We drag out death with modern medicines and the marvel of machines. Lengthening and stretching it for years, even decades, we cure with cures that aren't cures, that just slow the progress of our doom.
The kids and I watched Earth (DinseyNature) this week, and Music sobbed quietly into my shoulder as time and again "...he got the baby." This beautifully shot film relentlessly drove home the fact in Nature, death is usually and often the progress of a moment. One minute you're grazing with your mom, the next you're lost in a dust storm. You're running pointlessly from a cheetah.
I don't even know what to say about Joplin. That this is Nature's bedside manner? That we should all live as if today were our last? That this kind of thing happens every day? That it's different when it's those you know and love.
(lyrics)
Confusion is dripping through my eyelids
Play back scene
Abandon all your world's possessions
Payable to: Me
I laughed and posted a little "Blondie"
On Judgement day
Thirty years, four months, twenty minutes, four hands, three hearts in Missouri
Thirty years, four months, twenty minutes, four hands, three hearts
Mother Nature, it's your nature (to) express yourself
You're so obscene
Slow playback, clock ticking, sweat dripping
You're body's a machine
Last wishes, human rites, meet your maker
We hope you came clean
Thirty years, four months, twenty minutes, four hands, three hearts in Missouri
Thirty years, four months, twenty minutes, four hands, three hearts in Missouri
Oh It all comes down
To the twist and shout
In a bombed out house
In a closet in Missouri
It all comes down
To the twist and shout
In a bombed out house
In a closet in Missouri
Thirty years, four months, twenty minutes, four hands, three hearts in a minute
Thirty years, four months, twenty minutes, four hands, three hearts
One will live and two will
Thirty years, four months, twenty minutes, four hands, three hearts in Missouri
Thirty years, four months, twenty minutes, four hands, three hearts
One will live and two will
On Sunday, May 22 my cousin Rachel P. Markham, four months pregnant, heard the twenty minute warning sirens in Joplin Missouri. She and her room mate hid in a closet together because their one story house had no basement. Relatives watched paramedics later extricate Rachel and Katie from the closet in the remains of their leveled house. Katie was blessedly fine. Rachel was unresponsive.
Rachel, you will be remembered. To the rest of the Markham family on the ground in Joplin, our prayers and thoughts are with you.
| Rachel P. Markhem |
