Battles

 

Last summer, our neighborhood endured a serious infestation of spotted lantern flies. They were everywhere. They were on the sidewalk and the deck railings and the trunks of the trees. They had a special affinity for the oak tree that is on the property line between our home and Andrea's.

We put sticky tape around the trunks of the trees to catch them. We investigated sprays. We discovered that slugs, of all things, were predators and would slither up the trunks of the trees and devour the bugs stuck to the edge of the tape. We learned that the lantern flies liked to jump into bottles and Joe delighted in showing me his catch every single night.

Last summer, Andrea had a houseguest. My understanding was that Kate needed a place to stay while she dealt with chemotherapy for breast cancer. To my recollection, Kate lived with Andrea for the entire summer. She was trying to run her business remotely from Andrea's house (remember, in addition to the dratted lantern flies we were all also dealing with Covid) and spent a lot of time on her cell phone from Andrea's little front porch. We didn't get to know Kate very well, even though she was sort of our neighbor for a few months. But our interchanges with her were always pleasant and more often than not our conversations centered on the lantern flies. From her vantage point on Andrea's porch, Kate had a perfect angle to monitor our oak tree. And she did her very best to rid the neighborhood of this pestilence. From our deck, at dinner or lunch, we could see Kate springing up from the porch, phone in hand, and hastening over to the oak and swatting those buggers, again and again. Joe eventually outfitted her with an empty bottle and the two of them compared their catches at the end of the day. Kate was fierce in her battle against the bugs. It was as though she was on a mission from God to protect that tree and prevent them from climbing high enough to lay their eggs in it.

I came to believe that Kate's strident efforts were connected to the other battle she was fighting; that somehow decimating the lantern flies was related to killing the disease in her body.

This summer we have had very, very few lantern flies. It is quite the contrast to last year. Andrea's porch is empty, too. The other day I saw a photo of Kate on Facebook; she looks vibrant with grown-in hair. Her business is thriving. She's good.

My little world in the past month has turned upside-down. My close friend of fifty-seven years has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She's being a good patient, dutifully following instructions from her various doctors, undergoing surgery, tests, and preparing for her chemo. She has a lot of friends, and they/we are being supportive in many ways. We are confident that she's going to do fine.

But a piece of me kind of wishes my friend had a lantern fly problem as well. I wouldn't hesitate to ask Kate to go over and show her how it's done.