Scratching away at raising a family ~ March 31, 1988

 David Heiller

Miss Emma missed her calling when she decided not to be a mother.

Actually, it was our decision, not Miss Emma’s. We drove her to the vet’s, while she sat howling in a cardboard box. Cats don’t like to be neutered, much less spayed. Not any more than people do. I should know, but that’s a subject for a future column. Far in the future.

Miss Emma is the seventh in a long line of cats for us. There was Carson, then Garrison, then Sadie, then Chauncey, Hickory, and Murphy. Dogs killed two, an owl carried Murphy off one spring night, the others died by disease and attrition.

Miss Emma has lasted the longest. We got her free from Silver and Bernice Anderson of Sturgeon Lake in the spring of 1983, when she was about four months old.

Malika and Miss Emma

I always have felt sad in a sentimental way that Miss Emma couldn’t have kittens. There were always kittens at home when I was growing up. The matriarch cat in our house, Cindy, gave birth like clockwork twice a year to a litter of kittens, for about 10 years straight. There was something special about watching Cindy nurse her young, how they would nuzzle into her stomach, kneading with their paws while they sucked. Cindy would lick them clean while they nursed, then serve as wrestler and referee after they finished and started to play.

Miss Emma missed out on all that, until Malika was born in June of 1985. They seemed to like each other from the time Mollie came home from the hospital. There’s a picture on our living room wall of Malika in her basket sleeping, at age three months, with Miss Emma curled on the blanket by her feet.

We worried about it at first, Cindy and I did (Cindy my wife, not Cindy the cat). Malika loved Miss Emma from the start, but she showed that love by grabbing fistfuls of fur, or that twitching tail. But Miss Emma did not scratch or bite back. She gritted her teeth, and endured the torture, and when she could endure no longer, she would simply pull away and hide.

Hanging out:  Miss Emma and Malika in the maple tree.

When Malika started to crawl. Miss Emma sensed the time had come to start training her “daughter.” I still remember the day the training began. Cindy’s mother happened to be visiting us. Mollie had grabbed Miss Emma’s tail, and wouldn’t let go. They sat locked on the living room floor. We heard Miss Emma give a low growl. We warned Mollie, “You better let go now.” Miss Emma reached around quicker than a wink and scratched Malika’s hand. Just a tiny scratch, but Mollie seemed mortally wounded. She let go of the tail and started howling herself.

Cindy and I stood frozen, waiting for a sign from Grandma Olson. Grandma didn’t disappoint us. “That’ll teach you to hurt the kitty,” she told Mollie.

Cindy and I let out our breath at the same time.

Since that day, Miss Emma has taught Malika how to be nice to cats. We’ve tried to help in our cumbersome, wordy way. “Pet her like this,” we showed her, stroking Miss Emma slowly across the back.

Malika would try it for a few pets, but soon the twitching tail was too much, and the petting turned to pounding. Miss Emma would not simply jump up and run, nor would she gouge a deep scratch. She would uncurl her claws from their padding, and give a little pat. Malika would cry, “Semma scratched me.” But the pounding would stop, and the petting would begin again.

Miss Emma and her wood box.

Now, Miss Emma and Malika are almost inseparable, though like all good relationships, it’s the love-hate variety. Last Saturday morning, Miss Emma sat in the bottom of our empty wood box in the kitchen. Malika spied her in there, and crawled inside.

“Semma and I are best buddies,” she said.

But Tuesday night, Malika had a complaint. “Semma’s going to scratch me again, and Momma called the doctor,” she stated after her nightly trip to the potty.

That would be news to Momma, who was at her aerobics class.

“She scratched me right on my tummy.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because we going to get mad at her.”

“Why did she scratch you?” I repeated.

“Because like that,” Mollie answered, swiping at her tummy.

“Not where. Why? What were you doing?”

“Because I was going to play right behind him, and I was going to call the doctor, and I was going to get Semma out of my bed, and I’m gonna scratch Semma.”

“You can’t scratch her.”

“I’m too bad.”

Somewhere in that twisted dialogue lay a confession and an apology. Once again Miss Emma had taught her daughter a lesson.

The lessons will continue. Miss Emma will again take her place at the foot of Mollie’s bed. Someday she won’t have to worry about her tortured tail and pinched fur. She’ll be able to pull in her claws and sleep peacefully, next to a daughter she can be proud of.

