Runaway

I don’t know if you've heard this story yet, but it's a doozy. It’s a tall tale from the state best known for them. Texas. Best of all, it’s almost entirely true. 

You can’t make this stuff up.

When I think of Texas ranches, I picture acres of noisy beef, handsome cowboys on fast horses, and mesquite trees. Especially mesquites, the secret sauce for Texas barbecue. Once the wranglers round up the last of the stragglers at the end of day, they can’t wait to make them the guests of honor at supper.

But about a hundred miles northwest of San Antonio lives a different breed of rancher. He’s not raising your typical kind of stock. You’ll never find meat from his grange listed on a menu side by side with brisket and cornbread. That’s because he’s not a cattle rancher. His livestock go by the name, "Texotics."

Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

His private ranch became famous last month when one of his youngsters got out of the yard and wandered off into a countryside marked by dense mesquite trees and rocky terrain. She disappeared faster than cookies at a potluck. Somewhere out there on acres of brush-filled land, a gangly, long-legged four-year-old was running loose, having the time of her life.

So concerned was the rancher that he offered a five-thousand-dollar reward for anyone with information leading to the recovery of Gracie. It should have been easy money. It should have been easy to spot the runaway, too. After all, in her stocking feet she stood at a towering ten feet tall and, when last seen, was wearing a brown and white spotted coat.

You’d think an adult giraffe would kind of stand out in the Hill Country of south Texas, wouldn’t you?

But the ranch was remote and the geography strangely reminiscent of the African savanna where Gracie's relatives hail from. She was in her element. There was plenty to eat, fresh water abounded, and it’s not called Hill Country for nothing. 

Turns out it’s pretty dang hard to spot a wild giraffe in south Texas.

They searched for Gracie for two long weeks. They brought in helicopters, covering 7,500 acres with no success. While blades whirred overhead, scouring the open range for any sight of her, Texans scratched their heads and were quoted as asking, "How the hell do you lose a giraffe?" 

A ten-foot-tall zoo animal with a periscope neck should have been easy to locate.

It's not like they didn't try. They pulled out all the stops in their efforts to find the missing giraffe. The local sheriff alerted every other rancher in the county to be on the lookout for large, dark soulful eyes staring back at them above any tall oak while munching on leaves. 

They searched the canyons on foot, incorporating the latest technology as they flew drones overhead. The sheriff even issued a public alert with detailed descriptions of the runaway. I presume those were posted inside bathroom stalls at gas stations.

And they reached out on social media which, as always, came through like a champ. But it quickly became confusing. Maybe the reward generated too much excitement. Long-legged as Gracie is, it doesn’t seem like she could cover as much ground as the internet soon reported.

The first photo that emerged showed the missing giraffe wearing yellow turnouts and a fire hat. She stood taller than the ladder truck at the volunteer fire department which called her “a welcome addition.” They were pleased to announce that the probationary firefighter had been recruited for her ability to assist in roof inspections and leap tall buildings in a single bound.

They weren’t the only first responders to claim she’d joined their crew. Five hours north of the ranch, near Fort Worth, another fire department told San Antonio residents, “You can stop looking for Gracie now. We’re keeping her on B-shift until further notice.” What I want to know is how she traveled three hundred miles on a state highway without getting pulled over by a Texas Ranger. You know she didn’t have a license.

Not to be outdone, a local plumbing company leaked a photo of Gracie peering out of the back of their work van. “We’re not saying Gracie is hanging out with our crew,” the byline read, “but we aren’t saying she isn’t either.” I can’t imagine what kind of dexterity she has that lends itself to fixing plugged up toilets.

She stopped by the Alamo for a photo op, too. I guess if you’re out sight-seeing and you live in Texas, visiting the Alamo is a given. Later, Gracie was seen window shopping near a popular bath soaps boutique. Suddenly, everyone forgot about the frantic rancher who’d lost his giraffe while they took selfies with the ten-foot escapee and posted the photos for clicks.

Her disappearance turned her into an instant celebrity. Everyone was on the lookout for the young lady who stood heads and tails above all other Texas wildlife. And yet no one convinced her to stand still long enough so the cowboy who misplaced her could send an Uber to pick her up and bring her home.

Once again, this is the failure of social media. There were plenty of photos of her going viral, and she was spotted multiple times on game cameras throughout the county, but by the time all these locations were searched, Gracie was always gone.

It seems to me that giraffes, with their relatively small brains when compared to the overall size of their bodies, are smarter than they look. Gracie stayed on the run for fourteen days, outsmarting every technology known to man, all while proving how indispensable she is. Apparently she singlehandedly put out two housefires, cleared one clogged drain, and washed off the stink with boutique soaps she purchased in downtown San Antonio. All while she never forgot the Alamo.

