Larry Brody's "Live! From Paradise!"

I’ve written about my wife, Gwen the Beautiful, and the stroke that left her half blind. What I haven’t written about is the irony of the fact that I’d been going blind for almost 10 years. And we’d planned for Gwen to be my eyes.

My problem was macular degeneration, and all the ophthalmologists I saw told me I was in a bad place. “Take ocular vitamins and minerals,” they said. “Sometimes that keeps it from getting worse.”

But nothing, they said, could repair the damage that’d already been done.

After 1995, my world grew increasingly dark. It was like wearing sunglasses all the time. Driving at night became harder and harder, until finally I gave up. Finding anything in a shadowy cabinet or deep drawer was the next lost cause, followed by many more. To me, television was filled with dark, gritty shows that made Dracula look well lighted.

A common night sound in our neck of the woods was Larry Brody cursing while trying to find the bathroom doorway. I needed a night light just to get to the stairs. Daylight was better, but even shaving in the morning was a problem. I started carrying a flashlight around at all times, shining it in the direction of anything I needed to see.

Gwen and I were prepared for a dark future for me, but not for her. After her stroke, we figured someone was having a big laugh out of how things had turned out. But not us.

Six months ago, however, things started to change. We got a late start driving home from Memphis one day, and when dusk fell we were still an hour away from our mountain. I knew I should stop, but I didn’t. Because I could see.

I saw the white line on the highway. The highway itself. I knew where our truck was and where it was aimed. I got us home without any problem. After that, driving at night stayed just as easy. I didn’t have to worry about running out of daylight anymore.

I could go where I needed, when I needed. Just like anyone else.

And last week my vision did a complete turnaround. Gwen and I were watching television, and, halfway through “Enterprise,” I said, “Boy, look how bright and colorful everything is. But just a second ago it was all so dark.”

I started clicking the remote and marveled at how every show I went to had gotten so bright. Including shows that had always seemed muted before. In Brody World reruns of “Dharma & Greg” showed them living in a shadowy, poorly lighted apartment, but tonight the place gleamed with highlights and sharp contrasts I hadn’t seen anywhere in — well, literally in as long as I could remember.

Later, with the TV and the lights off, I was amazed by the fact that I could actually see Gwen lying beside me in the dark. I could see our light-colored cedar walls and the darker furniture against them. I could see my hand. And the bathroom doorway. In fact, the bedroom seemed so light that I got up to make sure the curtains were closed. Even if they weren’t it wouldn’t have mattered. The sky was overcast. No stars. No moon.

I looked back at the room and saw the night light. Aha! I unplugged it, and everything got darker, all right. Almost as dark without the light as it had been — for me — with it.

Until tonight.

No doubt about it. I could see normally. Just like anyone else.

The ophthalmologists at two different Wal-Mart Eye Centers say I no longer have any signs of macular degeneration. It’s gone as though it never was. For the past few days I’ve been running around just looking at things. Putting myself into shadowy places, looking for lost pennies under the bed, and saying, “I see you.”

Last night, Gwen smiled and laughed and told me how happy she was for me. Since the doctors have no explanation for what’s happened we tried to figure it out for ourselves. What It All Means in terms of some Cosmic Grand Plan.

The truth is we’re clueless. The Universe has done what it’s done, and I’m thrilled. But I can say with total conviction that I’d give up my new sight — and oh so much more — in a second if there was even the slightest chance I could give it to Gwen.

Originally published October 26, 2005

Some people have a tough time finding acceptance. Sometimes it’s easy to figure out why. Take Chet the Unhandyman. I’ve known him for 15 years and the only person I’ve ever met who can stand him is me. Chet is sarcastic, arrogant and lazy as a copperhead at Christmastime. In fact, I’m hard pressed to explain why he’s still living at the ranch. I think it’s because he represents the dark side I’ve always been afraid I had.

My friend Billy from Abilene is another story. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why he’s not the most popular guy in town. Billy’s got what I would’ve thought it would take to be Mr. Paradise Cool. He’s smart and easy-going. Casual. He can talk, but he can listen as well. And he’s as respectful as all get-out.

Billy’s been here for almost 20 years, with his own successful little sundries shop on the town square. But one day when I mentioned to my neighbors that he’d offered me a terrific deal on the latest Widget they all looked doubtful.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about anything coming from Billy,” said Buck the Ex-Navy Seal.

“If that’s what Billy’s asking you can probably get it for less somewhere else,” said Tyra at the Dry Cleaners.

“I don’t trust that boy,” said Brenda the Blonde.

“Why not?” I said.

Brenda’s answer was a shrug, and the others couldn’t quite come up with the reason either.

