have a thing about spit. I absolutely refuse to drink after anyone, ever, or even share a spoon. Occasionally, I will share a straw with my children, but only if I'm truly desperate. I'll bite something off your fork as long as my lips don't close around it. It's not exactly a phobia, but it comes close.

I wasn't born this way. I can even remember sharing licks on a lollipop with my best friend in school. And French kissing is still good, though not my favorite after pizza for some reason. I won't drink after you, though, and no, you can't have a sip from my water bottle even if you hold it over your mouth and pour it in without touching. I don't care how thirsty you are.

Why am I this way? The Cheeto.

I was sixteen and on a date with my honey. We'd been together for about three years at that point and I distinctly remember the stoplight at which we were sitting in Mt. Airy, NC. We were on our way to Daniel's house, and as was usual in those days, pretty close to dead broke. A search of the car's hidey holes and the bottom of my purse had yielded us just enough money for a bottle of Mt. Dew and a snack size bag of Cheetos.

Ben, my fella, was the hungry one and I was downing the Mt. Dew to recaffeinate and enable me to put up with him and his buddies all together. I wasn't in the best of moods and gazed out the window at the graveyard across the street while Ben crinkled the bag as he turned it up for every last drop of cheesy goodness.

"Let me have a sip," he requested, and, without looking away from the graveyard, I passed over the bottle. He chugged down a swallow, and as the light turned green, he quickly downed another gulp. I took the bottle without thought or comment and raised it to my lips as the graveyard whizzed by with a shift of the gears.

The sweet, golden liquid filled my mouth and I lowered the bottle. Then "Crunch!" A whole cheeto, one with not even a tooth scratch on it, had backwashed from Ben's mouth into the Mt. Dew. It took four chews before the gargantuan cheesedoodle was small enough to swallow! I choked it down since spitting it out seemed even worse.

Ben got the rest of the Mt. Dew, and that was the very last time I ever shared a drink with anyone.