When she was finally found by the ranch manager as he flew overhead in a helicopter, she was ready to go home. She’d done the impossible. She’d scaled a rocky slab to escape the Texas compound, an athletic feat never before accomplished by a giraffe. She’d explored the wide-open country, posed for a few photos, and probably eaten an ice cream cone. Somewhere.

“She was out on a fling,” the sheriff reported. And while the state of Texas breathed a collective sigh of relief, I think a few million Facebookers are a little sad that Gracie’s adventure has ended.

The final photo of Gracie was an aerial shot taken from the helicopter when she was finally found, searching for her way home. Clearly, it shouldn't have taken half a month to locate the poor animal. She was standing right there in plain sight the whole time. 

See for yourself. 

Clear as day, right?

You could spot her anywhere.

I mean, come on. She looks exactly like the mug shot they posted of her inside the women's bathroom at Buc-ee's.

 

Oh.

Maybe that was the problem.

Progress

 

 As a little kid, I was astonished by elevators. The first time I remember using one I was with my grandparents. We walked into a bank lobby filled with tall counters, scattered seating areas, potted plants, and walls lined with office doors. The department we needed was on another level so we were told to take the elevator. We turned and walked into a windowless metal box, and I watched wide-eyed as the giant door closed us in.

I had no idea what was about to happen, and I gripped my grandpa’s hand tightly while I counted to ten. When the door opened, all the furniture had been moved. All the people were swapped out for new ones. Even the carpet was a different color. And that’s when I figured out how elevators work.

Magic.

It all happened so fast! While we stood behind a metal door for ten seconds, a bunch of people rearranged the entire room. And when it was time to go home and we got back inside the elevator again, they put everything back the way it was before. Kind of exhausting, if you ask me.

In a sense, elevators are like time machines. While you sing along to ‘elevator music’ that was chart topping when you were a teenager, that box you’re standing in moves you between realities, all with the push of a button. It happens so fast! Push a button in a mall elevator, and suddenly the smell of Cinnabon floats in from a food court. Wave goodbye to a hotel lobby and when the door slides out of the way, a swimming pool magically appears. Wait a little longer for the door to open inside a skyscraper's elevator, and when you step out, you’ll be dodging pigeons.

There’s no end to the possibilities! Look at all the progress we can enjoy just so we don’t have to climb so many stairs.

Could we please stop? I can’t keep up with how fast the furniture keeps changing.

Progress has altered the way we function in the world. But, just like elevators, there’s a little glitch with the way it behaves. It moves so quickly, I'm in a daze. Cable is out, streaming is in. Venmo is in, checkbooks are out, just like cash. I picked up lunch at Taco Bell today and when I paid for it, the teenager in the window thanked me profusely for giving him exact change. Which, I know from previous experience, means he was terrified of breaking down a ten-dollar bill on his own. Pretty sure that isn't progress.

Then there’s transportation. A few things have changed since I learned to drive. No longer do I have to crank my own window up and down. Now I just push a button and watch it go. I don’t need a road map anymore because I have a Siri. And, thanks to the camera on my dashboard, now I can watch in real time while I back into somebody’s bumper.

Also, I can count on one hand the number of kids I see who actually pedal their own bikes in my neighborhood unassisted. The rest of the horde ride eBikes. Saints preserve us. Electric bikes are about to make me lose my mind. Watching out for them in my peripheral when I’m on the open road is the equivalent of dodging mosquitoes at a Florida picnic in July. They’re everywhere and they’re deadly.

Here’s the thing about eBikes. You don’t need a license to ride one on a busy street. All you need is an eBike. You don’t have to obey traffic laws or signal your intentions or look both directions before you pull out in front of an old person who thinks driving her car into a canal would be a fun way to spend the afternoon. Most eBikers don’t bother with helmets, either.

Scooters have gone electric, too. And skateboards. And unicycles. Unicycles! I saw one lit up like a Christmas tree last year and thought I was a having a close encounter of the third kind. But that’s not the most alarming thing. All of these modes of transportation can travel between twenty and twenty-eight mph on sidewalks and in bike lanes and on surface roads. So far I haven’t seen them on the freeway but I’m pretty sure that’s coming.

And I used to think normal traffic was stressful.

Then there’s Waymo, the autonomous vehicle with a giant, spinning donut on its roof. Here in the desert, driverless cars are multiplying like rabbits. One of them even tried to follow me home this week. Unnerving. I’ve heard they do that in cul-de-sacs sometimes, entire herds of them. Instead of returning to the mother ship to await their next mission, they stage in dead end streets, circling all their station wagons like they’re about to be attacked by hostile natives. That’s a strong possibility, too, considering their self-imposed traffic jams make it impossible for locals to leave their own garages.

I don’t know when we gave up using people power to propel ourselves around, but maybe it was when Mr. Ford saw the Wright Brothers fly through the sky and thought to himself, “Hey! I like the idea, but with some modifications.” Of course, I could have that backwards.