“There’s something,” Tyra finally said. “It’s hard to pin down.”

But I wanted to pin it down. So I went straight to Billy from Abilene himself. I found him on the square, taking pictures for the chamber of commerce to use to promote the town. “A lot of people here don’t seem to trust you, Billy,” I said.

Billy lowered his camera. “So you noticed that? I dunno why folks feel that way. I follow the Three Rules.”

“Three Rules?”

“Sure. The ones the good old boys told me about when I first came from Abilene.” And quickly he rattled off the Rules, one by one:

“‘It’s okay if you’re stopped with a truckload of whiskey, but don’t get caught with any drugs.’

“‘Never give the big eye to another man’s wife no matter how hard he looks at yours.’

“‘Before every election bring a sack with a hundred dollars in cash to the county judge as a campaign contribution. If he loses, bring another sack to the winner, and tell him it’s for next time.’

“I stick to all three,” Billy went on. “Can’t imagine what I’m doing wrong.”

Billy went back into his shop. I walked a couple of doors down to another little shop to talk to one his neighbors, my friend Sweet Jane. “What’s the story on Billy from Abilene?” I said.

“I don’t trust him,” Jane said.

“Why not?”

“Well, you know he’s not from around here.”

“Jane,” I said, “he’s been here longer than Brannigan has. And Brannigan’s your boyfriend!”

“Oh,” Jane said, “I don’t trust him either.”

This wasn’t going where I’d hoped.

“Jane,” I asked her, “do you trust me?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Why? I’m not from around here either, and I’m newer in town than either Billy or Brannigan.”

“That’s true,” Jane said. “But there’s something about you that’s … different.”

“What? What is there about me that you trust?” I was really pushing hard.

Jane wiped a spot off an antique oak table she had for sale, then turned back to me.

“Gwen,” she said.

“Gwen?”

“That’s right. I trust you because I know your wife — and she’s my kind of woman.”

“And Billy’s wife?”

Jane shrugged. “Could you please hand me that polish over there?”

There it was. Acceptance in this neck of the woods wasn’t about personality. Nor success. Not even about how well you followed the rules. “The real way men are judged here is by our wives?!”

“You’re lucky,” Jane said. “In the old days you would’ve been judged by your cattle.”

“I don’t have any cattle.”

“And that’s why I don’t trust that rat Brannigan,” said Jane. “Because no matter how many times he’s said ‘I love you’ he still won’t talk about me becoming his wife!”

Originally published October 19, 2005

My Cousin Barry from Springfield called me yesterday to see if I’d heard about the recent death of a mutual friend. Cousin Barry had just returned from the funeral and was pretty broken up. He wondered why I was taking it so calmly.

“After all,” he said, “it’s over for the poor guy. You know there isn’t really any afterlife.”

“Do I?” I said.

Cousin Barry was silent for a minute. Then: “Wait a minute. Are you telling me you — ‘believe?’”

My mind went back over 25 years, to when I had what was called “an early heart attack.” I was 32 years old and so much in my prime that I was at the gym bench pressing when, suddenly, I couldn’t catch my breath. Because an elephant’s foot was on my chest.

I thought it was nothing. That it would go away. But 20 minutes later, I was being rushed to the emergency room, trying to figure out what was happening — and then I wasn’t figuring anything because I was dead.

That’s right. I was lying dead in the passenger seat of a friend’s car. Except that lying dead didn’t mean being “dead” the way I — every bit as unbelieving as Cousin Barry — had imagined.

Instead, it meant that ridiculous, hokey, so-often-quoted experience of flowing, flowing, flowing through a long tunnel toward a distant light. It meant feeling no physical pain. Total relaxation. Total peace. Total love. I felt like an infant in my mother’s arms. Warm. Happy. And I was curious, knowing soon I would be in the light that grew ever larger, ever nearer …

Except that instead of reaching the light I found myself short of breath and in agony again in the ER, with an anxious resident and nurse peering down at me — and then smiling widely because they’d brought me back to life.

“He’s back!” the young doctor said. “How you feeling, Mr. Brody?”

I couldn’t answer. I was in too much pain. The nurse gave me morphine, and a sense of well-being took me over.

But not the same kind of well-being I’d felt when I was dead. No, sir. Nowhere near it in quality or degree. And not the same kind of absence of pain, either. Nowhere near it.

An hour before what turned out to be a major coronary infarction (the cause of which was never found) I’d been a confirmed atheist. Now, I was a confirmed believer.

Not necessarily in God, or in heaven, as we usually think of them, but definitely in something. A kind of wonderful continuity I’ve wanted to know more about ever since.

So do I cry at funerals? No, not for the deceased, although I do get a little misty about those who will miss them, including myself.

