Mary

                                                                        Mary

                                                           by Marco M. Pardi

                                                                  mpardi.com

“There is a unity of the body with the environment, as well as a unity of the body and soul into one person.” Alfred North Whitehead. (1861-1947)

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All comments are well appreciated and will receive a response.

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Readers of this site who peruse the comments will recognize the name Mary.  She has been a consistent, thoughtful and very generous commentator.  Even while traveling she made the effort to assure me she was reading my words and thinking them through.  Her comments almost always contributed to and enhanced what I had written, on any subject. In personal communication she carried much further, providing her thoughts and opinions in ways which were always supportive even if, at times, advising me of better ways of thinking than I had chosen for myself.

An Anthropology student of mine in the early 1970’s, Mary was one of several thousand such students who passed through my classes in my ten years at a particular college.  Some I remember, most I don’t.

Since those years I have traveled much of the world, so deeply involved in other careers that it was not long before I began to occasionally recall those teaching years as, “Oh. Yeah” memories; factual but not very meaningful.  And communication, even had I sought it, with anyone from those years would have been near impossible and, in most circumstances, impermissible.

So it was with surprise, and some trepidation, that I opened an email some years ago to discover that I had been discovered. Mary had found me. On the Internet.  There was nothing challenging in the content, only a self identification and questions only I could answer. And by some fortune I did choose to answer.

In the years since we exchanged countless emails and added additional email correspondents into a fairly steady group.  Mary became a highly sought after thinker in at least a couple of these groups. We very much enjoyed her reports of her constant travels, her impressions of people and places, her joys and travails with her dogs. I often urged her to start writing a blog.

But in the background was a career history that few people knew.  Mary did not pursue Anthropology. However, she took some principles from it and applied them to degrees and a career in Social Work.  Her work immersed her in many of the human tragedies that lead so many social workers to leave the field and not look back.  She not only stayed with it, she married a psychologist, raised a family, and helped found a clinic. Through several geographic moves she also acquired and raised a variety of dogs, most of whom could be described as Special Needs dogs.

But her inherent nurturing of non-humans and humans alike found many expressions and, at times, some quandaries.  In one set of email exchanges she sent me pictures of a mountain lion lounging on her Colorado property waiting for her dogs to come outside.  Concerned for the dogs, but also for the lion, she asked how to permanently scare it away without hurting it. I told her that her only safe option was a Taurus Judge .410 shotgun revolver and I instructed her in how to load the cylinder in a graduated non-lethal to lethal way.  As far as I know she did so and solved the problem. But then a rat took up residence inside a storeroom in her house.  She set up a game camera and sent videos of the rat doing ratty things in the storeroom.  Again, how to evict the rat harmlessly?  I told her once a rat has found a nice place they will not give it up.  She captured the rat a couple of times in a humane live trap and transported it miles from her home before releasing it.  A few night later it was back. To be sure it was the same rat she again trapped it and painted its tail before driving miles to release it.  A few days later, a painted rat in the storeroom.  I’m not sure how or if she resolved the rat problem but it was starting to look like our negotiations with North Korea.

Mary was raised a conservative Catholic. As such she had an appreciation for many of the manifestations of cognitive dissonance among people whose faith puts them in one world while they live in another. She appreciated the aphorism that: Man invented God, made this God omnipresent, then failed to see God all around and within themselves.  Below is a typical email from Mary which I think captures her personhood quite well:

“I’ve been so busy and traveling I have forgotten what I have told you about.  I know I have been derelict contributing to the email group. I understand if my membership is revoked.  I think I told you both in May we had a 4ft snow storm.  I saw something in the snow and checked it out.  It was a hummingbird, who I was pretty sure was dead.  Let me switch gears here a moment. I was just in Florida with my cousin who was talking about how she feels we haven’t scratched the surface in seeing animals in nature.  She said, like the videos we all most likely have seen now where they have glasses for people who are colored blind and see colors for the first time.  They cry and ask how people who can see real colors can get anything done and just not stare at the colors all day. She thinks some day we will see animals like that.  So, back to the hummingbird.  I held it in my hands warming it up and sure enough it came back to life.  When it seemed fully resurrected I went outside and opened my hand.  It looked me right in the eye and then flew off.  I sit on my deck around sunset daily.  Every day, since the humming bird left, when I’m sitting on the deck he comes and flies right at my eyes and hovers a bit then takes off.  I’ve been gone for about a week.  When I got home yesterday I sat on the deck and unbelievably, I’m sure it is the same hummingbird, came and sat on my thigh.  It had to have sat there for almost 5 minutes.  I’m sure I’m colored blind to what happens in nature but now and again, I’m not.” 

Mary’s sudden death is still a great shock – and this comes from a person very familiar with death.  It is hard even to write this as I will post it and part of me will look daily for her comments.  No matter where she was or what she was doing she always took time to post some comments.  When I started teaching college classes all those decades ago I quickly realized the difference between talking to someone and talking with someone. Many people read these posts, very few bother themselves to talk with me. Mary always did.  To the extent that we are in some way the people with whom we interact I feel an empty space inside. I have felt that before, and long ago realized one does not seek out a “replacement part” to fill that space. One remembers that person and carries forward the lessons and benefits of having known them, thus making ongoing relationships with others that much more fulfilling and rewarding for all.

Thank you, Mary.