Wednesday … at the Water’s Edge

Wednesday … at the Water’s Edge
David R. Weiss – November 4, 2026

My confusion and disorientation are growing. Almost nothing makes sense to me anymore. Still, I’m here. At the water’s edge.

My confusion and disorientation are vicarious, you might say. I’m with Marguerite, as usual, for lunch. But “as usual” is in steady flux, as Marguerite ebbs ever closer to Someplace Else. Her words are both fewer and fainter. Her sentences are seldom finished. And her gaze only rarely meets mine. She prefers to look out her window, even while she talks to me. (I think she’s talking to me.)

Her half-sentences are peopled with her mom, dad, and Rebecca (her daughter)—although they appear disconnected from any chronology, the story of her life a vivid-to-her, vague-to-me jumble. The sentences fade away before I find any footing. And I’ve only overlapped with the last eight years of Marguerite’s eight-nine. So, I am mostly a stranger in a strange land as she recounts or re-imagines memories in my presence. Which is why almost nothing she says makes sense to me anymore. Still, I’m here. With her. At the water’s edge.

As Marguerite gazes out the window, she seems certain that she (and, hence, WE) are sitting at the water’s edge. Now, the roof outside her window is covered with smooth rocks wet from the rain and the sky is grey and misty. I don’t know what has persuaded her that we’re at the water’s edge but far be it from me to try and correct her perception. With a mix of “hmmm”s and “I see”s, I do my best to be with her.

At some point, I try to do even better.

I remind Marguerite how years earlier (she was already in her eighties, but still clear-minded) she would describe those she loved who had died as having “gone to light.” Then I add: Marguerite, at your age, you’re getting close to “the light” yourself. I wonder if that nearness means that those already in the light become easier for you to notice. As though, for you, the veil is thinning.

“Yeah, I think so!” she replies so emphatically, with such strength in her voice, it almost startles me.

I go on: It’s as though the persons you meet can be on this side of the veil or on the far side of the veil. You’re right in between, and all of us can be present to you.

She nods with energy I haven’t seen in several visits. Her mind may still be jumbled, but it is wide awake right now. She protests, “It doesn’t make any sense.” But the words don’t deny the experience, they simply admit she doesn’t have the right categories for it.

I continue. Is this wise? I don’t know. But my mind is wide awake now, too. And I’m hoping to offer her a small bearing in the swirl that is her life.

I say, Marguerite, I think maybe time is becoming optional for you. Think about this. From the time we start school, we learn that everything fits into past, present, or future. That becomes the way we sort out all of our lives. But as really little kids—from birth to four—we live sort of outside time. Past, present, future haven’t laid claim to us yet. But from when we start school all the way to becoming senior citizens, the order of time orders our lives.

But, Marguerite, what if, when we get really old, when we near the light, what if then, we remember that time isn’t so certain. It’s just a convenience of this world. And you’re now beginning to move through life outside of time. Again.

“That’s true,” she responds, still pondering it all. She can no longer find half the words she knows, but she appears to understand perfectly well everything I say.

I’m making my own connections, in real time. I suggest: And I can only imagine that life outside of time can be either very disorienting or filled with wonder. If we hold tightly to the categories we’ve used almost all our lives, then to suddenly find that past, present, and future no longer stay in their places would make anyone feel dizzy. But if we allow the possibility that life is most Real outside of time, then we can remember what we knew as kids: life isn’t lived in order, it’s lived in wonder, in love.

I have to smile, because here Marguerite speaks the only two complete sentences she has all day: “Yeah, I’ve thought that many times. And in our situation that certainly rings true.”

Our worlds are drifting apart, but whether she follows my meaning with her mind or her heart, something like a bearing has been offered and received.

Finally, because I know Marguerite has an inestimable fondness for Jesus, I remind her that he also spent time at the water’s edge. “Oh, I love being by the water.” I remind her that Jesus called several of his disciples at the water’s edge. That, at least once, he preached from a boat just off the shore. And that one of his Easter appearances happened there.

I retell that Easter story (from John 21): After Jesus’ death the disciples were perhaps so sorrowful, so lost, that some of them went back to fishing. And on this morning, they have fished all night but caught nothing. Their luck matches their sorrow. In the early dawn, Jesus comes upon them, walking along the water’s edge, but they don’t recognize him. He asks if they’ve caught anything, and they answer, No, nothing. He tells them to put their nets in right beside the boat.

And I tell Marguerite that I’m sure the disciples roll their eyes at this, Who is this stranger to tell him how to do their job? But they do, and suddenly their net is so full of fish they can’t lift it out of the water. And in that moment, Peter realizes it’s Jesus. And he jumps out of the boats and goes splashing through the water to meet him on the shore.

As I’m telling her this, Marguerite is smiling, somewhere at the water’s edge. And although I see the whole story clearly in my mind as I tell it to her, in that moment it isn’t Peter that I see jump into the water and splash his way toward Jesus. It’s Marguerite.

Holy shit.

In a few more minutes, we say our goodbyes and our “I love you’s.” As I walk down the hallway to the elevator at her assisted living facility, which is all too ironically named Villages Shores, my eyes are moist with wonder at what just transpired … at the water’s edge.

***

David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

Dish Towel … Desperation

Nov2

Dish Towel … Desperation

Mom got the dish towel as a gift:
“today is a good day to be happy.”
A monarch (Mom loved butterflies)
dances brightly on the cloth.
The sentiment was and is surely sincere.
Who isn’t in favor of happiness?

Well … for some of us
being “in favor” rarely seals the deal.
For Mom, I suspect this towel
was no charming overture to the obvious
but more a desperate invocation
dressed up as a dish towel,
a silent entreaty to summon
her better angels each day—no easy task.

More than almost anyone knew
(except Dad and, to a lesser extent, me)
Mom lived as often as not
at the edge of melancholy,
terrain all too familiar to the two of us.
Her spirit, so quietly and genuinely
generous to others on the outside
could be equally restless, hollow,
anxious on the inside.

To be clear: she is no less for that!
If anything, she is more.
When I catch sight of this towel
beaming its message out at me,
I remember that for Mom
happiness was hard work,
and often aspirational.
She met most days on a wing and a prayer
and with a bit of dish towel desperation.

It’s coming home with me,
to remind me of Mom
and to bolster my own aspirations.

* * *

October 29, 2026
David R. Weiss

NOTE: This poem will perhaps come as a surprise to many. Everyone who knew Mom, knew that Alzheimer’s ravaged her mind for the last half-dozen years of her life. But few people knew (or even suspected) that Mom wrestled with low self-esteem, episodes of depression, and frequent visitations by melancholy. I knew this because it came up in our late night conversations (often sparked by my own acquaintance with depression and melancholy). In some writings (by each of them) that I found among their things, it became poignantly clear that these facets of Mom’s disposition, while hardly the whole of who she was, were at times the leading edge in their relationship and in Mom’s inner life. This poem honors that truth.

***

No Longer Home but House

Nov2

No Longer Home but House

Thursday morning, I wade weeping
through rooms finally emptied
of treasures, clutter, and junk alike.
These tears hold oceans.
For months we have been slowly, diligently
unmaking this home—
our home and our parents’ home
for sixty-plus years.

