Friday – Life on the Body Farm
Feb. 1st, 2008 04:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about the conversation I had with Leslie's husband, Wren, two Sundays ago. He called me out of the blue to tell me he'd gotten the card and the letter I'd sent, and to thank me for them. He'd received it weeks before, but had only gotten around to reading it that day. He thought it was very nice of me. He said he knew why Leslie liked me so much.
"You know," he said in his slow Tennessee drawl, "you were one of her happy spots. She kept everything you ever sent her, and she'd read it over and over. She'd read it to me over and over. She say, 'Hey, here's something she wrote that I didn't notice before, listen to this,' and she'd read me whatever you'd written."
I don't think I've been called a happy spot before. Mentally, I kicked myself for not writing to her more often. She was the last person in North America not to have email, or even a computer, so writing her meant engaging in the somewhat archaic ritual of addressing and envelope and dropping something in the mail. I usually wrote her a letter when I got one from her first, but I rarely sent her something just because. The last letter I sent was to go with some photos I was sending because I'd promised her I would, and I sat down and wrote a note to go with them.
We talked for two hours, this stranger and me, until I told him I had to go because my son was demanding dinner and I needed both hands to prepare it. I think Wren was lonely. He told me that he and Leslie were often on the phone for 4 to 6 hours a day while he was on the road, and now he was in his truck alone with his thoughts. He has only taken four days off since she died, he told me, because what's the point of going home when there is no one to go home to? Before, he didn't accept jobs that kept him away from her for more than 4 or 5 days at a time.
He told me stories about her, some that I hadn't heard before and some that she'd told me, but I'd forgotten. He told me about the time her second husband tried to hire outlaw bikers to kill her, but the whole thing backfired when the would-be murders liked Leslie better than her husband and turned on him, instead. He reminded me of the time she saw her father's soul ascend into the heavens while she sat on a park bench outside of a hospital, smoking a cigarette and talking to an Angel disguised as an old man (she was sure of it) that had sat down beside her moments before. He told me how, in recent months, the birds in their backyard had stopped flying away when she stepped outside and would calmly watch her as she put seeds in their feeder, as if they had quit regarding her as a human and potential predator and had begun to recognize her as an angel in waiting.* Leslie had told me about the birds herself, marveling about what it could mean when they began to regard her so calmly.
"I got a real nice, two-page letter from the people who got her body," Wren told me, "they explained everything that they do and asked me to send them some pictures of her for reconstruction purposes. Turns out I'm not getting her ashes; they got that place where they put the bodies outside and all, but she's in the research facility and they keep all the bodies that they get. They've still got their first skeleton that was given to them back in 1980."
Suddenly, it occurred to me where she was. When she said she was donating her body to science, I assumed she meant to a medical school or something like that. But that's not who she willed her remains to.
Oh my God, she's at the Body Farm?" I asked, feeling a little alarmed. I've watch enough Discovery Channel to know what the Body Farm, the research facility run by the University of Tennessee, is. The Body Farm does not grow anything, but rather watches things rot. While other farms have livestock, the Body Farm takes stock in the dead, studying how they decompose outside (or in cars, or under water) in the name of science. Their work helps police determine how long a victim of foul play, for example, lay moldering in the woods before a pair of unlucky hikers stumbled upon him and threw up their granola bars.
"Well, she's not on the farm itself. We're too old for them to take us, but that's what she wanted. She read about it and thought it was neat. She hated the idea of being buried; it gave her the creeps. So we both decided we'd just as soon go to The Farm and let the possums play with us. Because of her age, though, she's in the research museum associated with it, instead.
He paused for a moment. "I don't know what they mean by 'reconstruction,' do you? I mean, am I going to go to a museum one of these days and see one of those displays, like they do with the cavemen, only it's going to be Leslie? Are they going to show her like she really was? Sitting there with a cigarette in one hand and flipping me off with the other? Or maybe they'll to do the more PC version of her, and show her sitting at a piano. I don't know."
I didn't know, either. I have to admit that the idea of her holding a cigarette and flipping the finger and museum goers kind of appealed to me. It's the kind of memorial Leslie would have appreciated. Wren and I were both quiet for awhile as we pictured this. I wondered if he was smiling at the idea, too. Then he changed the subject.
"You're going to think I'm crazy if I tell you this," he said.
I promised I wouldn't think any such thing.
"I've been getting signs, and having dreams," he said. "For awhile there, she used to travel around me in my truck, and we'd see places together. I'll never forget the first time she saw a bald eagle flying. You should have seen her face, Nina. She looked like a kid on Christmas morning who just got a gift that she really wanted, one she'd been wanting for a long time. When she was happy, her face would light up like that, you know?
