Pat Taub
GUEST POST by CAROLE LESKIN
It was 7 AM when I stepped out onto my balcony to look at the sunrise. I call the balcony my tree house, because it is secluded, overlooks a trail, field and stream, is abundant with wildlife, and in the warm months, wildflowers and a garden. No matter how I feel or what lies ahead, I am soothed by the magic of the view.
But something was different this morning. I wondered…was it my aging eyes, compromised further by my recent stroke? No. It wasn’t blurred vision, near or farsightedness. It was the feeling about what I saw. Melancholy mingled with pleasure.
It was an unexpected memory. Not the kind you have when you pull out old photo albums or boxes filled with pictures. It was a heartbeat, a pang, a shortness of breath. It was startling.
I moved closer to the balcony’s edge, looking intently at the bench that sits under an old oak tree at the far side of the garden: Dania’s Bench. And I remembered.
A close-up of Dania’s bench, author photo
Dania was my neighbor and friend for 15 years. She died 4 years ago – a lingering illness that daily robbed her of all physical abilities, but never her essence.
Dania was 6 feet tall. A big woman. Her white blonde hair always looked windblown. Her blue eyes were the color of the ocean. She literally walked softly and carried a big stick – a beautiful, intricately carved hickory walking stick. She could hike the trails for miles, accompanied by her 3 beloved huskies, and wearing old, worn sandals. Once you saw her, you never forgot her.
Some people were uncomfortable in Dania’s presence. She was opinionated and outspoken, but her voice was so soft you had to lean in to hear her. A devoted practitioner of Tai Chi, and an herbalist, she was also an MD who spent most of her career working with Doctors Without Borders and Amnesty International. She witnessed terrible things. Her passion for social justice was unwavering; her compassion boundless.
As Dania’s illness progressed her hikes became easy walks. It did not matter. She knew and loved every plant and animal that could be observed from the trail behind our apartments, and she taught me about them. We walked together, binoculars strung around our necks, whispering so as not to disturb anything.
When she grew tired, we sat on the bench she had placed in the garden under the ancient oak tree and talked. The bench was made of concrete and weighed several hundred pounds. “Meant to last long after I’m gone,” she said. It took three men to move it and place it exactly where she wanted it! I learned about silence sitting on that bench with her. I also learned about life, love, religion, dying and of course, nature.
A nature image, similar to the view from Dania’s bench, author photo
Two days before she died, Dania called me from hospice. “There are 3 twenty pound bags of birdseed in the back of my pickup. I’m going to ask my friend Al to get in touch with you and deliver them. I want you to feed the birds as you always do, but think of me when you fill the feeders. Make sure you take time to sit on the bench, Carole.”
I looked at Dania’s Bench that morning, four years after her passing, as I do almost every morning with a new awareness.
I think that growing older, dealing with my illness and the death and sickness of friends, has forced me to look at things in a new way. There is an urgency that comes with the knowledge that time is running out. I don’t want to miss the slightest detail. It can be something as simple as a bench in a garden.
And if I should see Dania again in some afterlife, or just talk to her before my time ends,I want to be able to tell her that I sat on her bench, silently watching and listening.
Carole Leskin is a retired Director of Global Human Resources. Embarking on a second career as a writer and photographer concentrating on her personal accounts of aging, her essays and poetry, frequently accompanied by her photos, are published in Jewish Sacred Aging, Jewish Women of Words, Starts At 60, Navigating Aging ( a Kaiser Health publication) Women’s Older Wisdom, andTime Goes By. Her poems, Father Time and Carole’s Debate were selected for inclusion in the 2019 anthologies of poetry, New Jersey Bards. Her photos have been featured in Mart R Porter Nature Forum.