Now at last laid bare of love, of life,
it is no longer home, but house.
Still for me the memories echo
all the more loudly in each empty room.
The salty spray on my cheeks becomes pools
as I float empty room to empty room,
scanning the floors and walls.

Again and again, I pause.
Through glistening eyes and a trembling voice
that tumbles into sobs, I splash words
to name the multitude of echoes
in each space: some heartbreak, so much joy.
These floors and walls shaped and held us
as we became a family.

My weeping is not sadness exactly.
Rather, it swells with the bittersweet
gratitude-grief-grace of whole tides of feelings.
Neither families nor homes happen by chance
but by choice after choice after choice.

This house gave us everything
we could have asked for
(well, everything except a second bathroom).
And we did the same, giving it ourselves.
Home and family blessing each other
across decades, until now the blessing is done.

If these walls could talk, I have no doubt
they would say, Thank you.
And here my own thanks pours out in tears,
which, as I say, hold oceans.

* * *

October 29, 2026
David R. Weiss

“And One More Thing I Wanted to Tell You”

Sep11

“And One More Thing I Wanted to Tell You”
David R. Weiss – September 9, 2026

NOTE: This is one in a series of reflections on my visits with Marguerite, age 90, in hospice. You’ll find the others here, here, and here.

“Marguerite,” (I’m at a loss for words, but finally I say) “that means so much to me. Thank you for telling me.” That’s actually the last line of this reflection. It’ll make sense when you get to the end.

Conversations with Marguerite these days are an improvisational exercise in memory. Whatever she remembers—or mis-remembers—I go with. My role is to accompany not to correct.

Two things strike me as we wander through memories together. First, every memory is immediate; any sense of chronology has been eclipsed by sheer presence. Second, emotion leads the way. I’m not sure if that’s because of how present each memory is, or the reverse: perhaps it is the ripples of emotion that orchestrate each memory.

Today, for the umpteenth time, Marguerite discloses to me as somber revelation: “You know, my father is dead now.” Her father was dead for decades before she and I met 8 years ago. But here at the end, his death is once again raw for her. Each visit it is something she is just now feeling.

She follows this disclosure by stating with equal emotion, “I am just worried sick about my mother. I don’t know how she’ll cope.” Her worry is palpable.

This much is fact: her father died first, years before her mother. But both are long dead by now. Still, this much is true: Her love for them, felt as visceral connection, loss, and longing marks these memories as present today, unbothered by chronology.

Moments later, she looks directly at me and asks, “Do you know how old the doctor told me I am?” I don’t know which doctor or when, but I’m game. “How old?” I ask. “Well, he told me I am 100 years old. Can you imagine that?” Honestly, imagine is all I can do with that, because I know for a fact that Marguerite turned 90 last January. But even 90 is worth some earnest surprise, so I share her feeling of astonishment without quibbling about the facts.

Next, her late husband Bill makes a brief appearance—another death still raw and real. He also died before Marguerite and I met, so I don’t follow everything she recalls, but I empathize with the ache.

She tells me about Rebecca, her daughter. (At last, a character in her life that I do know!) With a sweeping gesture she says, “And Rebecca is into everything!” I know Rebecca; this is fact. “I don’t know how she keeps it all together.” Again, I know Rebecca; this is true. We are astonished together.

Then we’re back at the doctor. “Do you know, that doctor told me I weigh 100 pounds?” I don’t know if this is fact or not. I have no idea whether she saw this doctor last week, last month, or only in her dreams. But if she heard 100 pounds (which is, at least, plausible), it might have been the source of those 100 years she exclaimed about earlier. In any case, both times she speaks with wonder, and I meet her there.

When it’s time to go, I take Marguerite’s hands and I tell her, as I do each week, how much her friendship means to me—and that I will carry her in my heart until next week when I come again. And she tells me the same. As I begin to release her hands, she grips tighter and meets my eyes. “And one more thing I wanted to tell you, dear. My parents thought the world of you, too.”

***

Teaching My Way to You (UU)

Aug30

Teaching My Way to You (UU)
David R. Weiss – August 30, 2026
Message for Berrien Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Berrien Springs, Michigan

Thank you—SO MUCH—for inviting me to speak today. As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been here half-a-dozen times since February. I know, not a great attendance record, but I drive 500 miles from St. Paul, Minnesota each time I’m here, so I’m counting on a little grace.

500 miles is a long drive. So, I want to use my message this morning to tell you just how I came to be here. And with a new school year looming—and because I spent 20+ years of my life as a student, and another 20+ years as a teacher, I’ve chosen to answer this question by explaining “How I taught my way to you/UU.”

I grew up Lutheran, 35 miles southwest of here, in Michigan City. For the past three–and-a-half years, I’ve been attending Merging Waters, a small UU congregation NW of St. Paul.

But I spent most of the first 7 weeks of 2026 back in Michigan City, accompanying my dad on the final leg of his life. He was 89, and he died in home hospice on February 14. Dad’s last year had been a series of health challenges, and my sisters and I felt grief, relief, and exhaustion all at the same time.

His funeral was the following Friday. And by Saturday night I was the last out-of-town family member still in Michigan City. With a heart full of raw tender feelings, I searched for UU congregations close to Michigan City to attend on Sunday. It was either Berrien Springs or Crown Point, Indiana. I picked BUUF, largely because of the welcome video on your website. And I showed up here for the first time on February 22.

That’s the short version of how I found you. But there’s a longer richer arc to tell, and that’s the story of “How I taught my way to you/UU.”

I’ll name three decisive influences, each of which marked a significant turn in my path beyond Christianity and toward the UU tradition.

First, Jesus. I know, ironic. But true. At a Lutheran college, in 1981, I took my first course on the Historical Jesus. This is the Jesus you might glimpse if you had access to time machine. The man before the Christian church put him to work for empire. Before Paul used him to create the first Christian theology. And before the gospel writers made him the central character in each of their quite distinct gospels. The Historical Jesus is never seen as clearly as we might wish. And not nearly as clear as Sunday School and most Christian theology made him out to be.

I was captivated. I studied the Historical Jesus further in Lutheran seminary, and later in grad school at Notre Dame. This Jesus, sketched from the best biblical and multidisciplinary scholarship, was a charismatic divinely driven non-violent social revolutionary, though not one bent on overthrowing Rome. Rather he worked to overthrow the inward impulses and societal prejudices that prevented revolutionary mutuality and community from emerging. He was a teacher, a story-teller, a wonder-worker—but not so unique as to be supernatural—or to ever claim he was.

Without realizing it at the time, I’d found myself deeply engaged with the Jesus of early twentieth century UU theology. A Jesus who was fully human, deeply rooted in passion for justice and mercy—and committed to transforming the world. I had no idea this was a “UU Jesus” at the time, but for the 20+ years I taught Bible courses at Lutheran, Catholic, and Methodist colleges, this was the Jesus I introduced my students to.

To be sure, some of them found my “neglect” of Jesus as supernatural Son of God … deflating. But not because I taught this other Jesus as a “let down.” I was on fire for this man. In my classroom, I was excited to use the best scholarship to set Jesus in line with the Hebrew prophets before him. And to set him as example and invitation to how we might live our own lives, given over fully to Goodness. I desperately hoped my Christian tradition would recover this Jesus.