"Anyway, when we were riding together she always used to point out the rainbows to me. That was kind of our thing, looking for rainbows, and she'd get all excited when she found one. Well I've been seeing rainbows everywhere lately, more than I've ever seen before. One time, there wasn't even any sun out, but there was a rainbow, as big and as bright as you like, stretching all the way across the sky. The other day, I saw one that was just weird; it didn't curve like they usually do, but just went straight up from the ground and into the sky, like a telephone pole. It feels like she's sending them to, me, you know? To let me know she's okay.
"Then there's the dream I had. I'm not one who ever remembers my dreams. I just never have. But this one morning I dreamed that she and I were hugging each other. We been together 16 years, you know, and we hugged a lot. This didn't feel like a dream, though. It felt so real, realer than real life does.
"I could feel her breathing, and I could feel her muscles moving as she leaned into me. But I was noticing that something was different. I know where she came up to when she hugged me, her ear would lay just over my heart. But this time she was a little taller, and I realized that her back was straight. She was wearing this dress that she had in the closet but that she would never wear, because she thought that her back, being a little crooked, make it hang wrong. But she was wearing that dress, and I looked down at it and it was hanging perfect, the way she always wished it would. And her ear, it was a little above my heart this time. I remember thinking, this is so beautiful, it feels like a dream, and I don't ever want it to end. I could feel that she was happy, standing there in my arms. I kissed to top of her head, and it felt so good to hold her like that. I don't know where we were, but it was warm and the sun was shining really bright, like it was summer. Well, after that I woke up. I was sleeping in the cab of my truck, and was one of those cold mornings in Chicago, where the sky is just layer on layer of gray clouds as far you can see.
"I swear, this was the weirdest thing and you aren't going to believe me: I could still feel that sunshine from my dream. The cab was warm and filled with light, even after I woke up. I couldn't see where it was coming from, but my skin still felt like I was standing in the sun."
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
*I'll tell each of these stories in full later, they are all to good not to be given their own posts.
"You know," he said in his slow Tennessee drawl, "you were one of her happy spots. She kept everything you ever sent her, and she'd read it over and over. She'd read it to me over and over. She say, 'Hey, here's something she wrote that I didn't notice before, listen to this,' and she'd read me whatever you'd written."
I don't think I've been called a happy spot before. Mentally, I kicked myself for not writing to her more often. She was the last person in North America not to have email, or even a computer, so writing her meant engaging in the somewhat archaic ritual of addressing and envelope and dropping something in the mail. I usually wrote her a letter when I got one from her first, but I rarely sent her something just because. The last letter I sent was to go with some photos I was sending because I'd promised her I would, and I sat down and wrote a note to go with them.
We talked for two hours, this stranger and me, until I told him I had to go because my son was demanding dinner and I needed both hands to prepare it. I think Wren was lonely. He told me that he and Leslie were often on the phone for 4 to 6 hours a day while he was on the road, and now he was in his truck alone with his thoughts. He has only taken four days off since she died, he told me, because what's the point of going home when there is no one to go home to? Before, he didn't accept jobs that kept him away from her for more than 4 or 5 days at a time.
He told me stories about her, some that I hadn't heard before and some that she'd told me, but I'd forgotten. He told me about the time her second husband tried to hire outlaw bikers to kill her, but the whole thing backfired when the would-be murders liked Leslie better than her husband and turned on him, instead. He reminded me of the time she saw her father's soul ascend into the heavens while she sat on a park bench outside of a hospital, smoking a cigarette and talking to an Angel disguised as an old man (she was sure of it) that had sat down beside her moments before. He told me how, in recent months, the birds in their backyard had stopped flying away when she stepped outside and would calmly watch her as she put seeds in their feeder, as if they had quit regarding her as a human and potential predator and had begun to recognize her as an angel in waiting.* Leslie had told me about the birds herself, marveling about what it could mean when they began to regard her so calmly.
"I got a real nice, two-page letter from the people who got her body," Wren told me, "they explained everything that they do and asked me to send them some pictures of her for reconstruction purposes. Turns out I'm not getting her ashes; they got that place where they put the bodies outside and all, but she's in the research facility and they keep all the bodies that they get. They've still got their first skeleton that was given to them back in 1980."
Suddenly, it occurred to me where she was. When she said she was donating her body to science, I assumed she meant to a medical school or something like that. But that's not who she willed her remains to.
Oh my God, she's at the Body Farm?" I asked, feeling a little alarmed. I've watch enough Discovery Channel to know what the Body Farm, the research facility run by the University of Tennessee, is. The Body Farm does not grow anything, but rather watches things rot. While other farms have livestock, the Body Farm takes stock in the dead, studying how they decompose outside (or in cars, or under water) in the name of science. Their work helps police determine how long a victim of foul play, for example, lay moldering in the woods before a pair of unlucky hikers stumbled upon him and threw up their granola bars.