Isn’t that every mother’s dream?

Those invincible days of yore ~ March 29, 2006

David Heiller

Editor's note: This column was written after he presented the readers of the Caledonia Argus the long article he wrote for Backpacker Magazine.

I’m back to the present and the land of the living, after a four-week hiatus down memory lane.

A lot of people commented on my adventure in the mountains 33 years ago, which I reprinted in this space.

Some final thoughts: I was having lunch last week with a couple of colleagues. One man asked me how I could not have known about the possibility of bad weather, a snow storm.

David and the kids on our 1998 backpacking trip to Rocky Mountain National Park.

I stammered a bit; and the other man, a backpacker himself, said it simply: “We’re flatlanders.”

That was part of it. It’s one thing to be in a snowstorm in Houston County. Granted, it’s not flat here by North Dakota definitions. But there aren’t many snow storms in which a healthy 20-year-old man could not wade and tromp through to get help in rural Caledonia.

The mountains were another world. I had climbed 6,500 feet in elevation and hiked 30 miles. Some of that was very steep. It was physically impossible for a person to walk through that country after three feet of snow without snowshoes, which I didn’t have.

“And I was 20,” I said. “I was invincible.” Remember those days? It was a long time ago, but there was a time when I felt there was no physical task, within reason, that I couldn’t accomplish. I bet a lot of people feel the same way.

“Why didn’t you just turn around and go back the way you came?” my colleague asked. There again, I had to admit that I could not physically do it. The trail was obliterated and steep. The best way out was the other side of the mountain.

David, in the hospital after his rescue.

The other comment I have received was how lucky I was to survive. That’s true. The luck extended beyond Yosemite National Park. I had hitchhiked from Brownsville to Oregon, then down the West Coast to San Francisco, then east to Yosemite, That’s not exactly a safe thing to do either.

In fact, that was the fear that crept into the hearts of my mother and other family members. They hadn’t heard from me in a month. I had written to Mom from the park the day before my final adventure, telling her I would soon be hitchhiking to Phoenix to spend Thanksgiving with my brother Glenn and his family. When Thanksgiving came and went, she feared the worst.

I’ll never forget the phone call I made home from the hospital bed after I was rescued. She probably remembers it too, although we don’t talk about it. We’re good Germans!

I’ll never forget my mountain experience either. “You definitely cheated death.” my brother, Danny, wrote to me recently. That’s not something you take lightly.

Grandmas can’t sleep where angels tread ~ March 19, 1987

By David Heiller

Our son, Noah, and his great-grandma Schnick have always had a special relationship. He took a shine to her from the first time he could first crawl onto her lap.

When we visit her and Grandma Heiller (my mother), Noah spends most of the day upstairs with Grandma Schnick. He shows off his block building skills, or talks non-stop about lions. Adventures come racing from his mouth faster than a three-year-old brain can process. Often Grandma will turn to me and ask, “What in the world is he talking about?”

Noah and his Grandma Schnick

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I answer.

At night, he crawls into Grandma Schnick’s soft bed and sleeps by her side. Grandma has a lot of confidence in Noah to allow this. She knows she is playing Russian roulette with his bladder, which half the time can give a sleeping partner a rather rude awakening.

Grandma Schnick doesn’t play favorites with her great grandchildren. At age 91, she knows better than that. She doesn’t love any one less. But she does have a special place for Noah. You see it in the way she talks with him, reads to him, even just sits and listens and watches as he talks and plays.

At least, that is until this past weekend. He had been walking on water, but now it may have frozen to thin ice. It started Saturday night, at the supper table. Grandma Heiller had fried up fresh rainbow trout, along with potatoes, peas and salad. Noah wouldn’t look at his plate. Instead, he started sliding off the front of his chair.

“You take at least one bite of everything,” Cindy said. “Or you don’t leave the table.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to,” Noah said, caught in mid-slide off his chair.

“Don’t whine,” I said. “One bite or sit still.”

“Yeah, but I have to play,” Noah answered, arching further down.

“You’ll go in the bedroom if you get off that chair,” Cindy said.

“No I won’t!” Noah said, completing his slide off the chair.

Cindy swept him off the floor as he crawled out from under the table, and dropped him on the bed in the adjoining room. She shut the door behind her.

Grandma had watched the episode without a word. “Well, that’s not the Noah I know,” she said.

