{"id":504,"date":"2022-09-21T15:41:48","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T19:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pensivejournal.com\/?p=504"},"modified":"2022-09-21T15:41:48","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T19:41:48","slug":"climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pensivejournal.com\/prose\/climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"
My husband Frank and I were on the Jersey Turnpike heading north to visit my mother.\u00a0 <\/span>We had passed two exits when he said \u201cYou\u2019re awfully quiet.\u00a0 <\/span>Did I do something wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSorry.\u00a0 <\/span>Of course not.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m a bit distracted.\u00a0 <\/span>Ann called. Mom\u2019s on one of her rants.\u00a0 <\/span>She\u2019s obsessing about death\u2014specifically what to do with her body after <\/i>she dies.\u00a0 <\/span>Says she\u2019s worried about the environmental mess her generation\u2019s leaving behind, cemeteries taking too much land, we should find better ways to dispose of bodies.\u00a0 <\/span>Ann said Mom\u2019s exploring some bizarre idea called \u2018above ground decomposition\u2019. \u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s like composting, except for people.\u00a0 <\/span>Can you believe it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs this another one of her crusades,\u201d he said, \u201cor is something else going on?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know, but Ann\u2019s wangled me into talking with Mom about it.\u00a0 <\/span>She says if she does they\u2019ll end up arguing.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBlessed are the peacemakers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t the first time my sister had tried that line.\u00a0 <\/span>I didn\u2019t always bite, but on this occasion she probably was right. \u00a0 <\/span>Two years older than I, Ann lived within ten minutes of our mother in a Boston suburb, whereas Frank and I were three hundred and twenty-five miles away in Philadelphia.\u00a0 <\/span>Mom and Ann were close, but proximity didn\u2019t guarantee harmony. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Our mother was like a modern-day prophet–let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.\u00a0 <\/span>It may have been admirable from a distance, but at close range it was unsettling.\u00a0 <\/span>I remembered the time Ann called me in hysterics at midnight.\u00a0 <\/span>Mom had been arrested after she and her friends had written \u201cremember Chernobyl\u201d in red paint on the edifice of a company entrusted with designing safer, cheaper nuclear power plants.\u00a0 <\/span>Mom said it was a contradiction in terms. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Fresh troops were called for, although Mom would bristle at that analogy. Most of the time I avoided tough subjects, especially where she was concerned.\u00a0 <\/span>No matter how reasonable my arguments, she could mow them down with the efficiency of a John Deere harvester.<\/p>\n Frank was the opposite.\u00a0 <\/span>An experienced sailor, he delighted in bracing seas, but on the home front he appreciated calm, and that is what we had given each other for thirty-five years. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAnn was the gutsy one,\u201d I said.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cShe stayed close to home. My way of coping was to marry you and move away.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI assume escaping your mother wasn\u2019t the only reason you married me.\u201d<\/p>\n I twisted around to look at him, my seat belt straining, pulling against my shoulder. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou know that\u2019s not true.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n His wispy ginger red hair had receded to the center of his head, while soft gray ones sprouted on the side of his neck.\u00a0 <\/span>His ears and nose were large, but somehow they fit his big-boned body and his dear face. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not her causes that are exasperating,\u201d I said.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s her tactics.\u00a0 <\/span>Now she\u2019s turned into an eco-zealot.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs she all right?\u00a0 <\/span>After all, she is eighty-five.\u00a0 <\/span>It tends to focus the mind.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMom\u2019s as solid as the granite boulder in her back yard.\u201d<\/p>\n Even as I said it, I wondered. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I stared out the window.\u00a0 <\/span>A sprawling cemetery stretched along the Garden State Parkway near Newark. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cRemember when Harry died?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n One of Frank\u2019s golfing buddies, Harry had prostate cancer which he\u2019d ignored until it was too late.\u00a0 <\/span>I made sure Frank went for an annual checkup, kept track of his PSA levels on a chart on my computer, researched dietary recommendations, served him lots of tomatoes, pink grapefruit, and watermelon. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe never talked about what Carol did with his body,\u201d I said.\u00a0 <\/span>Harry\u2019s wife had scattered his ashes off Martha\u2019s Vineyard. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy talk about it?\u00a0 <\/span>Better to remember old Harry making that hole-in-one during The\u00a0 <\/span>Club championship.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf there\u2019s no place where the body rests,\u201d I said, \u201cwhere do you go to mourn?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cShe could look out over The Lagoon and take comfort knowing he was there.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Where\u2019s there<\/i>?\u00a0 <\/span>If you\u2019re everywhere, are you anywhere?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t go all theological on me.\u00a0 <\/span>If you want to explore the big questions, ask Reverend Morton.\u201d<\/p>\n It started to spit rain.\u00a0 <\/span>Drops sliced across the car windows.\u00a0 <\/span>I reached over and rubbed his shoulder. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve never told me what you\u2019d want if you die,\u201d I said. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you mean \u2018if\u2019?\u00a0 <\/span>Like taxes, it\u2019s gonna happen.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPlease God, not for a long time.\u00a0 <\/span>What would I do without you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll be well taken care of, that\u2019s what\u2019s important. For the rest, you decide.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>\u201cWhat makes you think you\u2019ll go first?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I pulled an antacid out of my purse and chewed it.\u00a0 <\/span>Frank was grafted on me as surely as the apple branches he spliced onto a tree in our back yard. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s face it,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019ve got ten years on you, so it\u2019s more likely.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ll bet your Mom\u2019s thinking about her future so you won\u2019t have to.\u00a0 <\/span>Good for her. Hear her out, that\u2019s my advice.\u00a0 <\/span>In the meantime, we\u2019re coming to a rest stop and I\u2019ve gotta pee.\u00a0 <\/span>You want anything?\u201d<\/p>\n Four hours later we were in Newton.\u00a0 <\/span>Mother still lived in the two-story, white-shingled house where we\u2019d moved in 1962 after she and my dad divorced.\u00a0 <\/span>The posters in my bedroom were long gone but she\u2019d kept the same cherry double bed, nightstand, dresser, bookcase and rocker.\u00a0 <\/span>Frugality personified, she\u2019d been too cheap to dry clean the same old drapes she\u2019d let me pick out when I was a teenager, so the linings hung an inch below the flower-patterned fabric.\u00a0 <\/span>She had grudgingly allowed Frank to buy and install a window air conditioner, which we turned on as soon as we arrived.\u00a0 <\/span>The space worked for me when I was a kid, but it felt small when Frank, a substantial six feet three inches and two hundred-five pounds, navigated around the furniture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Books about death spanned a whole shelf.\u00a0 <\/span>I took one, sat down on the bed and leafed through it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLook at these,\u201d I said.\u00a0<\/span> <\/i>\u201cWhat do you make of them?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The pages were peppered with black and white etchings similar to Edvard Munch\u2019s The Scream.<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cYour Mom\u2019s a reader,\u201d he said, \u201calways has been.\u00a0 <\/span>You\u2019ve been worried about how to broach the subject.\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s your opening.\u201d<\/p>\n It was atypically warm for a mid-September morning.\u00a0 <\/span>Mom was seated cross legged on the grass in the back yard digging up mint that threatened to take over her flower beds.\u00a0 <\/span>She had on a pair of old jeans and a faded navy T-shirt from the Natural Resources Defense Council.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d I said. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMint leaves make great pesto.\u00a0 <\/span>Have you ever tried it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCan\u2019t say I have.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I brushed my hand across the grass to be sure it wasn\u2019t damp, then sat down beside her.<\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/span>\u201cYou know,\u201d she said, \u201cgardening is quite contemplative.\u00a0 <\/span>When you\u2019re this close to the ground, you see stuff you otherwise wouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 <\/span>Take, for example, this maple seedling.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>She held it close to her eyes, then handed it to me.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cLook how perfectly it curves out from the weighted center, designed to float and land somewhere to generate new life.\u201d<\/p>\n Frank and I had maple trees in our backyard, too.\u00a0 <\/span>In the spring, the buds covered my freshly mulched flower beds in ugly yellow-green detritus.\u00a0 <\/span>I twisted the seedling between my thumb and forefinger, then tossed it on the ground.\u00a0 <\/span>How could I maneuver this conversation to talk about mortality? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou know that book about international death rituals you\u2019ve got in my old bedroom? \u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t think it was there the last time we visited.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHas Ann been talking with you?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>She looked at me with the hint of a smile that emphasized the half-moon creases around her cheeks.\u00a0 <\/span>Her thick gray hair, worn in a simple bob that hung just below her ears, looked white in the sunlight.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cShe worries too much.\u201d<\/p>\n She took off her gardening gloves and stuffed them in the pocket of her jeans.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s go sit on the back porch,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n I pulled her upright.\u00a0 <\/span>The skin on her arms looked like crushed tissue paper, the veins on her hands bulged.\u00a0 <\/span>Was she less solid than I thought? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThanks,\u201d she said.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI can manage, but I get stiff when I sit too long.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We eased into weathered wooden chairs near the porch railing. \u00a0 <\/span>My rocking chair had an annoying squeak on the back-swing. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s Frank?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cSaid it was a glorious day so he decided to walk into the Center, pick up a Wall Street Journal,<\/i> and get a cup of coffee.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou found a real gem there, even if he is a Bush Republican.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She didn\u2019t say \u201cunlike your Dad,\u201d but I knew what she thought. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Squeak, rock, squeak, rock, squeak, rock.<\/p>\n A flash of bright orange flew across the yard into a tree.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n \u201cBaltimore Oriole.\u00a0 <\/span>I used to see a lot of them around here.\u00a0 <\/span>There aren\u2019t so many anymore.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I tried to spot the elusive bird but all I could see was rustling foliage.<\/p>\n \u201cWould you like a cup of tea, my dear?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a good idea.\u00a0 <\/span>Let me get it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I\u2019ll do it.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>She patted my arm.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cYou stay on the porch and enjoy the birds.\u201d<\/p>\n While she worked in the kitchen, I cast about for a way to navigate The Conversation. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In a few minutes, she backed out the door and placed a blue plastic tray on a slatted wooden table in front of us, then poured two cups from an old china teapot with a chipped spout. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The tea was scalding hot.\u00a0 <\/span>I drank it in small sips.<\/p>\n \u201cDeath is a hard subject,\u201d I said, \u201cespecially when it\u2019s about those we love.\u00a0 <\/span>I can\u2019t imagine you gone.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had to say good-bye to several friends.\u00a0 <\/span>Whenever I do, I think it\u2019s my turn next.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>She sipped her tea.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cIf I look back on my life, very little has come out as I expected, but whatever the Almighty has in mind will be fine.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s the future of creation I\u2019m worried about.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOn balance, has it been good?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, yes, very good.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m sorry you kids had to endure the divorce.\u00a0 <\/span>It probably wounded you more than I understood, but at the time, I felt like I didn\u2019t have much choice.\u201d<\/p>\n I stopped rocking.\u00a0 <\/span>I was tempted to ask if she had factored Ann and me into her moral calculus, but what would be the point?\u00a0 <\/span>A spider crawled along the arm of my chair.\u00a0 <\/span>I flicked it off and crushed it with my foot.<\/p>\n . \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing to the environment is unconscionable,\u201d she said.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cFuture generations, kids like Spencer, are going to feel the brunt of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Ann\u2019s son and daughter-in-law had produced one grandson who visited Mom regularly.\u00a0 <\/span>Frank and I had a thirty-eight-year-old daughter who thus far had avoided the marital state. Prospects for grandchildren were increasingly dim. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cWe can\u2019t go on like this,\u201d she said.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cClimate change is ravaging the planet.\u00a0 <\/span>I helped organize a green-living teach-in at City Hall last April but it feels like I\u2019m spitting in the wind. I\u2019ve been thinking about how to make a final witness.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSomething like a bequest to the NRDC?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve already done that.\u201d<\/p>\n This was new information. I didn\u2019t need the money, but Ann, a divorcee who taught history at a community college, might be grateful for a boost. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d she said, \u201csomething more personal.\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s got to be a better way to dispose of dead bodies.\u00a0 <\/span>We think we\u2019re environmentally responsible by shifting to cremations, but those furnaces spew carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and soot into the atmosphere, and consume tons of natural gas.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I could feel a headache coming on.\u00a0 <\/span>What had Frank said?\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cListen.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never thought about it,\u201d I said. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s just the problem.\u00a0 <\/span>People aren\u2019t thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n Breathe.\u00a0 <\/span>Hear her out.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously you have,\u201d I said. \u00a0 <\/span>\u201cWhat did you have in mind?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been reading about liquefaction.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>She spooled out the word as if it were a poem.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s a kind of chemical bath that leaves a carbon footprint only a tenth of cremation and there are no fumes.\u00a0 <\/span>The nutrients can be used as fertilizer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFertilizer?\u00a0 <\/span>Please tell me you\u2019re kidding.\u00a0 <\/span>What are we supposed to do, ask mourners to wear green knee boots to the memorial service?\u00a0 <\/span>Couldn\u2019t you be a little more…traditional?\u201d<\/p>\n Even as I said it I knew this was the wrong argument.\u00a0 <\/span>She enjoyed flying in the face of convention. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cTradition?\u00a0 <\/span>Whose tradition?\u201d she said.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cIf we were in India, you could light a funeral pyre on the banks of the Ganges.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/b> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut we\u2019re not in India, we\u2019re here.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And with that exchange, I regressed into a self-conscious teenager who had walked into our house with my girlfriend Marsha whose father was in Vietnam.\u00a0 <\/span>Mom was on her hands and knees, painting anti-war signs on the kitchen floor.\u00a0 <\/span>I had listened to her often enough to think she was right, but how would Marsha react?\u00a0 <\/span>I was embarrassed.\u00a0 <\/span>Mom was oblivious. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She shifted in her chair and put her hand on my arm.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cCalm down, I checked, it\u2019s not legal in Massachusetts, at least not yet.\u201d<\/p>\n They say whatever tendencies you have get exaggerated in old age.\u00a0 <\/span>Mom\u2019s prophetic inclinations were morphing into the histrionic. We had reached an impasse.\u00a0 <\/span>What else was new? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Somewhere in the distance a woodchipper erupted with a deafening roar.<\/p>\n \u201cHello, ladies!\u201d Frank mounted the back porch steps.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cHave you solved all the problems of the universe? \u00a0 <\/span>I picked up some bagels and cream cheese while I was in the center.\u201d<\/p>\n He patted my shoulder, then leaned over and kissed Mom on top of her head. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf you two haven\u2019t had breakfast yet, and if Mom lets me use her kitchen, I could rustle up some scrambled eggs and bacon to go with them.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At three o\u2019clock in the morning, I was awakened by Frank calling my name and jostling my arm. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou were yelling,\u201d he said. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n