All I know is Grandma never had to deal with this kind of stuff. Of course, Grandma never had a driver’s license, either. Still, now that I’m one of millions of boomers trying to keep up with technology while my eyesight slowly gives way to cataracts, is this really a good time to release robot cars of any kind on an aging society? Just asking.

I shouldn’t have asked. I’m betting you’ve got your own frustrations with most, if not all, of the machines I just described. But there’s another one I just ran across. Not literally. Nearly, but, well, let me explain.

I’ve seen them a few times, but I’m still not used to them. I was about to pull out of a strip mall driveway onto a busy street a few days ago when something weird caught my eye. A flash of red showed up in my periphery. It looked like a giant vegetable headed straight for me and, for a second, I thought Return of the Killer Tomatoes was a real thing. I mean, it could have been, if I’d pulled out in front of it. I definitely would have squashed that rolling red tomato.

It was doing twenty mph in the bike lane. Everything clogging up the highways now runs at twenty mph. I’m barely used to looking for kids on scooters and electric bicycles, and now I have to keep an eye out for rotund red robots, too. Just like its Waymo cousin, this one was unmanned and automated. But unlike Waymo, it had big eyes on the front of it. Big LED eyes! Funny, friendly eyes that moved to and fro, like a character that just escaped from the movie, Cars, and couldn’t find its way back.

I mean, come on. I can’t take much more of this. Our streets are turning into cartoons. What’s next? Waymo fire engines and police vehicles? Bucktooth pickup trucks and muscle cars that flirt with volkswagons? How many hot wheels are going to clog the streets before I wave a white flag and start calling for an Uber?

I didn’t know what the heck I was dealing with, so when I got home I looked it up. They’re the brainchild of Door Dash, and each rolling automaton is called “Dot.” Appropriate, since that’s all that would be left if my Tahoe had run over it. Inside their bulbous selves they can carry up to six pizzas and presumably a small, hungry child. I’m just guessing about the pizzas. Apparently, they fill a niche in the Phoenix area market where hungry homeowners and businesses alike take one look at their outside thermometers and think to themselves, “That’s robot weather out there. I’m calling in for take-out delivery.”

The company’s website gushes about their desire to lean into electric vehicles because they reduce emissions and traffic congestion. Not so fast. If I’d run over the dang thing, like I came close to doing, there would have been increased traffic congestion just from Looky Lou’s standing in the street, laughing. In my opinion, the only way to make a Dot safe is to make it a lot more visible. Instead of being 1/10th the size of a car, they should have supersized it, just like the hamburger and soda it was carrying.

All this to say, now when I get out on the open road around here, I don’t have time to watch for other cars. I’m too busy protecting myself from electric skateboarders, electric scooters, disoriented driverless cars, eBikes, and delivery units with glandular problems, when all I wanted to do was escape my house and pick up a salad.

I don’t know how to handle all these changes. I’d blame it on progress, but I think it’s really the fault of elevators. If I close my eyes, could all the magical people please put the furniture back the way it was before? 

Yeah, I didn't think so. 

I should have never left the ground floor.

**Seen above, actual image of a convoy of rolling tomato dots. 

    It's getting weird out there.

The Art of Waiting

I look at my thin-skinned hands, scarred from life and age. Old lady hands that will never be held by his again. And I think, it’s over. My life with Rob is over. You might think that, after five years of living without him, I’d have already come to that conclusion. I did. And now I’m doing it again.

That’s how grief works. The hole in my life that took his place is permanent. It’s a life sentence. The waves of sorrow are less frequent now but, when they hit me, they’re just as turbulent as ever and I have no choice but to ride them out.

I sought counseling right away just before he died, thinking he had a long recovery ahead and I’d need help to navigate that difficult road. Instead, I was the one with the long recovery ahead. Only, I don’t believe you ever recover from losing your beloved. You learn to live alongside it but the loss, the hole, is still there, because he isn’t. He isn’t here.

Counseling felt like I was attending Grief School. It was there that I learned firsthand how grief works. I was late to class, I guess, something I’d always been thankful for, and also a little bit worried about, inexperienced as I was. But I didn’t need to worry. Whenever Grief finally shows up, it doesn’t leave. You’ll learn its lessons right on time.

I didn’t want to meet with a “Christian” counselor. I’d already heard the rounds of comments about trusting God from other Christians. About being “tested” by God. Learning whatever lesson He was trying to “teach” me. Basically, the word on the street was that God was the bad guy. Or I was. Comfort from some people felt a lot like friendly fire. No one meant to shoot me down, but they took aim on my grief and I got in the way.