I was—and I remain—convinced that this Jesus is both historically accurate and humanly compelling. But he’s not very Christian. This Jesus was never particularly interested in, nor is he faithfully represented by most Christian doctrines or worship. So, it’s fair to say that my learning and teaching about Jesus led me beyond the Christian tradition. How whimsically ironic. If there is a God, she’s smiling.

The second major influence was the queer community. I made several deep friendships at my Lutheran seminary in the early 1980’s with gay and lesbian classmates. So long as they remained discreet at seminary and closeted in the parish, the church would ordain them. They could preach unconditional love to others, but only at the cost of denying that same love to themselves. That policy has changed, but these early friendships changed my life.

While I was at Notre Dame, working on a graduate degree in Christian Ethics, the ELCA (the “mainstream” Lutherans) hotly debated homosexuality in a proposed church teaching statement. One Sunday, for the sake of my friends, I rose on trembling legs in my own congregation, and I declared that if God wasn’t present in these gracious lives, I had no idea where God might be. Later, I used a Ph.D. seminar paper as an opportunity to develop my theology of welcome.

Notre Dame’s undergrad culture was rife with homophobic bullying. As a Lutheran grad student, I “stayed in my lane.” But when I started teaching there in 1996, I saw my 120 students as potential targets of all that taunting. None of them were out to me, though the odds were I had several in my classes. Late one night in February 1997, I read a poem in a Notre Dame student magazine. The author, a gay senior, lamented that he would graduate in a few months—and that during his entire four years at Notre Dame, he hadn’t dared to tell a single person he was gay. He titled his poem “Living in Fear.”

That night, without warning, something shifted inside me. I sat at my computer for hours, typing through tears. I ransacked the Bible for every image of radical welcome I could find. I bundled them all together in a response, titled “Words offered at the end of the day to an unknown friend living in fear.” It was published in the next edition of that student magazine.

I never met that gay senior. But at one point in my reply to him, I wrote, “I see now that if God keeps silent in the face of your anguish, it is only because I wouldn’t lend God the use of my words. Well, here they are.”

And for the next 20 years I did just that. I gave public talks on welcoming LGBTQ persons into communities of faith—beginning right there at Notre Dame. In my first semester teaching at Luther College in Iowa, I gave a similar talk following an anti-gay chalking incident on campus. The response from Luther’s students (both queer and straight) was so overwhelming, that the following spring my department chair asked if I could develop a course on gay and lesbian voices in theology. I was excited to. In spring of 2000 I taught the first such class ever offered at Luther.

I taught that class for three years. The second year I added bisexual voices in theology. And the third year it was LGBT Voices in Theology. I was learning SO MUCH as I taught. One of my students, a young woman named Lynn, was a fine student, but what really struck me was how completely comfortable Lynn was with her own sexuality. In one of her papers, she gave credit for that to growing up UU.

Lynn may have been the first UU person I actually knew. But one year later, in March 2003, she got her UU congregation in Davenport, Iowa to bring me down to speak on LGBT theology. Margaret and I drove five-and-a-half hours. I offered both an adult forum and the service message. It was my first time at a UU service. As we drove home, I told Margaret these were my people. I had never felt so at home during a church service. But it would be another 20 years before I acted on that recognition.

By now I was living in St. Paul, juggling part-time teaching across three colleges. On the side I worked tirelessly for welcome to queer persons. I wrote essays and hymn texts, eventually collected in a book titled To the Tune of a Welcoming God. I wrote a set of plays about the biblical basis for welcome, published as Hearts Unbound. I was a nationally known speaker. I did everything possible to put my creative and intellectual energy in the service of welcome.

Over these years, I learned (and taught) that the heart of LGBTQ theology is to recognize that embodied human experience has a revelatory status equal to any sacred text. This had been proven to me hundreds of times over in the actual lives of LGBTQ persons I’d come to know. And I grew weary of finessing Scripture—because I no longer regarded it as having final authority. Yes, there is a radical, welcoming arc to the biblical narrative that supports a full affirmation of LGBTQ persons. But I came to realize, that if I ever couldn’t make that case, I’d just throw my Bible away.

So, thanks to queer people, I quietly set aside the Bible. I was NOT UU yet, but I was no longer very Christian. I still attended a Lutheran, then a UCC church every Sunday. I knew enough theology to do somersaults in my head to make the liturgy (mostly) work during services. It was exhausting. But it can be a terrifying thing to walk away from the only faith tradition you’ve ever known—especially when it pays your bills.

It was the third influence that finally moved me to step entirely beyond my Christianity. This was my profound concern about Climate Change and Societal Collapse … and my love for my children.

The very first class I taught at Notre Dame in 1996 was on Theology and the Environment. The very first academic paper I gave, that same year up in Wisconsin, set vulnerability and mutuality as core attributes of God—and the driving force of an earth ethic. I loved eco-theology. I likely would’ve made it my theological focus from the start, had I not found myself in February 1997 writing those “Words offered at the end of day,” which sent me off on nearly twenty years of queer theology and advocacy.

Finally, in 2016, having stepped back from classroom teaching, I felt drawn to revisit that interest, now with climate crisis regularly making headlines. So, one day I settled down with the Sunday newspaper to get reacquainted. The news story I read featured a chart listing the hottest years on record. Sixteen of them, ordered by warmth, so they looked fairly random. But, looking closer, I realized all sixteen of them had occurred during my daughter Susanna’s lifetime. And she was just 19.

Banner celebrating BUUF’s 50th anniversary.

It hit me with force: Susanna (and everyone her age and younger—she’s 30 now) was growing up on an altogether different planet—fundamentally warmer and less stable—than the one I grew up on.

For her sake, for the sake of my five other children, my nine grandchildren—for all our sakes (yours included), I threw myself into climate theology. I wrote a couple hundred essays and gave several dozen sermons, lectures, and presentations trying to sound the alarm in my liberal-progressive wing of the Christian community. To inspire people to action. To stir their imaginations for a simpler world, one that might yet find harmony with the rest of the natural world.

I did that for seven years. My words were impassioned and eloquent. My theology was brilliant. And churches listened to me … with cautious curiosity, almost always followed by polite awkward neglect. But it wasn’t that, that drove me finally to kiss Christianity goodbye.

It was a double crisis of sorts that began in 2021. The first piece was my growing sense that most climate theology (mine included) was naively optimistic about our future. That year I became convinced that some degree of widespread system-buckling collapse—ecologically, economically, socially—is now inevitable. We still have a wide range of ways in which we might prepare and respond. But avoiding Collapse in the next half-century—within the lives of my own children—is no longer possible.

My writing took on a tender but uncompromising tone. Like one of the Hebrew prophets, I found myself announcing an apocalypse and calling for lament. I stand by those words today, but with that recognition, a second crisis emerged. Of our six children and nine grandchildren only two have any active investment in the Christian faith. They’re all good people, but completely untethered to the theology, the stories, the images, I was ransacking.

So, no matter how eloquent or brilliant my words might be, they would never reach my own family. In March 2023, in a heartbreakingly powerful truth-telling essay, I announced I was “Giving up on Church for My Children.” Near the end of that essay, I put in all caps: IF THE LANGUAGE I KNOW BEST DOES NOT REACH THOSE I LOVE MOST DEARLY, HOW CAN I NOT SET OFF IN SEARCH OF OTHER WORDS?

That’s what finally drove me to join a UU congregation. None of my kids or grandkids are UU. But the language I can hone in this tradition is not tied to any specific religious tradition. It’s anchored in values that any of my kids might hear. Thus, I’m learning to write and speak about life-altering matters in language that is no longer Christian.

So, you see, it’s not some cute slogan, but rather a confession of faith to say, I taught my way to you/UU. Jesus and queer people led me to the very edge of the Christian tradition, where I worked as a progressive/radical theologian for as long as I could. Until climate change, collapse, and my children—a faith in crisis for love—ultimately brought me to the UU tradition.

In 2023, I began attending Merging Waters UU in the Twin Cities. (I carry their warm greetings to you today.) At Merging Waters I found a spirit of reverence, a vibrant warm community, and a rich constellation of values that resonate deeply with me. I found a home.

Chatting after the service with Hunter, a retired UU minister and psychologist.

And earlier this year, two days after my father’s funeral, when I needed desperately to be in the company of people committed to goodness and justice, to welcome and kindness—without being ambushed by prayers dripping with sacrificial blood offered to a god I no longer cavort with—on February 22, I found you. A home away from home in the deepest possible sense.

That first Sunday I got here about 3 minutes late. Driving on snowy roads across state lines and time zones. I slipped into the building that morning, feeling more desperate than any of you could have known. Just to be in a roomful of strangers … who were also my people. I sat near the back. Julie Williams was the first stranger to welcome me with a warm smile and a blank name tag. By the end of joys and sorrows, I had relaxed. When Reverend Jim invited me to stand and introduce myself, I came up to the mic. I mentioned my dad’s death, my drive up from Michigan City, and my joy at being with you.

After that service, Celia and Don visited with me, and Harvey—of course. And Barry, who sent a sympathy card to me back in Minnesota—on behalf of all of you. A few others whose names I didn’t catch. But really, it was all of you. It was this community, gathered together, lighting the chalice, singing the songs, sharing readings and reflections, and ending the service holding hands in a circle. My people.

Each time I’m here, my heart brims with gratitude for the welcome you offered me. Our lives—every last one of them—unfolds through unexpected turns. My teaching provided the turns that brought me to you/UU.

And your welcome was so genuine, it seemed like you were expecting me.

I’m so glad you were.

Amen. And Blessed Be.

White Stones in Our Hands

Jul31

White Stones in Our Hands
David R. Weiss – July 31, 2026

As I come around the corner into the third-floor hallway at Village Shores Senior Community, I’m carrying a fresh Pizza Luce pizza in one hand and in the other a cooler and bag with everything necessary for a picnic pizza lunch. “Aw, are you here to visit, Marguerite?”

The question, posed by one of the aides, is mostly rhetorical. Of course, I am. Almost every Wednesday. And, not to brag, but my wild shoulder length salt and pepper hair makes me a pretty distinct character on the third floor—probably in the entire building. Still, I say, “Yes.”

Then I add as we walk down the hall partway together, “You know, she doesn’t know my name anymore, but she’s always happy to see me. She still knows me—just not by name.”

And, true to my word, Marguerite does light up when I enter her room. Upon seeing the pizza box, however, she becomes unsettled. “Well, now I’m in a tough spot,” she says. “You’ve just brought lunch, but I already ate mine a little bit ago.” It’s only 11:30, and I think that’s unlikely, but I quickly reassure her that if she already ate, we’ll just visit, and I’ll take the food home with me. She seems satisfied with that.

But ducking out into the hall, I ask the aide if she’s already eaten lunch. “Oh, no. The front desk let us know you were bringing her food. She hasn’t eaten since breakfast—and she just had a muffin then.” I rejoin Margeurite in the room, and as soon as I explain that she hasn’t eaten lunch, she relaxes. In fact, she relishes the pizza, enjoys the Diet Pepsi, and raves about the homemade cookie. We both earn Clean Plate awards.

We visit for a while more and then I get ready to leave. But before I go, I snap a selfie of us. I remark, somewhat sheepishly, “Marguerite, you always dress so much nicer than me, but at least today the orange in my shirt complements your orange jacket.” She smiles. By now, even if she’s forgotten my name, Marguerite knows my hair and my clothes run a bit … wild, while hers run just the opposite.

After the photo, I stand in front of her and take both hands. “Marguerite,” I say, “I am so thankful for your friendship all these years.” “And I am for yours, my dear.” (“My dear” is the closest she comes to my name anymore.) A few more words and then farewell.

As I walk down the hall toward the elevator, it hits me. Now, I am NOT a biblical literalist. I’m not really even Christian anymore. But sometimes the images still tug at me in powerful, evocative ways.

In Revelation 2:17, heaven is described as a place where God promises to give each person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to that person. And I am suddenly teary-eyed in the elevator, because it strikes me that Marguerite knows me this way. She doesn’t know my name. Only that I am among the saints alongside her. And it is enough to put a bright smile on her face every time she sees me.

I still know her as Marguerite, but she’s closer to heaven these days than I am. And names are optional for her. She knows people by heart. Next time I say good-bye, I’m going to pay close attention. Because I bet, as we hold hands in farewell, I’ll feel those white stones in each of our palms—her stone and mine. Names written by love. Known by heart. Spoken only by smile.

I am so blessed.

***

Feeling a Bit Full of Myself

Jul30

Feeling a Bit Full of Myself
When Cancer Comes Calling – Book Three: Soundings #7
David R. Weiss – July 30, 2026

I’m feeling a bit full of myself these days. Which is annoying.

Wait. Did you honestly just think to yourself, “About time you noticed”?! Ouch.

Anyway, I’m not talking about my ego. I’m talking about lymphedema. In my lower left leg. It’s swollen right now. Somedays uncomfortably so. That’s why I’m feeling full of myself, thank you very much.

Lymphedema results when some portion of your lymphatic system fails to keep the lymph moving along. Now, before I go any further, I need to offer this disclaimer: I am NOT a medical doctor. (Hell, I’m not any kind of doctor. I’m just a reasonably bright guy trying to understand my journey through CancerLand.)

When this swelling in my leg first appeared at the very end of June, I had three immediate reactions. (1) Thank God this didn’t happen two weeks earlier! (2) Damn you, Abiraterone! And (3) How did my right leg escape this fate?

See, two weeks earlier I’d been in California visiting my daughter—and hiking along the coast and among the redwoods, as well as exploring Oakland, San Francisco, and Berkeley. Had this swelling appeared then, it would’ve made me nervous about doing so much walking. And it would’ve likely precipitated a visit to Urgent Care. I’m so glad my vacation was lymphedema-free.

As for the abiraterone, turns out I owe it an apology, though one offered begrudgingly. This is the medication that “offs” my testosterone. Orgovyx shuts down my testicles, eliminating 95% or more of the testosterone production in my body. At this point, abiraterone comes along and says, “Hold my beer.” It shuts down my adrenal gland, source of the other 5% or so—effectively offing my testosterone altogether.

Were I on Orgovyx alone, I’d be undergoing testosterone suppression to slow or halt the spread of my prostate cancer. Adding abiraterone to the mix means I’m in a state of testosterone annihilation; there is not even a whiff of the “man-mone” left in me.

