LETTERS FROM HOME: SOME MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH PENALTIES

Dear Pat,

The death penalty has been the primary source of disagreement in our marriage so far. DC says, "Fry 'em," I say, "How odd to repudiate the taking of human life by officiously killing those who do it." Or words to that effect.

DC has been looking over her shoulder this week. One of her less psychologically healthy patients came in angry about a toothache and let everyone know that he enjoys killing pigs with knives and that he is the proud owner of a semi-automatic. She says I'll be sorry I oppose the death penalty if he walks into the clinic one day and starts shooting.

The endearing Gracie Allen logic aside, I am concerned about the number of mentally ill people I see walking about. Most are harmless and homeless, scrounging an existence out of government "crazy money" and desperately searching in your eyes for some sign that does not say "Go away."

But all you need is the news to know that isn't the whole story. As someone has pointed out, the largest mental institution in the U.S. today is the L.A. County Jail. With or without O.J. Simpson.

Our next-door neighbor, Killian, was over last night for cheesecake and told us he moved to the redwoods after an L.A. hoodlum stuck a pistol in his face for $5 and a Timex. Seeing the chance to forge a majority opinion, DC asked Killian how he feels about capital punishment.

"No," said Killian, "it doesn't do anybody any good to kill them." Killian is a wizened Irishman who loves words and paints gorgeous watercolors. He showed us his study of fallen leaves. He opposes killing but can find beauty in death.

Last weekend we went to the summer arts festival at Benbow Lake. Heard Leon Redbone, a sizzling Cuban saxophonist named Paquito D'Rivera, and Elvin Jones, who was John Coltrane's drummer maybe too long ago. The festival had the usual tie-dye clothes and jewelry and pottery -- and unusual -- masseuses and booths selling Third World drums. One guy was there from Missouri. He makes brooms and mops the old-fashioned way, out of limbs and corns husks. He sold out.

I loved the Feet First Dancers, a local group made up of little girls and women old enough to be their grandmothers. In the finale, a salsa number, the generations danced together in little party dresses and high heels and tiny socks. So alive and so beautiful.

Afterward we stopped by a party at the home of a man who is leaving DC's clinic. Munching chips, I listened to a woman I barely know, a health practitioner, speak movingly about how nearly losing her young daughter in a traffic accident had transformed their relationship. The little girl had been born premature and endured illness after illness until she was 4. They'd never bonded, the mother said, because she was afraid to get too close to a child who might die soon.

The girl was growing up at arm's length from her mother until that car came along. Suddenly the mother wanted to be as close as possible to this child who once again was on the verge of dying. I have an image of mother and daughter, now fully recovered, desperately hugging through the full-body cast.

Across from her, his plate full, sat a guest whose T-shirt did not hide the marks of Kaposi's sarcoma. How much courage it must take to sit at a house party full of many strangers and acknowledge your own impending death. He thanked the mother effusively for being so caring toward him and worried that other AIDS patients elsewhere don't get the same treatment.

With dignity and a good appetite, he is dying beautifully.

Love, Sam