Noah was a little older for this visit,
things went much better.

Noah finally quieted down from crying in the bedroom, and rejoined us at the supper table, as he always does when this happens. But Noah’s angel wings had lost a few feathers in Grandma’s eyes.

The next morning, Cindy and I woke up at 6:30, which is quite late for us. It is late for Noah too, as Grandma found out. The good news was she woke up in a dry bed. The bad news was she woke up at 4:30 in the morning. That’s when Noah had decided to talk about those lions of his. He did a fair imitation of them too, growling under the covers, clawing and crawling into a den at the foot of the bed.

Grandma greeted us at the living room as we said our good mornings. “How did you sleep,” I asked.

“Fine,” Grandma answered, looking at me through eyes ringed with sleepless circles that told otherwise.

Those angel feathers had been clipped even shorter. I doubt if Noah could have flown at that point. But he came crashing to the ground an hour later. He had been complaining about his shirt, which had tiny dinosaurs on the front. He would have complained if you had offered him ice cream—4:30 risings do that to kids.

I offered to put a vest on over the dinosaurs. “I don’t like this damn shirt,” Noah said.

Grandma sat up straight in her chair.

“Noah, we don’t talk like that, that’s not nice,” I said. “I don’t know where he picked that up,” I said to Grandma.

Grandma didn’t dignify that statement with an answer.

It could have been a worse four letter word, but Noah’s got plenty of time to pick those up. Meanwhile, his shocker at the breakfast table plucked what few angel feathers had remained clean out. He was wingless.

As we strapped ourselves into the car later Sunday morning, for our trip home, the two Grandmas stood on the porch and waved goodbye. They leaned against each other for support. (Malika had slept with Grandma Heiller, and had complained about her imaginary “owies” for two hours that pre-dawn morning too. But that’s another story.)

We waved goodbye, and they smiled and waved too. They were smiles of happiness, but also of relief and fatigue.

“Those were two of the best night’s sleep of my life,” Cindy said as we drove off.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “We’ve really got to come visit them more often.”

“Yeah, but I’d like to stay with Grandma Schnick and Grandma Heiller all alone,” Noah added.

I think we’ll wait a while before we return. At least until they catch up on their sleep.

A great trip, despite the one that got away ~ March 7, 2001

David Heiller

Tom pointed out the bare hills bordering Moose Lake shortly after we started skiing down it on Saturday, February 23. They looked black and stony, as if a fire had burned them, but the deforestation actually came from a wind storm.

The real magnitude of that famous July 4, 1999 storm hit us a little later, as we skied on a portage into Rice Lake. Three years ago, the portage was right out of a Boundary Waters postcard. Big, beautiful birches and poplars lined the ski trail.

But not now. About 90 percent of the trees were on the ground, or snapped off at right angles 15 feet above the ground. They all lay in the same direction, as if a volcano had erupted to the west.

David cooking on Little Puffer.

“Look at all the new growth,” Tom said when we stopped in the midst of the mess. He was right; you couldn’t put your arm out without hitting a small tree. Fickle old Mother Nature was fast at work, undoing the damage she had wrought.

And once we got to Basswood Lake, the storm damage was gone. That was amazing too. How could the wind mow down a whole forest like a scythe, and not touch a tree a mile away? Those are the kinds of questions that winter ski trips bring out.

Once we hit the bay on Basswood, we drilled holes and started fishing. This spot had yielded some big northerns in the past, and both Tom and I expected no less this time.

Then we pitched our tent on an island. Several huge white pines still stood there untouched. They seemed like stout old friends to me. Tom figured they were a couple hundred years old. It was good to see them standing, although Tom noted that they were in poor health and would probably fall down soon. Science teachers notice things like that.

Tom put Little Puffer in the middle of the tent. Little Puffer is a stove that he made out of an old gas can, and it is a testimony to the importance of a stove in winter camping that it is given a name.

We cut firewood and watched for the flags on our tip-ups to spring into action. Not more than an hour later, I had the first northern on the ice, a four-pounder. Then Tom pulled in two more, a couple pounds bigger than mine. They were dark and fat. “You just don’t see northerns like that back home,” Tom marveled.

As darkness fell, a west wind whipped across the bay. We foolishly ate our supper outside by the campfire. It was cold! But that changed after we crawled into the tent and lit Little Puffer. “What took you so long?” the stove almost seemed to say as Tom struck a match to the birch bark and twigs inside it. In just a few minutes we were sitting on our sleeping pads and starting to shed our layers of clothing.