This wouldn’t be (and wasn’t) my first choice. But my prostate cancer is so damn aggressive, that throwing abiraterone at it alongside Orgovyx and radiation (according to peer-reviewed scientific studies) just might gain me a few more years before it metastasizes … and a better quality of life once it does. Which is why I said to the cancer, “Hold my beer.”

Seems like almost everything you can do to fight cancer involves some risk of unwelcome side effects. Plant-based medicines are a notable exception here. They’re not as directly potent as modern medical interventions like surgery, radiation, pharmaceuticals, chemotherapy, etc., but they rarely make a mess of the house when you ask them in.

Thus far, the noteworthy collateral damage from the cancer-fighting interventions I’ve used (surgery, radiation, testosterone annihilation) has included: total impotence, 110% loss of libido, occasional bouts of fatigue, some minor but unpredictable episodes of incontinence, and my incredible shrinking penis. And I’ve gotten off easy so far!

So, when the swelling in my leg appeared—and knowing that edema (pooling of blood in the veins) is a well-documented side effect of abiraterone, and one more likely to surface the longer you’re on it (I’m at ten months and counting)—I was quick to hurl a curse word its way.

Turns out I was wrong. I’ll own that. But I’ve still got a few things that abiraterone is at least partially implicated in (see list above), so I’m not putting the “Damn” far away.

My unswollen right leg proved to be the missing piece. When I reached out to my oncology pharmacist and my medical oncologist, they both swiftly dismissed abiraterone from the list of suspects. Were abiraterone to blame, the swelling would be “bilateral”—that is, in both my lower legs. Absent that, abiraterone was not to blame.

My medical oncologist did order a left leg ultrasound to make sure there wasn’t a blood clot causing this. The ultrasound came back clear: all my blood was moving just fine. Something other than blood was swelling my leg. His advice: follow up with my primary care physician.

I did. His first opening was a month away. But a MyChart message to his team got me an appointment is less than a week. By then I’d already bought two pair of knee-high compression socks (tan—a fashion faux pax that curdled my self-consciousness during shorts season) and mail-ordered a six-pack of white crew-height compression socks that couldn’t get here soon enough.

My symptoms were first noticed (and have remained most noticeable) in my foot and ankle. They were visibly swollen. Never painful, per se, but swollen enough that every bit of my foot (including the bottom) pressed against my shoe in a way that felt weird-awkward-uncomfortable. The first two days I found myself walking with a slight limp because my left foot just felt strange; I wasn’t sure I could trust this new version of it.

Since them the swelling has waxed and waned. Eventually it rose to my calf, where the thickest part measured an entire inch larger in circumference than my right calf. Never painful here either, but on its peak days (maybe 4-5 days over the past month) my calf has felt … taut. Like the skin is stretched to the max. An unsettling feeling because you can’t help but wonder, what happens if this gets worse. (Spoiler: it wants to.)

My foot has been swollen pretty much the entire month, though the degree of swelling changes from day to day. Okay, I’ll just say this bluntly: the two absolute worst days (coming two weeks apart) were after several hours of yard work, including an hour or more crouching or kneeling while weeding a garden bed. Now, I actually don’t mind weeding. I find it monotonously relaxing and tangibly rewarding. But, Margaret, I’m afraid from now on, I’m going to have to leave that relaxation and reward to you.

Back to the doctors’ office. I really like my primary care doctor. Not only does he really know his stuff, he can explain it in plain English, and he takes time to really listen. Anyway, he’d obviously reviewed my file in advance, because he came into the room ready with answers.

After reviewing my symptoms with me and examining my leg, he pulled up an article on the computer. “You’ve got lymphedema. It’s when your lymphatic fluids stops circulating the way it should. It happens in about one-third of men who have a radical prostatectomy (surgery) followed by radiation. In your case, you had a couple lymph nodes removed from the left side of your pelvis, followed by radiation, with extra dosing on that same left side (because that’s where the remaining cancer was). As a result, your left side pelvic lymph nodes have been damaged. They drive the circulation of lymphatic fluid. And right now, they’re not working well enough to keep it from building up in your lower leg. That’s why it’s only on the left side—because both the surgery and the radiation impacted your lymph nodes on that side the most.”

He recommended I get some knee-high compression socks (I ordered a 3-pack, white) and he gave me a referral to a physical therapist who specializes in lymphatic massage. This is a special form of massage that encourages the lymphatic system to “move along.” Because all the lymph in my lower leg needs to reach my left arm pit (or thereabouts) before starting its journey back, this massage starts by “warming up” the lymph system above the leg. I’ve done this a couple times myself following the instruction of a certified lymphatic massage therapist on YouTube.

You start with light circles on your abdomen and pelvic region. Then move up to the left arm pit and slowly work your way down to the lower leg and foot. The idea is you want to get all the lymph above the swelling gently “energized” and ready to flow. That way, when you massage the swollen areas the system above it is already awake. I’m sure when I meet with the PT, I’ll learn more.

This, apparently, is going to become my new monotonously relaxing activity. It may actually help, too, but the lymphatic system responds slowly, so I doubt it will be as tangibly rewarding as weeding. Oh well.

Here’s what else I know at this point.

Once it appears as a condition, lymphedema is incurable. All “treatment” is management of symptoms; there is no cure. This is with me for the rest of my life. (But may my years swell far more than my legs.)

It is chronic. The swelling will wax and wane—and there are steps I can take to max the wane and minimize the wax. Compression socks, lymphatic massage, hydration, exercise, elevation, low salt in my diet. All management strategies, but at least I am not helpless here.

It is complex. If the lymphatic fluid lingers too long in my foot or leg, over time the skin will thicken and the tissue beneath it will scar. Worse, because lymphedema is a weakening of my lymphatic circulation (a core part of my immune system), this leg and foot will now be highly susceptible to infection because any immune response to even minor cuts, scrapes, burns, bug bites will be slower and less robust. Cellulitis and even sepsis are possible. Whoa! I guess I’ll be washing my foot and leg with extra care—and pampering it with lotion.

I won’t lie. Taken together these three—incurable, chronic, complex—felt like a gut punch. Like a party favor from radiation that I never knew came home with me. Google images of lymphedema, and the worst-case pictures are another gut punch.

I have no regrets about radiation. My cancer is currently undetectable, after all. And so far, I’ve consistently dodged the worst outcomes and the worst side effects. Living with lymphedema is not the end of the world. And, bottom line, life is not fair. The best I (or you) can do is live with purpose and (insofar as possible) with joy. Lymphedema be damned.

Still, yard work has been a (sweaty, but still) joy of mine since my teenage years. More, walking has been a balm for me, both before and especially since my cancer diagnosis. It is a core mental health practice for me, but also the most personal expression of my cancer self-care. No, walking doesn’t cure cancer, but in a host of ways walking is a powerful accomplice in healing. It strengthens the body’s own cancer-fighting abilities, supports an array of medical treatments, and allays many of the side effects. Walking is golden. So henceforth may I learn how to care for my left leg with keen tenderness so that it carries me well for as long as possible.

That’s a particularly acute hope, because the last feature of lymphedema is that it’s progressive. With concerted effort and dumb luck, I may be able to reduce the swelling when it appears and more or less stabilize it—narrow the wax and wane. It can get (somewhat) better (though never cured). But its clear preference is to get worse. Its dream is to get much worse.

