I knew a Leah 40 years ago as a freshman in college. There are some wimmenfolk you remember with your head. There were only two in my life that I remember with my heart. Leah was the other one aside from my (current and first) wife Diane.
I travelled to Omaha every two weeks from 1997 to 2000 working three days up there and the other seven days locally. One Sunday I took the early flight, got a one-day free rental car voucher from HQ and headed up to South Dakota, a state I'd never been to. The glaciers had stopped there, so this area of America and the Ukraine were the only two places on earth with 200 feet of topsoil. The ground was flat, the car was new, the motering was fast. Life was good -- damn good.
Then I saw a turn-off for Wayne, Nebraska. Leah had told me when she was dumping me (did I tell you Leah was bright? I would have dumped me back in 1971 as well) that she may have inherited some condition that may end her life before the age of 35. This was serious stuff for a 19-year-old to hear, and it stayed with me for all these years.
My heart sank as saw the Wayne, NE sign in a way I that have only rarely experienced. There, off to the west maybe 20 miles, was perhaps the grave of someone I knew from college. A woman who in combination was the most beautiful, bright and jovial woman I had ever known. My sample size with women by that time was sufficient to know what the cosmos might have lost, and how utterly lucky her husband must have been during the few, precious years that he had her.
I agonized about a Leah that did not deserve to die so young, someone whose passing would have certainly caused in others many times the agony, dispair and grief that had suddenly flooded my being. It was now many years past the age of 35, and I didn't know if the young woman I knew from Wayne, NE was dead or alive.
My cousin Jeff's wife Roni had taken on a foreign tissue, her cancer, while she was taking on other foreign tissue, her pregnancy. Losing Roni, especially during the period leading up to her demise, was devastating.
This was on my mind as I drove on up that flat pavement toward Sioux City stunned, dispirited, and utterly depressed thinking of the possibility of her loss. I turned off the radio and throttled back the cruise control so no Iowa highway patrolman could lodge any complaints and interrupt my solitude and the depression that had consumed me. I could think of nothing but what a tragedy it would have been for Leah's family to not have their Leah, just like their Roni, among the living and to enjoy her prime years -- her life with growing kids and a loving spouse as I was enjoying. I kept craning to the west in a futile attempt to see if I could locate a speck 20 miles or so away, some remnant or hint of what may have become of Leah.
As it happens, Leah is alive and well I am enormously pleased to report. She lives outside of DC and is teaching high school math. I'm not sure if she told me the truth when she said she might die by 35. But damn, am I so glad she's still alive.
Thank you for listening. I feel better. And I love this song, if only because it's about Leah.
I knew a Leah 40 years ago as a freshman in college. There are some wimmenfolk you remember with your head. There were only two in my life that I remember with my heart. Leah was the other one aside from my (current and first) wife Diane.
I travelled to Omaha every two weeks from 1997 to 2000 working three days up there and the other seven days locally. One Sunday I took the early flight, got a one-day free rental car voucher from HQ and headed up to South Dakota, a state I'd never been to. The glaciers had stopped there, so this area of America and the Ukraine were the only two places on earth with 200 feet of topsoil. The ground was flat, the car was new, the motering was fast. Life was good -- damn good.
Then I saw a turn-off for Wayne, Nebraska. Leah had told me when she was dumping me (did I tell you Leah was bright? I would have dumped me back in 1971 as well) that she may have inherited some condition that may end her life before the age of 35. This was serious stuff for a 19-year-old to hear, and it stayed with me for all these years.
My heart sank as saw the Wayne, NE sign in a way I that have only rarely experienced. There, off to the west maybe 20 miles, was perhaps the grave of someone I knew from college. A woman who in combination was the most beautiful, bright and jovial woman I had ever known. My sample size with women by that time was sufficient to know what the cosmos might have lost, and how utterly lucky her husband must have been during the few, precious years that he had her.
I agonized about a Leah that did not deserve to die so young, someone whose passing would have certainly caused in others many times the agony, dispair and grief that had suddenly flooded my being. It was now many years past the age of 35, and I didn't know if the young woman I knew from Wayne, NE was dead or alive.
My cousin Jeff's wife Roni had taken on a foreign tissue, her cancer, while she was taking on other foreign tissue, her pregnancy. Losing Roni, especially during the period leading up to her demise, was devastating.
This was on my mind as I drove on up that flat pavement toward Sioux City stunned, dispirited, and utterly depressed thinking of the possibility of her loss. I turned off the radio and throttled back the cruise control so no Iowa highway patrolman could lodge any complaints and interrupt my solitude and the depression that had consumed me. I could think of nothing but what a tragedy it would have been for Leah's family to not have their Leah, just like their Roni, among the living and to enjoy her prime years -- her life with growing kids and a loving spouse as I was enjoying. I kept craning to the west in a futile attempt to see if I could locate a speck 20 miles or so away, some remnant or hint of what may have become of Leah.
As it happens, Leah is alive and well I am enormously pleased to report. She lives outside of DC and is teaching high school math. I'm not sure if she told me the truth when she said she might die by 35. But damn, am I so glad she's still alive.
Thank you for listening. I feel better. And I love this song, if only because it's about Leah.