My friend Jim Chlebda took his last breath a couple of weeks ago. Once he was taken off the list for a double lung transplant at Stanford, there was little time. He got his papers in order, gathered up his family and friends for one last good day, and three days later he was gone.
At
least from this form of existence.
After I heard the news of his
passing, I was surprised how my days filled with the sight of him and the sound
of his voice, how his normal way of saying goodbye – “hey, now,” became a
greeting. How his motivations and
purposes suddenly seemed completely coherent, an integrity that was not only
admirable but something to follow in my own life. So I might say that Jim’s transformation from
living to eternal is having a transformative effect in me.
The
Okie poet Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel, who Jim loved and supported with his
publishing efforts as well as bringing bursts of new life into that old woman’s
days, called him “Little Jim.” He was no
taller than I am and weighed significantly less, all muscle and bone with a
beautiful skin covering topped by curly hair the ladies had trouble keeping
their hands off of. But there was
nothing little about him. It always
rankled me that she could so casually mark him with what most men would receive
as a slight. I mean, even the Pygmy Bushmen
of Africa greet each other with a sentence that goes something like “Hey, now,
you’re so tall I saw you coming from a long way!” But Jim just laughed it off.
As
he did most people’s foibles. What was
really big about him is that he did not let others’ faults impinge on his
character. He accepted people for who
they were, but (for the most part) he did not let that subtract – or add – to
who he was. It has been easy for me to
think that living his entire 57 years with a terminal disease – cystic fibrosis,
which took his sister at 21 - was what shaped him into the purposeful, life-embracing,
life-giving human I knew him to be. But
as his breathing days came to an end I saw there was more.
Jim
lived with the spirit of Christ, the heart of God, in him. He wore no external sign of that affiliation,
spoke few words of devotion out loud (at least with me). His ceremonies celebrated the beauty and
wonder of the world, particularly the natural world; his publishing efforts supported
artists of all kinds. The gifts he
shared were natural shards from the land, like hawk feathers and sprigs of
native plants, his photographs of those wonders, or music and books, the works
of artists. His publications were art,
from the covers and insides of Southland
Magazine and South Valley Arts,
to the chapbooks of poets up and down the valley. On one of Wilma’s little books of prose, Cooking with Eli, he even used spiral
binding, like a church cookbook of recipes.
You know, you might want to lay it flat to read while whipping up a
batch of pancakes.
John
Dofflemyer, the cowboy poet and fellow publisher who lives along Dry Creek,
wrote that Jim was “a force in many people’s lives.” He was, but not forcibly: it was the force of
love. John also added that “now he can
operate with a freer hand.” I loved that
recognition of another realm from this other man of the land, this rancher who
copes with the mysteries of life and death on a daily basis.
But
what I finally saw about Jim’s life after his death was that he walked softly
and carried no stick at all. To me,
that’s an enormous life accomplishment.
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Trudy Wischemann is a writer who lives in the Lewis
Creek watershed, just west of Jim’s beloved home Back 40 in North Fork Tule
River country. Visit www.back40publishing.com
to view Jim’s publishing accomplishments; visit www.drycrikjournal.com
to see John & Robbin Dofflemyers'.
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