Well, my dream is to get much better. I’ve averaged 10,000/day for an entire year now. (Not bad for a guy whose vocation is to sit on my ass and type!) Hydration has been my best friend for a long time already. And while knee-high socks might not be my first choice, they’re a throwback to my high school and college days, when they were.

In fact, I first started kissing Margaret in knee-high athletic socks some 45 years ago. Maybe going back to that fashion will have me feeling twenty all over again. “C’mere here, honey, let me give you a kiss.”

***

Kiss My Ass, Please

Jul1

Kiss My Ass, Please
David R. Weiss – July 1, 2026

I’m not talking to you. Well, I am talking to you—just not asking you to kiss my ass.

Listen, I’m embarrassed to confess I was 66 years and 175 days old before having my first experience with a bidet. Don’t even ask me to estimate how many times I “cleaned” myself with toilet paper in all those years. Trust me, that would be some messy math.

Well, here’s how it went down (or shot up, literally). Margaret and I were visiting Susanna in Oakland, California. When she rented her current apartment, it happened to come with a bidet attachment. These are inexpensive “gateway” devices; they cost less than $100, while true bidet toilet seats cost upwards of $200-500 and full bidet toilets cost $2000 or more. Apart from bells and whistles, they all have the same end in view: yours. And the same goal: to treat your ass with more care and respect than any roll of toilet paper ever dreamed of doing.

I noticed Susanna’s bidet attachment right away on Friday night, soon after we arrived. I’d never seen a bidet in real life. So, I was exceptionally curious but equally cautious. I didn’t ask about it right away. Look, toilet hygiene is hardly dinner table conversation, even within family. What was I supposed to do, ask my daughter, “So, do you just hose away your poop now? And how is that going for you?” I demurred. For days.

Wednesday night, after several days of trust-building exercises (hiking and such), I finally asked how it worked. Susanna showed me how, if you just turn this knob this way … Holy shit! A stream of water that shot out 6 feet from under the toilet seat, dampening my t-shirt on its way to the shower curtain. Oops. I see. (Turn the knob one way for a “rear wash” and the other way for “a front wash”—that one is “vaginas only” unless, I suppose, you somehow got jam on your balls …)

Anyway, the following morning I had my moment of conversion. I recount it only in generalities. I used the bathroom, as one does … to defecate. I twisted the knob to effect a rear wash. I felt a slight tickle. I cranked it all the way to the left—and damn near lifted myself up off the toilet seat! Surprise, mostly, the water isn’t really that powerful. Still, OMG—there’s a hose under there! And that nozzle that delivers the water isn’t kidding around. Twenty to thirty seconds, maybe the tiniest shimmy left and right, and I turned the knob back to “off.” I grabbed a few sheets of toilet paper to dry myself and “check my clean.”

Wow. Just wow. Pretty sure the last time I was that clean after a poop was when Mom still grabbed my heels in one hand and hoisted them up in the air while she carefully wiped my baby bum down. Seriously, I’m talking about some kind of clean.

I used the bidet several more times on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, before we flew back to Minnesota. Each time I was amazed by the clean down there. Like nothing I had ever experienced.

The first question to hit me was, Why had I waited until Wednesday to even inquire about it? Why had I waited until Thursday morning to try it out? I could’ve been pampering my ass all week!

The second question hit harder. How is it possible that I’ve spent all my adult life assuming that toilet paper was as good as it gets for dealing with shit shows?! There is simply no comparison. None whatsoever. But it took me 66 years and 175 days to figure that out. However, now that I have, in fact, sat my ass on a healthy stream of water, a gently assertive jet of cleaning power, I can say unequivocally, the bidet is the gift my asshole (and likely yours) has been waiting for. So, excuse me if I’m a little effusive in my praise.

Still, praise is cheap if not backed up by action. We got back to Minnesota late on June 20 and within 72 hours of our return I’d ordered bidet attachments for both toilets in our home. By June 27 they were both installed and working. Offering every ass they encounter a transformative measure of dignity and care.

If you follow my blog, you know my life is not without its challenges. But I’ve just moved wiping (now washing) my ass over to the “joy” column. Maybe you should, too.

I’ll end with a short historical note followed by a soft sales pitch. Much of this history (and more) is recounted in an amusing and informative video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYecSHbkrtI

The word “bidet” names a small now extinct horse once common in France. Sometime in the early 1700’s it got transferred to the first cleaning devices (really just wash basins without running water) because one would straddle them as though on a small horse, to wash oneself. Giddy up! They were positioned near the chamber pot.

Eventually, these bidets were equipped with hand pumps to squirt water more effectively, but with the advent of running water, bidets “grew up”—still stand-alone “nether sinks” next to a plumbed toilet but now showcasing unique cleaning power. From here on, the bidet found converts (to varying degrees) across Europe, Asia, and South America. Today, most contemporary bidets are built right into toilets.

Several factors help explain the reluctance of US households to consider bidets. Let’s start with the plumbing. Many early American homes lacked indoor plumbing for the bathroom altogether; and when indoor plumbing arrived, it went into bathrooms with far too little room to share space with a bidet. Moreover, bidets were viewed as elitist, a strange scatological luxury enjoyed by the wealthy.

Add to this that the bidet came to be viewed (mistakenly!) as an effective form of contraception. From here (in moralistic America) it was just a hop, skip, and jump to the assumption that the presence of a bidet in an American household was reckoned as a sign of excessive sexuality. On top of that, bidets were effective in cleansing during menstruation. Between too little plumbing, too much (misplaced, no less!) morality, and their association with something unmentionable (menstruation), bidets were actively shunned in America. So much so they became mostly unknown.

US soldiers stationed overseas in World War II were the first Americans of that Greatest Generation exposed to bidets. Inconveniently, most of the exposure came while frequenting brothels, so it was rarely mentioned when they came home. (I don’t know whether brothel bidets were used in hopes of contraception; I could imagine sex workers simply having a vested interest in keeping themselves as clean as possible between and after clients.) In any case, the post-war wave of returning soldiers did not lead to lead to a wave of bidets appearing in American homes.

Nor did marketing. In 1928, John Kellogg (who along with his brother Will Kellogg, developed Cornflakes as a wildly successful breakfast food) patented an American version of a bidet, positioned inside a toilet. Perhaps wanting to distinguish his device from any illicit moral notions, he called it an “anal douche.” For some reason, while Cornflakes became an American staple, the anal douche never caught on. Hmm. The 1960’s saw one last attempt to make the bidet a piece of mainstream America. Arnold Cohen founded the American Bidet Company, but his efforts, too, went down the drain.

Safe to say that as I was growing up, the bidet was only ever in the background—but never once in my background. Meanwhile, America developed a love affair with toilet paper, and, with the bidet excluded from the conversation, all our innovation went toward making a softer, gentler toilet paper (and, later, a greener one). No one seems to have asked whether we should’ve ditched paper for water long ago.

Bidets did manage to become a niche industry, but little more—until Covid emptied the shelves of toilet paper. Ironically, when TP couldn’t deliver, bidet sales saw a mini-boom. They’ve continued to make slow steady growth since then. But Americans often seem beholden to familiarity. Whether that’s rooted in arrogance (What—listen to another country?), tradition, market forces, or mere habit, it hasn’t served us well. By virtually every measure bidets clean better, are gentler, and are more ecologically sound.