We lit two candle lanterns and hung them from the center pole. They cast a golden light. Our pads were on benches of snow that conformed to our bodies better than the most expensive mattress. We talked and read. Then I started dozing off. It was getting late. I looked at my watch: 7:30 p.m.

If there is a better recipe for sleep, I would like to find it: a cozy tent, a warm sleeping bag. The sound of the wind blowing through the friendly pines. A body that is tired from a seven-mile ski.

Skiing till your head is clear.

We were both asleep by nine. I can’t remember the last time I slept that well.

The fish of the weekend hit Tom’s tip-up the next morning. He set the hook, and the fish didn’t give. It was like the cliché that fisherman say: “I thought it was a snag,” although Tom to his credit didn’t say that, because snags don’t tear line off a reel like this one did. Then it shook its head and the line sliced into Tom’s little finger, and it was gone. Tom pulled in the line with a mixed grin of disappointment and admiration.

We will never know how big it was. That’s kind of fun to think about. Basswood Lake holds the state record for northern pike, 45 pounds, 10 ounces. Maybe this one was its grandson.

And that was the peak of the fishing for us. That happens sometimes. After that, the fish quit biting. They would take a line and run with the bait, then drop it. When it came time to set the hook, there would be nothing to set. The storm system that was dumping a foot of snow on Pine County was sending its signals all the way to the Canadian border, telling those big dumb northerns not to eat any more smelt.

On Sunday afternoon, I took a day trip and skied into Canada for several miles. I didn’t see another person, or any animals. But it was still a fantastic time. The songs that were rattling around in my head finally quieted down. That’s when I know I’ve reached some inner peace, when my brain is empty, and I can just think about the wind and the lake and my skis gliding effortlessly over the snow like I could have skied forever, just kept going.

“Did you catch any fish?” I asked Tom when I got back to camp later that afternoon.

Hanging up stuff.

“Look by the fire,” he said with a poker players grin.

I walked over and saw five nice northerns on the snow. Tom let me babble on for a bit, he told me that they were the fish we had caught earlier. He had had to move them because a mink had discovered them and was trying to eat them. Tom said he had to chase the animal away three times.

That night, before we went to bed, we hung the fish in a pack from a tree, to make sure the mink wouldn’t return.

We skied back on Monday, after a morning of fruitless fishing. The seven mile ski back home seemed easy. Just before we reached the landing on Moose Lake, two dog teams sped past us. They were cruising. What a beautiful sight. They moved with such ease and joy, and each musher gave us a wave as they rode past. The sight will stick with me for a long time, a carefree memory from a successful winter camping trip with the big fish that got away.

Noah beats all ~ March 1, 1984

David Heiller

The flu knocked me out for most of last week. I missed three days of work, as I sat delirious and fevered in the big chair by the woodstove at home.

Cindy, my wife, gave the flu to me (not intentionally—no one hates me that much). We suffered together, while Noah had his run of the house. Noah is our eight and a half month old son.

Noah setting Binti straight.

Ask Binti, our 70 pound dog, about Noah’s supremacy. She’ll swallow and try to crawl under the woodstove. Noah wrestled Binti into a black mop last week, while Cindy and I watched helplessly, calling encouragement to the faithful dog from our perches on the furniture.

Noah rolled on Binti, climbed on Binti, rode Binti, and hung onto Binti’s ears as if they were reins. Binti grunted, groaned, licked, and eventually struggled to her feet and went outside.

Noah had his turn at us too. He woke up in the middle of the night several nights, and cried till we brought him into bed with us. Is there anything more like heaven for an eight and a half month old? You could have sworn it was 10 in the morning by how happy Noah was to be with Mom and Dad in bed. He sat up and laughed. Turn to face him, and he played with your face like putty. Turn away from him, and your back was a giant drum, to be pounded till you rolled over and the process began anew.

David, Noah, Binti and Miss Emma. Noah is about to 
begin drumming one of those expensive toys.

Drumming, I learned last week as I suffered and watched, is Noah’s calling. He pounds everything. All those expensive Fisher-Price toys, that click and ring and cost a lot of money, are reduced to nothing more than elaborate drums. That expensive electronic scale that I bought Cindy for Valentine’s Day, it’s nothing more than a perfect drum for Noah. The highchair tray, the cat, the stereo cabinet, all are perfect drums. There is nothing our house that is drum proof, including us.