Do I fear death? Not in my brain, or my soul, although my body still gets the shakes at the thought. As though it’s programmed to physically resist the temptation to jump right to the end of this volume of existence and hurry into the next.

I told Cousin Barry the truth.

Yes, I believe in an afterlife, but not as a matter of faith. I believe because I’ve experienced it. I know that death is a natural part of things because I’ve been there and in those few moments learned more about life than in all the years of living that had come before.

That knowledge adds value to every living moment because I know I’ve got nothing to fear in the end. That even if I never leave the tunnel and reach the light, the beauty and perfection of the journey that is the last moment will make everything else worthwhile.

Some people praise creation for its mysteries. Others damn it. All I can do is marvel and be thrilled by the very fact that I’m so amazed.

Know what I’ve got faith in? I’ve got faith in the idea that the true purpose of life is to take note of everything that happens to us.

And in the concept that the greatest thing about human existence is that every single one of us who searches for answers, who wonders about God and the universe and what happens — or doesn’t happen — after death, and every single one of us who thinks he or she already knows, is guaranteed that one perfect, beautiful moment when we’ll find out the truth.

Originally published October 12, 2005

And now, as summer nears the finish line, a word about something close to all our hearts — and ankles and the backs of our knees, and, of course, our waists: Chiggers.

“Aargh!”

For most of my life, spring was a glorious time. New hope, rebirth, the beautiful transition into summer. You know the drill. Then I moved to the Ozarks, and on one fateful May day I made a mistake that changed my whole outlook. I went outside wearing shoes but no socks. Walked maybe 20 feet to pick up some trash, then another 20 feet back to the house. Three days later I was in agony.

“Aargh!”

Chiggers! I’d lived in California so long I’d forgotten about the little buggers and the way they get your immune system churning. I’d forgotten that wherever you’ve got grass you’ve got these greedy, skin-burrowing, one-twentieth of an inch long freakazoids just waiting to do their version of the Count Dracula thing. I’d forgotten that anything could itch so much.

When I was kid, I thought it would be cool to become a vampire. Look at the powers it gives you. Super strength. Mind control. The ability to become a wolf or a bat. To fly. And, maybe best of all when you’re an awkward adolescent with a face full of what my mother used to call “blossoms,” as a vampire you never have to see your reflection.

But if being chomped on by Dracula makes you feel only one-tenth as bad as being feasted upon by a chigger — forget it, Count. Not worth it. No way.

If my first chigger experience had been the only one that still would’ve been one too many for me. For three weeks, I was up all night, clawing at my ankles. What started out as tiny reddish bumps turned into bloody sores, then into scabs that lasted another couple of months, finally becoming scars I still bear. Scars joined later by others to forever remind me of the fact that we humans are far from being the absolute rulers of this part of the earth. Dominant species? Ha. We’re just another environment for the bugs. The only difference between trees and people is that trees have to wait to be infested but we can pick up microscopic hitchhikers as we mosey along.

My chigger-phobia is so strong it’s ruined many a movie for me. The only emotion a scene with a romantic couple picnicking on the grass instills in me is terror. It’s all I can do to keep from screaming at the screen. “No. Don’t sit there. Run away.”

Over the years, I’ve done just about everything to keep the remorseless mites away. I’ve learned to suit up when I go outside, wearing high boots, thick socks, long pants tucked into the boots, long sleeves and, if I’m going to touch anything, gloves. I’ve learned to spray myself with Deet. To keep the grass in our clearing short and give brush a wide berth. And to keep especially clear of wild blackberry bushes, which seem to be a favorite hideaway for Count Chiggula and his gang.

I’ve picked up on some remedies too. When I lived in the city I took a shower every morning, part of my ritual for greeting the new day. Now, in summer I shower right before dinner instead, lathering up so I can drown anything that’s burrowed in while I was out. And I follow the shower by wiping myself down with bleach, which, according to Wanda Fincher, the “Angel of Arkansas,” (and former Army nurse), “gets in your pores and kills the little suckers on contact.”

Who could ask for anything more?

What I’m getting at is this. Once upon a time, spring was my favorite season because it made me look forward so much to what was coming next. Now, though, after another itchy, scratchy summer I’m heavily into a love affair with fall.

Last night, it was a little nippy here on the mountain. The wind has shifted. The leaves are starting to turn. Fall is in the air, and I find myself grinning in anticipation of chigger hibernation. Eagerly, I await the time — only a couple of weeks away — when I can pick up trash without worrying about socks and boots. When I can walk barefoot from our front door to our truck. When I can feel fearless again.

No more “Aargh!”

Until next year.

Originally published October 5, 2005