So, what will it take to get you into a bidet? If you need a firsthand (or first-butt) conversion experience like I did, reach out when you sense nature’s calling, and you can try out one of ours! Beyond that, it’ll take about $60.

I ordered two bidet attachments by BioMedic, the same company that made the one in Susanna’s apartment. (There are a good number of US-based companies making bidets. I went with the only brand I had any experience with because I was afraid if I didn’t act quickly, my intent would be buried by the busyness of my life.)

When I went to the BioMedic website, it seems that Susanna’s exact model has been discontinued, but the SlimEdge model that I paid $59 for is very comparable. It consists of a thin flat frame that sits right under your toilet seat, held in place by the same bolts that secure the seat. It has two nozzles that retract when not in use and extend under water pressure (it needs no electricity). The water is borrowed (via a t-joint) from the same input that fills the tank—which is also the same water that comes out of your tap: it’s fully treated clean water. And it’s controlled by a small knob on the frame as it wraps around to your right, letting you choose the strength of the jet of water coming from the nozzle. I still use a small bit of TP to dry myself, but I can tell you already, our TP use is going to drop to by 75% or more.

You can upgrade to bidets that add in warm water, heated seats, night lights, multiple jet patterns, warm air drying, and wireless remotes. Those all require an electrical outlet, most require jumping from a simple attachment to a complete toilet seat or an entire bidet toilet. And that jump will run you $300-$3000 depending on your “ass”pirations. The beauty of Susanna’s (and now mine) is its sheer simplicity. Just tap into the water line that’s right there, and you’re good to go. Literally. As I said, a “gateway” bidet—a $59 splurge to whet your whistle (or your nether parts) for an upgrade. I can already imagine that Margaret and I will upgrade to something nicer in a year or two, but for now the joy of jet-washing my ass with plain water—no bells or whistles—is a joy that won’t grow old anytime soon.

A last observation. You may know we’ve hosted six young adults from Brazil over the past four years, providing a landing place for several months as they secured long-term housing. In Brazil bidets are common. And one of our Brazilian “kids,” after hearing my exuberant account of ass-washing, admitted that amid all the modern conveniences of life in the US, they found the transition to toilet paper uncomfortable and almost barbaric.

I hadn’t thought of that. But as soon as I did, I took my revelatory elation and reversed it. OUCH. I spent 66+ years not knowing what I was missing. I now wish I’d purchased a bidet years ago—started a trend before its time. But our Brazilian kids arrived here—into the warmth of our welcoming home, no less!—and found their 30 years of bidet-use ripped away. As I said, OUCH. I had no idea there was such a rough edge to our hospitality. At least we’ve entered the bidet-age now.

Our trip to California was memorable in so many ways. The coast at Point Reyes, and the elephant seals. The Cypress Tunnel and the towering redwoods. The vistas in the Bay Area and the magnificence of Point Lobos. The museums we visited, the sights we saw, the people we connected with. And, of course, the joy of an entire week with Susanna: hiking, grocery-shopping, meal-making, game-playing, and more. We made memories for years to come.

Making my first acquaintance with a bidet sort of pales in comparison. But only sort of. Because—at least for a good while—that blast of water between my butt cheeks will bring all those other memories splashing back.

I cannot overstate the way this $59 device has changed my world. It’s not too much to suggest that now when I have to poop, I turn that little knob and whisper with quiet affection, “Kiss my ass. Please.” And it does. Might just be time for you to ask a bidet to kiss your ass as well. Just sayin’.

+++

The Half Left Unsaid

Jun24

The Half Left Unsaid
David R. Weiss – June 24, 2026

[NOTE: my earlier piece, “A Canopy of Golden Leaves,” provides a little more background on my friendship with Marguerite.]

These days Marguerite is the embodiment of liminal. More than simply living at the edge of dying, she is that edge. It’s my honor to occasionally keep her company there.

In a conservatory, you might enter a room kept warm and humid, and all of sudden you find yourself wrapped in a pungent fecund embrace that is oh so welcoming, while perhaps simultaneously feeling just a bit too much.

Right now, Marguerite’s room is like that. The waiting, the weariness, and the anticipation of Something Next is almost overpowering in intensity. It is surely holy.

Silence is sovereign these days. This morning I shared some photos of me and my son Ben through the years—he turns 39 today. And I showed some pictures from the recent trip Margaret and I made to California to visit our daughter Susanna. She joined me to look at the pictures and listen to the tales of our vacation adventures, several times voicing genuine delight.

But the Silence hovers. Not as threat or peril, mind you. Simply as the ever-present dawning of Something Next. Something beyond words. It waits patiently for my prattling to exhaust itself. And at the first break in conversation, it overfills the room again.

Marguerite herself reaches for words several times, but there is always a half left unsaid.

Looking into the sunset from Mount Tamalpais, just north of the Bay, during our recent trip.

“Do you think this afternoon …”

“Have you ever …”

“Could we …”

“What I’d really like …”

Each time she begins in earnest, seemingly assured of the full sentence. But she never gets past the introductory clause before the Silence settles in. At some point she looks me straight on—her visage caught between frustration and Something mystical. She begins again, “Now, this is what I’m experiencing …” Her gaze held steady, as her words halted, seeming almost to plead with me.

This is the first half-thought—the only half-thought—I dare to complete: “It’s as though you get half-way into a sentence and then can’t find the other half.” She nods. Vigorously. I continue, “As though you know exactly what you planned to say, and half-way there the words are gone.” A single decisive nod. Resignation? Or perhaps quiet triumph that this thought, at least, passed whole between us.

And then more Silence. We each sense it, but our positions with respect to it are quite different. I am but a guest in its presence today. Marguerite is being actively courted by the Silence. It is a holy thing to behold.

I venture to observe (with trepidation, but I do) that some years back (when her mind was clearer and the Silence not so immediate) she never spoke about her dead family members as “being in heaven.” She always referred to them as having “passed beyond the Veil,” or “gone to the Light.” As though already then Marguerite intuited that a hefty measure of humility—confident humility—was most appropriate in naming whatever it is that is Next.

Then I risked wondering aloud whether even “humble” words like veil and light shift in tenor on the threshold. Respectful … and tame at a safe distance, I suspect even these words seem to say both too much and too little for Marguerite right now.

I regard her unfinished sentences as witness to that truth. At the last. On the threshold itself. In this most acutely liminal existential moment, it’s how we meet the half left unsaid that finally matters. Because that half is just on the cusp of Next. It is the place where our silence acknowledges The Silence in the room.

I do my best (imperfectly, but still) to be a patient tender companion to Marguerite while I am a guest in this liminal space. And Marguerite does her best (imperfectly, but still) to meet this moment where her words falter with grace and reverence for the confusing mystery that presses in.

Who knows when the Silence will finally have its Say? When the Next will carry her Away. Who knows? Until then, I will relish these days so shaped by the half left unsaid.

***

A Canopy of Golden Leaves

Jun10

A Canopy of Golden Leaves
David R. Weiss – June 10, 2026

“Say, when you’re ready to leave, could you drop me off somewhere along your way?”

Posed as if it were the most natural request for a simple favor, it made no sense at all. True, I used to drive Marguerite everywhere, but it had been close to two years since I’d helped her into my car. And I knew she had nowhere to go today.