Noah may also be a wrestler, I decided last week. I first got the idea after watching him rake Binti over the coals. Then I learned the hard way, as he showed me his latest moves in diaper changing.

I wrestled in high school, so I know a bit about the sport. In fact, I was a fairly good wrestler. But despite my 160 pound advantage, Noah can beat me, when it comes changing time. 

His strongest move (actually his only move) is escaping. As I get the diaper under him, he rolls to his left, and grabs the edge of the changing table, and pulls himself upright, sitting and grinning. As I try to bulldog him back onto his back, the diaper gets twisted up. As I straighten the diaper, Noah rolls to his left and grabs the edge of the changing table. It’s a no-win situation, for me, till I move Noah onto the floor, where there is no edge grab. Then my chances are at least 50-50.

Well, maybe I was just weak from the flu last week—maybe that’s why Noah won. But I have a feeling it’s not.

Editor's note: I remember this so clearly. I was stricken with influenza first, and spent two days alone with Noah while barely functional. I have to admit it: I was relieved when David got it too, and had to stay home.

The humble act of ice fishing ~ February 21, 1991

David Heiller

There’s something about ice fishing with two kids that can put a little humility in you, and some pretty good food, too.

First of all, they’ll probably out-fish you. That’s what happened on Sunday afternoon on Fox Lake, west of Willow River. Noah had pulled a crappie onto the ice before I had even put a minnow on Mollie’s pole. It wasn’t anything to rave about, only the size of my hand.

But Noah was excited, and I couldn’t blame him. Is there anything more exciting than watching a bobber disappear down a hole in the ice? Sure, it’s probably a dinky panfish. But maybe, just maybe, it’s that five pound largemouth that you’ve dreamed about, the kind Bob Dutcher likes to tote around town every fall. Or a 20-pound northern that would look great at Stanton Lumber, next to Nick Worobel’s lunker.

Catching a fish through the ice is like opening day of baseball, where hope springs eternal in the human breast. Maybe the Twins will win it all this year...

But back to reality. After Noah pulled in that first fish, I had to instruct Mollie on what to do if HER bobber went under. Mollie has a tendency to be impatient at times, even for a five-year-old. (I could even say she was down right ornery if I didn’t know that her mother and grandmothers were reading this.) I had even considered not taking her along, until she (and her mother) insisted.

So I told her, “When your bobber goes under, count to two, ‘One, two,’ then pull it up. OK?” “OK, Dad,” she answered, with a tone that said, What do you think I am, an idiot?

And she soon proved me wrong, because before I had MY hook baited, I heard Mollie counting, “One, two.” Then she started pulling up on her line, her rod tip trembling. She lifted it over her head, but with six feet of line in the water, she wasn’t making much headway, and couldn’t even see the fish.

I was tempted to grab the line from her and pull it in myself. A vision of a five-pound bass crossed my mind. But I caught myself, and instead just stood next to her. “Walk away from the hole,” I said. She started walking, and soon another crappie was flopping on the ice.

That became the pattern of the day. The kids caught a fish every 10 minutes or so, and I watched them.

Yes, Bob Dutcher, I had a pole in the water. No, Bob Dutcher, I didn’t catch any fish at all. Remember, I said ice fishing with kids could be humbling.

What David failed to catch when
 fishing with small children.

In fact, I think Mollie caught the two biggest crappies on Fox Lake last Sunday. I know the guys around me didn’t seem to have much luck. Every so often they’d yell, and a little panfish would flop onto the ice. But mostly they stood around in their snowmobile suits and grumbled about their lousy luck, and mumbled about how much better the fish were biting yesterday, and watched—humbly—as Mollie would count “One; two,” and walk away from her hole to drag another crappie onto the ice.

One of the other guys even laughed when Mollie pulled a large one out nice and easy and said, “That one was sure polite, Dad.”

We talk to Mollie a lot about being polite. I guess she knows a polite crappie when she catches one.

This is a year or two later, but our kids weren't too bothered by the cold.

The only low point of the afternoon came when Mollie ventured onto some smooth ice next to Dave Balut’s fishing shack and promptly fell and cracked her forehead. Then she cried, and THEN she realized that she was cold and that the fish had stopped biting. And then she wanted to go home.

