Oranges, and: The Giant

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Oranges, and: The Giant C. Dale Young (bio) Oranges It is difficult, sometimes, to face facts:you know this. Our parents taught usto ignore problems, to look away,and I am no different. I, too, have needed love so badly I ignoredwhat was right before my eyes. In the market,this morning, the oranges were as brightas little suns radiating their own light. As a boy, how I admired the way a treecould blossom and then fill itself with fruit.I have written about this, chose to look carefully.But I couldn't turn such focus on myself or, better yet, on those I chose to love.When the clerk asked me if I loved oranges,I said No. And he smiled an uncomfortable smileas he packed my bags. I paid for my things and walked home. Twice, I have loved menwho loved alcohol more than they lovedme. Just a fact. I can say it now as fact.Some say fear fuels these things, fear of being alone, dying alone. But when are wenot alone? I stood in my kitchen by myselfand unpacked the groceries and thought againof the clerk's strange smile, the way he looked at me. There at the bottom of the grocery bag,a half-dozen oranges. I had forgotten I had themwhen he asked me the question. I had forgotten.The clouds above the Pacific are a soft orange now [End Page 76] as the last light of sunset reflects from beyondthe horizon. I will have oranges after dinner,the taste as sweet as innocence, what childhoodoffered up that was then abruptly taken away. [End Page 77] The Giant Like the heart, they were not removed fromthe recently deceased, the ancient Egyptianschoosing instead to mummify them. One neededa heart and two kidneys to travel to the other world. When Vesalius examined them, he saw themas two scales on either side of the heart as fulcrum,biased as he was by the Bible to view themas part of a system of conscience or judgment. Nature's redundancy, you can live with only one.But as with all things human, there is alwaysa risk of failure. Failure, after all, being human.When my father's legs began to swell, we all thought it was just age, swelling dueto a lack of movement. The adult human kidneyhas roughly a million nephrons, each workingto filter our blood and control fluid volumes. Tirelessly, these organs work 24 hours per day.We expect them to keep doing this because hopeis also an innate human trait. My father did notstop swelling. Both of his kidneys were failing, had done all they could do in a single life.The fluid began building up in his tissues.And soon, his lungs began to fill. To see himgasping, to see him struggling to breathe, this man who had lived a life filled with strongjudgments, it seemed impossible. The seat of judgment,the seat of conscience, the organs that made himjudge me so forcefully, so severely. The irony of it all. [End Page 78] The Romans called them renes, which in English became"reins," the things that reined us in, reined in others.My nature meant I was weak, a weak man who could notbe reined in. But that was many years ago, almost a lifetime. So many things said, and thenso many silences. And the last thing he said to me?"I know who you are now. Forgive me, I was wrong.You might be the strongest of all my children." But all things come to an end, even one's father. I kissedhis forehead. I held his hand. I said goodbye. I knew nothow to judge, how to think about judgment. I was a boy again,mesmerized by the giant, the giant who suddenly had fallen. [End Page 79] C. Dale Young c. dale young practices medicine full-time and teaches for the Warren Wilson mfa Program for Writers. He is the author of The Affliction (a novel) and five collections of poetry...