Janice Chaffee Birthday Talk

(Barbara Roberts Pine – August 2006  Janice’s Birthday Party!!!!)

 

Well, dearest Janice . . .

            This is how you opened the SISTER’S BOOK:

 “What happens when a true story is told?  A picture unfolds.  . . . A teller divulges information, she risks reactions, she attempts to be understood.  A storyteller uses words to represent realities – like attitudes, needs, intentions—that cannot otherwise be apprehended.  

            (no conjunction – your style)

“What happens when a true story is heard?” you asked.  Then, as is your habit, you answered.

            “The listener,” wrote you, “processes information, chooses reactions, perceives the feeling behind the Storyteller’s words.” “She has the privilege of interpretation.  A good listener, is wise, learns from what she hears and incorporates this newfound knowledge into her own life.

            (I would have placed ‘and’ before ‘perceives’ but you prefer the absence of conjunctions.  Finally,                       ‘and’ wins)

 “Every woman has a story to tell,” you said. “ And every woman has a story to hear.  . . .  Sometimes we tell and sometimes we listen.”

Today, beloved Janice,

            It is your day to listen to stories about you . . .

           

After 16 years of working with you,

                                                Of loving you,

                                                            it is my turn to say

                                    “Listen to me” and have you not talk back. 

                                                (Like that’s likely)

 

Here is a true story

            About life; your life.

You may remember that when

            I asked friend and geneticist John Medina

                        “What are the odds of any one of us being born?”

He answered –

            “The odds are INCALCULABLE.”

He said

            there is such a ridiculous profusion of potential life

that . . .

            It is “unlikely that any of us should exist.”

“Here’s a way to imagine it,” said he.

Imagine that one green grain of sand

    has been hidden

            Somewhere in all the sands of the earth

                                                                        Beaches, dunes, sandboxes

The odds for finding that green grain of sand

                        Are more favorable than those for our being born.

For the trillions of drifting atoms to assemble

                                                                        as YOU, JC,

                                                                           The only ever YOU,

Required

as Bill Bryson wrote in

                                    A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING,

    

Every one of your ancestors

            over the last 3.8 billion years or so

Proved fertile and

                        Managed to stay alive long enough to

                                    Find a fertile mate and

                                                Produce fertile offspring

                                                            That lived long enough

                                                                      to find a fertile mate

                                                                                    And Produce fertile offspring.

“Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life’s quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate THE ONLY possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result – eventually, astoundingly,  – in you.”                                                                                                               (p.3-4)

So,

    Happy Birthday dear Janice Marie Chaffee.

                                                                        As usual, You beat the odds.  

Out of all potential lives,

     You have been born.

                       

You have been  granted the joy of

                                    Standing on earth                                             

                                                to glance through stars,

                                                            over the edge of our galaxy.     

Of seeing a sun rise and set

 

Watching a deer dart among your Sugar Maples,

                                    Wild Persimmons and Sassafras Trees.

 

You have heard the bleat of goats

            And Worn the Cashmere goats provide.  (wool from Kashmer goats)

Because you beat the odds,

            If you can’t sleep on some Montana mountain top,                   

On the 12th of this month,

                        You can sneak out to the pre-dawn sky

                                                                         Look into God’s great space

                                    And watch meteor fires burn their way

                                                                        Across the backs of Constellations.

Against all odds,

            You have been born.

                        You have had music fill your head

                                    And mysteriously fill the air around you.                        

You’ve heard Jazz and Gospel,

                                    Hymns and Handel

 You have produced music

                        Stunning enough to buckle our knees.

                                   

Against all odds you have tasted Jim’s

                                                            Irresistible Roasted Lamb

Smelled the coming of a thunderstorm

                                                              across the Arizona desert

Experienced expressions of friends’ love from round the world.

You have felt your husband’ tender touch

                                    And the firm grasp of two infant sons

Against incalculable odds, Janice Chaffee,

            Miracle of miracles

                                    Mystery of mysteries

                                                                        You live.

And here is what you live with:

            TIME

            Which is, of course

                                    Nearly as mysterious as life itself.

Since our

            Forefathers produced time-pieces

                                    We’ve learned to think in time’s terms

                                                                        24/7/365

We’ve named time

            Apparent solar

            Solar

            Daylight savings

            Local civil

            Mean solar

            Sidereal (star time – 4 minutes shorter than Solar)

            Standard

            Universal

We’ve named portions of time:

            Hours, half and quarter hours

                        minutes, seconds

                                    milliseconds

                                        attoseconds

                                                femtoseconds

                                                            picoseconds

                                                                        nanoseconds

                                                                                    microseconds –

                                                            (one millionth of a second/one thousandth of a millisecond)

 

We can say with confidence that you,

                                                            have lived in Time for approximately

            54 years.

                        648 months

                                    about 2808  weeks

                                                19,710 thousand some days . . .

and . . .

            hours and minutes and seconds and nanoseconds enough

                        to figure out that

                                    in  truth

Enough to teach us that

                                    we only live Now.

 

We remember and learn from time past

                                    We plan and prepare for time future

But we live Now.

             This moment.

“We should,” says the Apostle Paul, “use time wisely.”

                                   

We should, says          

            ole Ecclesiastes the Preacher,    (Qoheleth – Ecclesiastes)

                                    realize that

                                                            That NOW is the Gift Time brings.

He wrote,

“God has put a sense of past and future  (duration)

                        Eternity, really, into people’s minds

                                                Yet they cannot figure out

                        What He has done from the beginning to the end.”

 

Then, the Preacher boldly suggests

                        We come away from all our

                                                Attempts to figure things out.

He says,

            “I know there is nothing better  (for people) . . . to do

                        Than to be happy and

                                        To enjoy themselves as long as they live;

Moreover,” says he, “it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink

            And take pleasure in all their toil.

Well, fittingly,

             This present time with you is that.

                        This moment is filled with celebration

                                                Is crowded with people who love you

                                                                        Is loaded with

                                                                                    Eating/drinking,

                                                                                                laughter and hope.

This now . . . is yours. 

We are,

            your brothers and sisters

                                    Family and friends

                                                            Sharing,

Against all odds,

                        We celebrate your amazing life

                                                And this very present moment in it.

Dearest Janice,

                    Whom I adore,  Whose story astounds me . . .

                                      I love you, I love you more.

                                                   Happy Birthday.