But a cup of hot chocolate bought some time, as did the minnow bucket. She had watched me bait the hooks enough to try it herself, sο she rolled up her coat sleeve and played with the minnows for ten minutes. I warned her that her hands would get cold. My hands were cold, and I only put them in the water for a few seconds at a time. But tell that to Mollie. She had a great time until her hands DID get cold, and then she truly did want to go home.

That was all right, because by then the fish had gone home too, and most of the grizzled fishermen that surrounded us had too. Besides, we had enough fish for supper.

Fried up with plenty of oil and butter and some farm eggs, all the cold hands and cracked foreheads and all the dads’ humility in the world is well worth the effort of an afternoon of ice fishing with the kids.

Water from another time ~ March 2, 1989

by David Heiller


(Cynthia' note: to hear the song, click the link... it is worth your time)

link to John McCutcheon's song Water from Another Time

There’s a song I’m thinking about tonight by John McCutcheon, called Water from Another Time. It’s about grandparents, and how they pass on their knowledge and wisdom. Part of it goes:

Tattered quilt on the goose down bed

Every stitch tells a story, my grandma said

Her momma’s nightgown, Grandpa’s pants

And the dress she wore to her high school dance

Now wrapped at night in those patchwork seams,

I waltz with Grandma in my dreams

My arms, my heart, my life entwined

With water from another time

Grandma Schnick, 1984

My old bedroom is now a sickroom for Grandma. She lies in my bed, her eyes closed, mouth ajar. I have to look close to see her chest rise and fall slightly, yes, she’s breathing. I take her hand, so thin now, all knuckles and skin.

“Hi Grandma, it’s me, David.” Her hand tightens in mine, the other reaches over to join it. Her lips come together into a smile, her eyes still shut like she’s in a sweet, sweet dream.

“It’s good to see you again.” My eyes fill, a tear spills down my right cheek. Mom moves to Grandma’s side, a water glass and spoon in hand. “Would you like some water, Mom?” she asks. The voice jars me—I haven’t heard it in maybe 25 years, but it’s a voice you never forget, a mother’s voice caring for her sick child.

Grandma’s smile has gone. “Noah and Mollie didn’t come with us.” I want to say why, but I can’t. How many times did Noah sleep with Grandma, waking her in the early morning by growling under the covers like a tiger? How many times did he spread her toys on the floor upstairs and chatter away? He wouldn’t understand this new Grandma. Grandma understands.

Stella Schnick, as a young 
woman, on the family farm in 
North Dakota. (I wish that I 
could see the auburn hair!)

“Mollie lost a tooth. She got an abscess, so her top front teeth have a big gap now.” Grandma shakes her head slowly, her eyebrows lowered, a worried look and shake so familiar to a grandson who has lost teeth of his own, only now the look and shake are slow motion, a shadow of the old Grandma.

Mom comes into the room again. “Does your leg hurt you?” There’s pain in her voice. Grandma nods her head, coughs. She looks calmer somehow, with Mom there, like she knows her daughter will take care of her. Seventy years ago it was a look Mom might have given Grandma, a look of trust peering through sickness.

Sitting up with Grandma Saturday night, I tell her, “I should have brought my banjo.” Grandma nods. She was always my most faith­ful audience back when a banjo never left my side. I hum anyway, hymns, Rock of Ages, Old Rugged Cross, Beautiful Savior, Just As I Am. Grandma’s arms reach out, like she’s trying to grab hold of something. “Should I stop singing?” She shakes her head.

After she falls asleep, I stroke her gray hair, imagining it’s auburn color from a lock she showed me once. My mind adds youth and flesh and color to her face, and I wonder if Grandpa ever sat next to Grandma at night and stroked her hair and gazed at her sleeping beauty.

Sunday noon, time to leave. I didn’t think three weeks ago I would be saying goodbye again. But this time is different. A woman who gave so much, Grandma is helpless now, and I am helpless too, because the one thing Grandma wants, I cannot give, no one can give.

“We’re going now.” Her hand tightens on mine, a hard grasp that doesn’t seem possible from an arm that’s all bone. Her eyes open, turn in my direction. “David, David,” she whispers. “Don’t go.” I hold her hand until her eyes shut again.

You don’t take much, but you got to have some.

The old ways help the new ways come.

Just leave a little extra for the next in line,

Going to need a little water from another time.