I met Marguerite seven years ago, in January 2019. She had just turned 83. Her daughter Rebecca, with whom I’ve been friends for two decades, had posted on Facebook about needing a trustworthy and reliable person to drive her mom to and from rehab appointments following knee replacement. I was underemployed at the time, so I offered myself up as a driver. Assuming it would mean a little extra cash for the couple months Marguerite would be going for physical therapy. Well, a couple months became four-and-a-half years.

By the end of her PT, Marguerite was so taken with me (it’s true!), she asked if I could drive her to other appointments. And so it began. We went every Monday to the hairdresser and every Thursday for body work. Then there were dentist appointments, a few doctor appointments, and several rounds of book club at her church. Before long every-other-week lunches were part of our routine—usually after one of her appointments.

Even when our routine was paused by Covid, we still occasionally went out for lunch, getting take-out food that we took to the Wabun Picnic area in Minnehaha Falls Park. We ate in the car, chatting and admiring the trees. Marguerite loved trees. They were like extended family to her. On every car ride we’d pass several trees that elicited gasps of awe from her. We drove a pretty consistent route, so it was often the same trees, but the exuberance of the “oh my!” was fresh each time.

Marguerite is a retired UCC pastor (widowed about six years before we met). Her husband Bill had also been a pastor. Indeed, her daughter Rebecca became a UCC pastor, too. Early on, she found me (being a trained theologian myself) a superb conversation partner. She was an avid reader—and eager to discuss whatever book she was currently reading or an article from the latest issue of Christian Century. She also consumed the newspaper every day and most lunches included our respective takes on the world.

Because I’m an avid blogger, with essays that often tilt theological, I brought copies of each piece I wrote to her, and they also helped set the course of our conversations. She’d often exclaim to me, pulling the folded essay out of her purse, “You’ve got the goods! This is just marvelous.” She became such a fan of my writing that when I launched a Patreon account to help fund my work, she was one of the very first persons to put in a pledge.

Besides theology and politics, we talked family. I told her about mine, and she told me about hers. One story, told several times, always delighted me. When they were pastors in Chicago, her husband Bill had a sailboat and loved to go sailing. Marguerite, not so much. They finally struck a deal. She would go sailing so long as Bill bought her a large showy piece of jewelry. E very time. I don’t think Marguerite ever developed a fondness for sailing, but she did acquire quite a collection of big jewelry.

It proved useful in her ministry, which involved meeting street people in downtown Chicago, connecting them with services, when possible, but mostly listening to their stories. She told me, “Everybody just walked by them as if they were invisible, but I saw them, and I listened to them. And they loved me for that.” These were tough streets to be out on by herself. But she learned one day that some of the big guys on the streets had put the word out: “When you see the woman with red hair and big jewelry, you let her be. She’s on our side.” She always told that story wearing big jewelry, and I always smiled at the surprising ways that good news get told.

I heard countless tales from her younger years, tales populated by her parents and a special aunt and uncle. I heard about her living family: Rebecca, Rebecca’s wife Maggie, and their child, Shannon Makenzie, over whom Marguerite fawned with wonder and delight. And I heard several accounts of near mystical moments she experienced late in life.

For four years and then some, this was the rhythm of our lives. I’d guess I drove Marguerite close to 400 times.

But eventually her legs became unsteady and her balance uncertain. Falls became more frequent and outings more rare. After a serious fall in the summer of 2024, Marguerite was relocated from Episcopal Homes to Villages Shores in order to receive more supportive care. My days as her driver ended.

At that point—because the roots of our friendship had mutually entangled themselves—I switched to simply visiting her every Wednesday. It was the one weekday that Karin, her longtime and beloved Visting Angel didn’t come, so my visits brightened those days. I often brought lunch for us to share. Usually fresh pizza from Pizza Luce, a chilled can of Diet Pepsi with a straw, and a sweet treat to end the meal. She still enjoyed—and still enjoys—going out to Pizza Luce with her family almost every Sunday. They just roll her down the block in her wheelchair. Pizza Luce is just half a block away.

I did that several times, but as her sense of presence began to falter, it felt safer for me to eat with her in her room. She always loved that, remarking how much she enjoyd the casual informality of eating right there in her room.

By now our conversations have long thinned out to mostly reminiscing about memories that sort of free-float in her mind. She is always happy to see me, though I’m not sure my name is always at the tip of her tongue. But her smile and twinkling eyes say plenty. Her memory is increasingly confused—Alzheimer’s is afoot. Her sense of time is fluid and expansive. One moment she’ll tell me about going out for pizza with Rebecca and five minutes later she’ll be talking about her parents or her aunt and uncle as if they’re still quite alive and just across town.

Her room has at least half-a-dozen family photos of her surrounded by Rebecca, Maggie, and Shannon Makenzie. All beaming with love. Several times lately, her eyes will settle on one of those photos, and she’ll say, slowly to let the certainty build: “That’s my family.” And as though a young child just learning names, she carefully tries to find each one in her mind so she can place it on her lips. She pauses from face to face, but most days she finds the name to match. On those rare occasions that she falters, I offer timid assistance: “I think that might be so-and-so,” and I let Marguerite confirm my guess so that she has the final say.

I’m sure she knows each of them when they enter the room, but all the memories in her mind are a roiling swirl these days. For that matter, while she is always happy to see me, I doubt she could tell anyone exactly who I am or how we met. But there is no doubt on either of our parts that we are happy to see each other.

Marguerite has been in hospice since February. Our visits these days are like mini Zen retreats. Every brief conversation is its own present moment. Followed by another present moment and another. Chronology is optional at best.

Last Wednesday, maybe a dozen times, Marguerite started down a memory, but half-way through the sentence her words faded away. That present moment had ended. And before long a new one unfolded, until it, too, fell to silence along the way.

I sit patiently with these moments. I have learned it doesn’t help to ask a follow-up question. Once the sentence stops, that memory has been left for another. And anyway, my role as friend is not to question or correct—it’s simply to be present. To offer my gracious attention to wherever she happens to be in this Zen moment of NOW.

Last week she was everywhere. All over the place. That’s when this image came to me. I already told you she loved trees. Our regular route took us on Fairview, from Ford Parkway to University. And for some stretches of blocks along there the tree son either side of the road reach their branches high overhead toward the middle, where they meet in leafy green.

Until the fall. Then, having turned thin and yellow, they’d give the impression of shimmering stained glass above us as we drove beneath in the afternoon sunlight. Marguerite’s awe at this was palpable.

Obviously, not Fairview Ave, but you get the idea. 😉

And so last Wednesday, I observed to her, almost reverently near the end of our visit, “Marguerite, I am amazed at all the memories that press in on you these days. It’s like they have become a golden canopy of leaves just above you. And no sooner do your eyes settle on one leaf, than they’re called away to another and another. But they’re all golden. And there are so many of them.”

She paused before responding, as if to measure my analogy against her inward experience. And then she nodded. “A canopy of golden leaves. Yes, I like that.”

Me, too.

And I have to tell you, even though I don’t drive Marguerite anywhere anymore, and even though she may well cross the veil before summer’s end, I can’t wait until fall comes round. So I can drive down Fairview for no reason at all except to feel Marguerite’s presence beside me in the car beneath that canopy of golden leaves.

***