The last thing you need when your heart is broken is to feel guilty for not being a stronger believer, a faithful servant, a better example. Being human was not allowed. I could be selling Christian counselors short since I never spoke with one, but since I’d already been told by a few Christians to “never question God,” that losing Rob was “God’s will,” that the reason God took him and not me was that “God still has work for you to do, Eula,” and that I should not “pitch a tent in the Valley of the Shadow of Death,” I felt certain that this unfamiliar pain probably would not be understood by those who had not yet lost their beloved spouse.

So, I met instead with a woman who respected my belief in God, encouraged me to lean into Him and sit with Him, and told me the truth about how long grief lasts. “It takes as long as it takes,” she said, shaking her head at the statement that a lengthy grief was the equivalent of staking my claim in the Land of Sorrow and trying to set up shop there. “There are no shortcuts,” she told me. “The only way through it is through it.” She was referring to grief, not the valley of the shadow of death. Which, in the case of losing my darling, was way more than just a shadow. It was the real thing.

She was patient. She did not judge me or anything I dared to tell her. After our sessions ended, I spent a year online connecting with other widows and listening to a “grief coach.” You can’t say I haven’t tried to find my way. It’s what I do. I keep trying.

But here’s the thing I’ve been thinking about recently. I’ve been told that my relationship with Rob didn’t die with him, but “it changes.” Well, that’s an understatement if ever I heard one. I’ve also been encouraged to speak to Rob any time I need to. I do that anyway. After forty-four years together, even death can’t shut me up. And, in that regard, our communication has definitely “changed,” since Rob doesn’t speak up the way he used to. Or, another way of looking at it is that he’s as quiet as he always was when I took too long to get to the point.

But what did they mean when they told me my relationship with Rob would go on, but would change? It never made sense, and you’d think it would since I’m the authority on what it’s like to have to live without him now. The “advice” felt so ethereal, vague, woo woo. I’m pretty sure it had Rob laughing if he was listening in. He's always been a practical kind of guy.

It was meant to comfort me, but it didn’t. And, I suppose, in the world of widowing, maybe not every bit of advice will fit every kind of widow. That’s fair. But if that widow is a believer in Jesus Christ, if she knows that the Holy Spirit lives inside her as her Comforter and Counselor, and if her darling is also a believer, then what is the comfort that actually does its job when the two of them are torn apart and one of them must keep living with her feet on ground muddied by her own tears?

This is where comfort happens for me. Jesus cries with me. He never criticizes me, no matter what I have to say, and I’ve had a lot to say in the last five and a half years. If that isn’t grace, then grace doesn’t exist. On a side note, that’s also the reason I love Jesus, because He accepts me as I am. A flawed human being who is also His.

He has carried me from Day One. Actually, from T-minus 35 and forward, for the five weeks that Rob’s life hung in the balance, and we hoped against hope that he’d make it. And afterward, when I stopped talking to God because I didn’t understand and I was hurting and blaming Him, He did not turn His back on me. He held me. I knew He was doing it and after a while, I started talking to Him again. Yet He’s never once made me rededicate my life or grovel at His feet, begging His forgiveness for not having enough faith. He just kept carrying me and walking with me through this thing that takes as long as it takes.

And what about Rob? Where does he fit into all of this? Well, I can tell you one thing. He isn’t dead. He’s more alive than he’s ever been, more alive than I am. He’s “waiting” for me, if you can use that word for a place that exists outside of time. I sometimes think of him as being away on assignment. We’ve been in that position before, or maybe you didn’t know that. We were engaged in April of 1975, two weeks before the Air Force sent him overseas, and I didn’t see him again until a week before our wedding in September of 1976. Eighteen months of letters and rare phone calls, a year and half spent waiting for him to come get me while he waited to be free to do it.

I’m waiting again. In the Spirit, I sense him sometimes. In this world, I get signs from him sometimes. In my dreams, I see him often. But my arms are empty, my bed is cold, my tears come daily, and I miss him like the moon would miss the sun.

I’ve heard all kinds of descriptions of where our loved ones are once their bodies die, usually from people who are unsure if God exists or if He loves them. I wish I was a better communicator of the reality of who God is. I’m a pretty lousy witness. A terrible debater. Even a weary widow. But Rob is not hiding among the stars. He’s not the energy around me. He’s not my spirit guide or an angel or a personal assistant scheduling my future. He’s also not relegated to just memories and photos, stories and a tombstone.

He’s alive. We’re apart and I hate it. I keep telling God that I don’t understand death. I don’t understand the space between Rob and me now, knowing he’s alive when I can’t see or hear him. But when I asked my son, the Anglican priest, where Rob is, his answer came easily. “He’s in the arms of God, Mom.” And so am I. I have been since Day One, T-minus 35, carried by the One who also carries my darlin’.

If God carries both of us at the same time, then Rob is as close as my heart.

I’ll try to keep remembering that on the days when my hands look old, my tears keep falling, and I’d give my right arm to hear him speak to me again. He’s waiting for me.

It’s not over if he’s waiting for me again.