"Well, she's not on the farm itself. We're too old for them to take us, but that's what she wanted. She read about it and thought it was neat. She hated the idea of being buried; it gave her the creeps. So we both decided we'd just as soon go to The Farm and let the possums play with us. Because of her age, though, she's in the research museum associated with it, instead.
He paused for a moment. "I don't know what they mean by 'reconstruction,' do you? I mean, am I going to go to a museum one of these days and see one of those displays, like they do with the cavemen, only it's going to be Leslie? Are they going to show her like she really was? Sitting there with a cigarette in one hand and flipping me off with the other? Or maybe they'll to do the more PC version of her, and show her sitting at a piano. I don't know."
I didn't know, either. I have to admit that the idea of her holding a cigarette and flipping the finger and museum goers kind of appealed to me. It's the kind of memorial Leslie would have appreciated. Wren and I were both quiet for awhile as we pictured this. I wondered if he was smiling at the idea, too. Then he changed the subject.
"You're going to think I'm crazy if I tell you this," he said.
I promised I wouldn't think any such thing.
"I've been getting signs, and having dreams," he said. "For awhile there, she used to travel around me in my truck, and we'd see places together. I'll never forget the first time she saw a bald eagle flying. You should have seen her face, Nina. She looked like a kid on Christmas morning who just got a gift that she really wanted, one she'd been wanting for a long time. When she was happy, her face would light up like that, you know?
"Anyway, when we were riding together she always used to point out the rainbows to me. That was kind of our thing, looking for rainbows, and she'd get all excited when she found one. Well I've been seeing rainbows everywhere lately, more than I've ever seen before. One time, there wasn't even any sun out, but there was a rainbow, as big and as bright as you like, stretching all the way across the sky. The other day, I saw one that was just weird; it didn't curve like they usually do, but just went straight up from the ground and into the sky, like a telephone pole. It feels like she's sending them to, me, you know? To let me know she's okay.
"Then there's the dream I had. I'm not one who ever remembers my dreams. I just never have. But this one morning I dreamed that she and I were hugging each other. We been together 16 years, you know, and we hugged a lot. This didn't feel like a dream, though. It felt so real, realer than real life does.
"I could feel her breathing, and I could feel her muscles moving as she leaned into me. But I was noticing that something was different. I know where she came up to when she hugged me, her ear would lay just over my heart. But this time she was a little taller, and I realized that her back was straight. She was wearing this dress that she had in the closet but that she would never wear, because she thought that her back, being a little crooked, make it hang wrong. But she was wearing that dress, and I looked down at it and it was hanging perfect, the way she always wished it would. And her ear, it was a little above my heart this time. I remember thinking, this is so beautiful, it feels like a dream, and I don't ever want it to end. I could feel that she was happy, standing there in my arms. I kissed to top of her head, and it felt so good to hold her like that. I don't know where we were, but it was warm and the sun was shining really bright, like it was summer. Well, after that I woke up. I was sleeping in the cab of my truck, and was one of those cold mornings in Chicago, where the sky is just layer on layer of gray clouds as far you can see.
"I swear, this was the weirdest thing and you aren't going to believe me: I could still feel that sunshine from my dream. The cab was warm and filled with light, even after I woke up. I couldn't see where it was coming from, but my skin still felt like I was standing in the sun."
*I'll tell each of these stories in full later, they are all to good not to be given their own posts.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-01 10:59 pm (UTC)I LOVE the idea of her holding a cigarette in one hand and flipping the bird with the other. I think Leslie would get a real chuckle out of that one. :-)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 02:48 pm (UTC)*HUGS*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 04:13 pm (UTC)Thanks for writing. You really do have a gift.
Maria
no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 05:01 pm (UTC)It never occurred to me before that in Heaven, maybe you get to wear the clothes that you always liked but that failed to flatter you in life, and they look great. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 05:06 pm (UTC)If you think the people in those groups would enjoy this, I don't mind if you post a link to this story. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 07:11 pm (UTC)i knew about the body farm... i used to tell my mom that thats where i wanted to go when i go too... she used to think i was crazy till we watched a documentary about it or something and she understood with my interest in that science world.....
im glad leslie got her wish though....
no subject
Date: 2008-02-05 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-07 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-07 01:58 pm (UTC)for me... both my parents are buried in other states... so i dont have that ability to go somewhere on a regular basis for grievance....
sometimes i think it doesnt matter exactly where you do it, just as long as you give yourself the chance to do it.... thats what matters most....
no subject
Date: 2008-02-07 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-07 03:51 pm (UTC)But her wishes matter, and the idea of being put in a box and buried in the ground filled her with horror. The idea of being in a museum is equally as creepy to me, but to each her own.