Friday, February 28, 2014

Parrish Lane

Yesterday my flight was delayed out of Boston, and I missed my connection in Salt Lake. Like other tech-obsessed-but-not-sorry Americans, I quickly updated my Facebook status:

Missed my connection. When things like this happen, I open my eyes wider & look into more eyes & I wonder if my smile to them or theirs to me is what I'm supposed to get outta this disruption.

And so went the next few hours wondering what I would see.

From the plane, I was able to email a friend and she made me a reservation with a shuttle service so I could take a van home from the Salt Lake Airport. I’d been put on the next flight, but that would have had me in the airport for 5 hours and home at 6pm. This shuttle would have me home at 3pm. Like an infant needs swaddled, I needed home.
I boarded the van with a smattering of folks. There was a Polynesian BYU-Idaho student, a strawberry blond woman 4 months pregnant, a Mexican guy with a cowboy hat, an older couple named the Duffy’s with Australian accents, a guy whose family runs a farm in McCammon, and a kid heading to Jackson Hole for a ski competition. There were about 3 other passengers in the back of the van whose smiles I didn’t catch. The jolly old driver let us know we had to pick up another in Ogden with a broken leg.

As the van departed the airport, I promptly checked Facebook. I spend too much time there, but with my travel schedule of late, it keeps me connected to home. It’s been a lifeline at times. I’m reading two books presently, and considered visiting one of them during the drive. One is on improving your writing and one is about prayer. I wasn’t into self improvement at the moment and have already spent a lot of time “in prayer” this week so I stuck with my phone. 
At 22 minutes from our scheduled van departure, I happened  to glance up. There it was out the van window.  A larger-than-I-ever-recall freeway sign.

Parrish Ln 1/4  Mile

Breath audibly escaped me. My previously tense shoulders relaxed. My body went limp.
In our town this week Bill Parrish and his wife Ross and their sons Keegan and Liam died of carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty water heater. Their two other children, Jensen and Ian, were serving LDS missions at the time. I went to junior high and played volleyball with Bill’s sister Carri and I played volleyball in college with Bill’s other sister Kristi. Their mom Becky was smiling in the stands during many of my volleyball games growing up. It was her smile I saw in the van in that instant.

This mama who lost so much this week. This mama whose smile has been cruelly dislocated. I saw her. I felt her. And Carri. And Kristi. And all of many other Parrish family members while I sat in the van.

They’ve naturally been flitting through my mind since I heard of the tragedy, but for those moments during yesterday’s van ride, I gave them all my focus. As I’ve said before…I may not be much, but I am something.

The book on prayer that I’m reading is called “Help Thanks Wow” and it is by Anne Lamott. From the few pages I’ve read when I’m not dinking around on Facebook, the woman views prayer much like I do. And it’s a complicatedly simple view.
Our thoughts to God, a god, ourselves or the universe, whether formulated and thought out or visceral reactions…they are all a form of prayer. Anne Lamott classifies all of them as either pleas for help, expressions of thanks or simply a Wow—both good and bad "Wow's".

I’ve silently expressed all of these for the Parrish family and the hundreds of their friends who know them.  They have been a steadfast staple of Pocatello and Chubbuck for years. I’ve been in the bustling bagel shop of our hometown writing and I’ve seen dozens pass through in their Sunday best and wearing “Parrish 13” shirts. (For Keegan who played basketball at Highland.)

I haven’t been home for 24 hours and I’m going to a funeral. Then I’m going to go home and install a carbon monoxide detector.  And then I’m going to continue with whispers of Help, Thanks, and Wow for myself and the sweet Parrish Family.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment