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Posts Tagged ‘death’

Living Through the Unknown, Unanswered Questions

Posted in positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 27, 2016| 6 Comments »

There are no easy answers, there’s only living through the questions. (Elizabeth George)

Sun streams through the window and I try to hold onto the brightness, as if blue sky carried answers to questions that don’t fit into logical formulas. Life. Death. Illness. The healed and unhealed. The why.

The husband of a friend died yesterday. Several other people have cancer. A friend of my husband was just diagnosed with non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. Magic wands remain in fiction. Moreover, I look at the political scene and my stomach twists. How can so many people choose hate and see nothing wrong with it? I know a child who could have post-traumatic stress syndrome. I talk to a friend from the Y. “Will you pray for my husband?” Too many folk seem to be suffering right now.

A double rainbow appears on the wall behind my laptop, yet I can’t capture it with a photo. I don’t have adequate equipment. The picture appears dark and the rainbows show pale.  I erase the photo; the rainbows fade. I don’t have the ability to save the world by myself. Nor do I dare to reply to grief with platitudes.

Instead I offer an ear, arms, perhaps some of my time. And perspective appears. What matters? What doesn’t? If I give up my serenity over something small, a traffic delay, spilled juice, a photo that doesn’t work, changed plans that don’t fit my agenda, how much energy will I have when I really need it? Perhaps this is one small part of living through the questions.

Right now I’m aware of what I have and how fragile life can be. However, my attitude can change after a few ordinary, nothing-special days. I pray for awareness, to learn from unanswered questions.

love tainted world Optimism Revolution

 

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Clinging to the Gifts

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 15, 2015| 2 Comments »

When you are grateful—when you can see what you have—you unlock blessings to flow in your life. (Suze Orman)

As I wait for the green light at an intersection in my neighborhood, I suspect the driver of the old black truck coming from the other direction is in a hurry although I can’t cite any evidence to prove this is true. My heart and mind are not focused on racing. The transience of existence slows my thoughts. I’m on my way to a funeral.

Let the driver make the first move, I tell myself. And see if I am simply being hyper-vigilant. The truck turns with jet-action speed a split section after the light changes.

We would have collided.

I thank God, then recall my best friend Linda’s intuition last night. We were at an outdoor concert. The air got thick and hot. I felt tightness in my chest and started coughing. “I think we’d better go,” she said. “The air is getting just too heavy.”

Lightning flashed in the distance. No thunder. However, we had scarcely hit the highway when the rain came down with such fury I could have sworn we were traveling underwater. Our friend Tom kept his cool as he drove. And I was grateful to arrive home safely.

Now I say goodbye to a friend’s granddaughter. She lived a good life. She was loved. She had autism; it did not own her. I never met the girl and yet her picture in the obituary notice draws me to her. I know her grandmother. And I understand grief. People who have special-needs folk in their lives appreciate the beauty of the bond possible with them.

I think about the wound on my Ella’s chest and wonder how long it is going to take to heal. And yet it will heal. Eventually. It only seems like an eternity.

We can’t celebrate everyone we love forever. I wish I had understood the power of each moment years ago. Actually, I wish I could carry that knowledge into the times that seem boring, difficult, or annoying. Now. As they are occurring and not later.

Intuitions are gifts. The scene at the light saved me from a serious accident. My friend’s insight saved four long-time friends from a mob in a thunderstorm. Neither incident spared me from the real world or a finite existence. Chances are tomorrow will offer opportunities to laugh, cry, get angry, enthused, embarrassed, frightened, anxious, or inspired.

I pray to cling to the gifts.

a smile from God

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Goodbye, See You Later

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 18, 2015| 8 Comments »

You’re going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it’s always their actions, not words, that matter. (Nicholas Sparks)

Snow was predicted for today, but I expected a token inch or so. Our street, finally plowed yesterday afternoon, is now hidden. In the semi-darkness of early morning the white bitterness seems to explode its message; winter has won this battle. When the phone rings before eight in the morning I know what I will hear before I answer. The call comes from two states away, where it isn’t seven in the morning yet. My sister-in-law has not called to chat.

My mother-in-law has left her physical body in Midwestern winter and joined a higher, temperature-free dimension. As I look outside again I realize that like the February snow, Mary’s death was inevitable. But, I thought my spirit would be better prepared. Winter will end. This goodbye is final. At least from a limited five-senses point of view.

The first bird I see at the bird feeder is a female cardinal. The cardinal is a symbol of a visitor from the next dimension. Next, two more cardinals arrive. They don’t stay long. They feed and then fly into our blue spruce.

I think about the transience of life’s experience and that thought leads into disconnected memories:

I see my mother-in-law’s move from a more affluent neighborhood to a less wealthy one, not because she needs to do it, but because she sees a mission there, a house closer to her church. My vision follows the many people Mary invites into her home, the folk who stay for a while and then leave, changed somehow because of her welcoming…

Next my memory revisits the day when my younger son has tied a towel around his neck as a cape. He is two days shy of his third birthday and he is playing superman. He tries to fly off a chair, but his fantasy doesn’t transfer into reality. He has sustained a concussion. I don’t have a car. My mother-in-law drops what she is doing and takes me and superman junior to the hospital. Then she waits until after Steve is treated before bringing us home. Mary and Son-number-two are buddies. They have been since he was an infant…

Mary and Son-number-two’s daughter are also buddies. Nana is now declining. Ella pretends to be a bear. Nana pretends to be frightened. The game continues.

And so does today’s snow—along with a deep and penetrating cold. No, I could not ask Mary to stay on this earth with a body that is no longer able to contain her incredible spirit. She needed to leave it. The human Methuselah-model has not yet been designed. I said goodbye to Mary the last time I saw her, and I meant it. However…there is always a however. My generous attitude was aimed toward her, not me.

Another cardinal stops for a bite to eat before taking off.

Okay, how do I rephrase goodbye? See you in the next dimension, Mary. I don’t know when. But in the meantime, you have an enormous number of people asking about you. So long. Peace, beautiful lady!

cardinal, symbol of visiting past loved one

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A Road Delay, Gratitude, and a Dr. Seuss Book

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 4, 2015| 2 Comments »

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Most of our six-hour drive home has been calm. I imagine being one with a flock of geese traveling in a V-pattern above the flat Midwestern farmland. Some sun, some gray clouds, but little traffic. Even an expected construction delay turns into a minor build-up no worse than what we experience in low-trafficked business districts.

Then we arrive at the bridge that borders our home state from the south. Night is approaching. Brake lights are lined up in a queue long enough to mimic an infinite miniature Milky Way set in rows. Cars move under school-zone-limit speed. Jay seems less irritated than I expect him to be. However, he has spent the last week watching his mother deteriorate, her body and spirit preparing to separate. I place one hand on his knee.

We are so near, and yet so far from home. And then we see a tow truck easing along the side of the road. An accident has caused this backup. We are sure of it. However, we don’t learn the severity of the situation until the morning newspaper arrives.

Hours before we arrived at this part of the Interstate, a multiple-vehicle crash had occurred. At least four people were injured. Even a 2,000-gallon tank truck had been flipped over. The bridge had been closed for two hours.

I had wanted to leave my brother-in-law’s house earlier. But he had been kind enough to fix breakfast for us. The preparation and clean-up had taken longer than expected. Jay had been at the house a week longer than I had. We needed to bring home more stuff—and inventory a fuller car.

Now, as I sort laundry and put our toothbrushes back where they belong I find a small surprise among the packed items: a children’s book, Dr. Seuss’s “Butter Battle Book.” It looks familiar. As I open to the first page I see my younger son Steve’s name illustrated in outlined block letters, definitely his work more than two decades ago. His younger out-of-town cousins, now grown, read the book when they were small. Now Steve’s daughter will enjoy it. Good words passed on.

Good actions can be passed on as well. Not every day will save me from closed passageways. But inside each moment the seed of a possible blessing hides. And waits for the opportunity to be discovered, and sent in unknown directions…

happy thankful Optimism Revolution

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Inside the Wait

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 27, 2015| 5 Comments »

The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it. (Arnold Glasow)

My husband and I are sitting in a customer service office in our bank. Jay says that we are trying to get some financial business started early because he will be out of town for a few days. His mother is ill, in hospice. He is going to visit her. The bank’s representative listens and understands what he is trying to do.

Jay adds that our youngest granddaughter was supposed to have open heart surgery at the end of this month. That was postponed. Our little one contracted bronchitis. She will be at too high a risk for complications to proceed with the operation now.

The bank representative pauses and then asks, “Is it okay if I pray for your mother and granddaughter?”

I’m surprised, taken aback in a pleasant way.

“Of course,” I answer, tears in check. “We’ll take all the positive energy we can get.”

Our entire family and Ella’s many friends wait with reluctance for Ella’s surgery because we want the ordeal to be completed. Done. Part of a long-ago past. We want results now. Preferably yesterday. Ella’s power is awesome to watch. At the age of five she has admirers of all ages. Down syndrome may prevent her from developing an over-sized ego. It does not prevent her from spreading joy. She needs a membrane removed that is interfering with the function of her physical heart. Her social heart is intact.

My mother-in-law’s family and friends wait for her passing and hold onto the memories of all she has given as well as celebrate all she is and was: Mary, the strong outspoken woman who was director of social services at a now-closed psychiatric hospital; the social activist; the woman who took people into her home and gave free counseling; the grandmother who bonded with my boys while I worked at a hospital pharmacy.

She will be 95 on February 28 ½ if she rallies. Yes, she was a leap-year baby who learned to turn elongated celebration into an art form.

I talk to her on the phone and she thanks me for the soup I sent.

“You made this?” she asks. “What’s in it?”

“It comes from boiled turkey bones with some extra chicken broth. Plenty of garlic. Rice. Glad you like it.” I don’t go into detail about all of the ingredients. They don’t matter. This isn’t a how-to discussion.

I give soup to heal. In this case it would take more than broth-simmered-all-day to repair a body too worn to journey any longer. I sent the soup for taste and warmth, a hug in a mug. True, chicken soup does provide electrolytes as well as the protein, carnosine. Homemade soup is a potent liquid. But it won’t add a significant number of days to my mother-in-law’s life.

Waiting—for a passing and for a surgery. Very few people win patience awards. And no one can see inside the fertilized egg for tomorrow’s possibilities. Even the chicken doesn’t know what the outside world looks like.

I don’t drink alcohol, so I lift my coffee cup for a toast to today, to whatever blessings it brings. To hope, serendipity, rain, rainbows, and the unseen. Since waiting is inevitable, may it be blessed.

dove and rainbow PIQ

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Seeing, Believing, and Lost-and-Found Glasses

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2014| 3 Comments »

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. (Henry David Thoreau)

I wonder if my vision blurs sometimes and prevents me from seeing what I think I’m observing. When I searched the inside of my husband’s car for our youngest granddaughter’s glasses, I really did want to find them—immediately! Those prescription lenses were expensive. I found a red ball I would have sworn was in a bin with other toys, some old useless receipts, and a dusty cough drop. But I saw no sign of an orange case with purple swirls. My son ordered a new pair while the original copper wire-rims waited in a school bus, classroom, or limbo. Or so we thought.

Then, weeks later as I went to the car to retrieve my husband’s cell phone, the case appeared on the floor behind the driver’s seat. I stared at what-looked-like-an-orange-mirage a minute before I picked it up. I had been in that spot many times since the day I looked for the missing glasses. The case gave me no clue about where it had hidden since there were no scratches or dirt tracks. It did not tell me why it had taken such a long hiatus. (Comments open to a peculiar lost-and-found story.)

I like to delve into deeper meanings whenever I can. What am I ignoring in my own life just because I don’t want to see it? Are there opportunities I miss because I take an easier path instead?

In the past week I have become aware of people who have gone into hospice; one died yesterday. She left a husband and two young sons. Even though I didn’t know the woman well I knew her husband. I cried—for them and for me. I know she dedicated her life to family. She saw through spiritual lenses that had transcended circumstance. It isn’t likely that she will be found on a listing of famous people; she will be found on a list of people who made the world better because she lived. And that is what matters.

And so I ask for the vision to see better—while searching for lost glasses or for recognizing that moment when a kind word or action can make the difference between despair and hope.

glasses with angel

 

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Funerals and Beginnings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 18, 2013| 2 Comments »

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. (Maria Robinson)

Our family waits for the arrival of my husband’s mother and sister. They live six-hours west of us where nine inches of snow is possible. Jay’s mother, Mary, is 93-years-old. One of her daughters is driving her into town for a funeral. Mary’s sister has died and she is the last living person in her family.

As soon as the travelers arrive I let my sons know. We are concerned; Mary can barely stand. Yet, her heart remains rooted strong in family.

Part of Mary’s agenda includes plans for her own funeral. I’m familiar with the process, although I have never done it with the honoree  present. Mary’s other daughter has material handy for us to view. Whenever my mother-in-law shows emotion I know we are on the right track. When she says, “How do I know? I won’t be there,” I realize the mechanics of planning may be present; however, heart isn’t. She adds that she doesn’t want a eulogy that praises her; it should praise God. She also wants humor.

I suggest asking my older son, Greg, both a stand-up comic and a man active in his church community. The conversation drifts into a discussion of his latest book, “Open Mike,” the tightness of his style. She grins, proud, and laughs with us. A suggestion is made to complete the outline. “So, who do you want to do your eulogy?” But I sense a return to how do I know? I won’t be there.

Let our list of whats, wheres, and whens be sufficient as we return to the moment, to life as it is. Now. More family members arrive, just what Mary needs as an extrovert’s extrovert.

I think about the struggle I’ve had in the past few months with a pesky virus that is only now beginning to subside, even though my soprano has been knocked out by a throat as dry as desert-baked sand. A little alto sneaks out occasionally, but it is weak and inconsistent.  I realize that this is nothing in comparison to the suffering many people experience. No one is invincible, although as a young person I certainly lived as if I were.

Somehow I expected to be in my twenties forever, slender without needing exercise and diet control. Possibilities lay ahead of me—but I rarely chose them. Tomorrow would always be there, or so I thought. Those days will never return. Nevertheless, this moment lives, ready to be seized.

In my last blog I mentioned how three words, consider the source, became valuable advice from my father. My mother-in-law showed me how rich grandparent bonding could become. Since I worked in hospital pharmacy my hours didn’t fit a Monday through Friday schedule. I was off Fridays and asked to watch my first granddaughter on that day even though my son and daughter-in-law already had child care. I have never regretted that choice.

In fact my gift has tripled. I now have three grandchildren. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t think about my granddaughters. Somehow even a Cheerio in the couch cushion isn’t the irritation it could be when I consider the source, a beautiful blonde four-year-old girl with a smile that could light the city.

I have no idea what legacy I will leave my sons and granddaughters, but I’m not sure the spiritual can be weighed anyway. I prefer to live this moment and build upon the next, with as much gratitude as I can manage. Today. Tomorrow isn’t promised.

more beginnings than endings PIQ

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Saying Goodbye to the House of my Childhood

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 29, 2013| 8 Comments »

Life can be difficult sometimes, it gets bumpy. What with family and kids and things not going exactly like you planned. But that’s what makes it interesting. In life the first act is always exciting. The second act, that is where the depth comes in. (Joyce Van Patten)

Thanks to my savvy brother, my father’s house has been transformed—from worn and dreary to modern and beautiful. Floors shine; appliances sparkle. Even the landscape feels different. The family homestead is for sale.

The memories are not. They simply don’t live in the same space anymore. My siblings and I need to maintain them, in our own ways. Strange how the moments I recall first aren’t necessarily the most significant. I smell Mom’s chicken soup wafting into the living room and up the stairs into my room. Our food budget wasn’t huge, but Mom could make a feast out of almost nothing. Then there was Christmas, the house uncluttered for a change, the lights from the tree reflecting in the front picture window. I watched more television as a child than I do now. Bullwinkle Moose acted as a perfect companion to homework, at least I thought he did. The television is where I learned about the Harlem Globetrotters and laughed with my father, deep hearty guffaws that expanded me a bit because I hated sports. Gym and I were oil and water. I didn’t throw like a girl—any round object could throw me. Meadowlark Lemon lightened my approach.

Not every memory brings a smile. Life doesn’t work that way. Grief, death, and trauma also touched those seven rooms. However, they didn’t live there. They moved on, as the clock moved from one hour to the next, as my parents accepted heaven’s invitation.

Sunday, just before I entered the small area where my church community gathers, I spoke with a man who said he had just found a place to live. His apartment had been sold, so he had been kicked out. He said someone gave him a sandwich, but it was getting cold. I heated it for him in the microwave. He didn’t seem to know how to use one. I was struck with how much I take for granted.

I always grew up in a house, small maybe, but a house. My father called me his little girl even as I reached my sixties. My childhood is gone, at least externally. My parents live with the angels. Nevertheless, I am grateful, for the good and the bad. I wouldn’t be me without both.

May I live in this day, with whatever comes, and find its blessings. Peace upon all.

enough

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Wondering During a Cemetery Wandering

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 31, 2013| 2 Comments »

May my silences become more accurate. (Theodore Roethke, poet (1908-1963)

My husband leads me along a winding, unmarked road in the cemetery—I trust him to direct us out again. There were color-coded lines along the middle before the roads were freshly oiled. Now, I depend upon Jay’s sense of direction. For me north, south, east, and west could just as easily be called here, there, nowhere, and the dark side of the moon.

“How do you know which way is north. . . or west?”

He shrugs, smiles, and looks ahead. His map is innate. Perhaps he understands his place on the globe the way I intuit a new recipe.

We celebrate an unusually cool breeze at the end of July and read the names on the tombstones. I see my maiden surname. I don’t know if these people were related to me or not. The lush rolling hills are covered with angelic shapes, traditional tombs, and huge monuments chosen to stand out, to hover over the others. Yet, we don’t stop to honor the grand and the glorious. The persons buried there are just as dead as the ones under the flat, almost lost markers in center plots: mother, father, or beloved son gone too soon. I consider those lives. Who were they? Who am I to those I meet?

Wasps abound in the grass. They hover over the dates on the tombstones: born this date, died another. Real life includes plenty of unavoidable stings. I just don’t want to be the one who wields thoughtless ones during anyone’s “dash” time on this planet.

I take Jay’s hand. I’m not wearing a watch. My at-home agenda will wait as the silence absorbs me, and we trudge up a gravel hill into the afternoon sun.

listen to your heart

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Gravestones, a Sparrow, and Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

“I don’t ask for the sights in front of me to change—only the depth of my seeing.” (Mary Oliver)

In a small Indiana town I stand admiring a gravestone from the mid-nineteenth century—it bears my name. Sure, I added my husband’s  surname more than forty years ago, but I wore this one until I married. And that part of me exists, if only in the past. I have no idea who this woman was, or anything about her husband, Leonard. However, there is something sobering about seeing your name engraved on a gravestone, something that triggers the imagination.

As I wonder through the roughly parallel lines of monuments I see other graves with the same last name I had. My father didn’t know all his relatives. And he lived in Indiana for several years. I don’t know the full story about the distancing among those persons, only one incident that stands out because it reveals my dad as an innocent, vulnerable child.

He had an uncle, known to be cruel. At my father’s home he asked my father if he wanted to see a match burn twice. Dad always had a scientific mind. And, like all children he understood words at face value. The uncle lit his cigar, and then burned my father’s young arm. Dad howled and his mother came to his aid. She asked the uncle to leave and never come back.

No one else in that family ever returned either. The family tie burned as well. I never asked for the uncle’s name. The mama in me had the same reaction as his. I dismissed the uncle, too. Now my father has died.

I look at the layering of graves, from the earliest to the most recent. Moss covers some. The oldest are swallowed by black algae as well as yellow and green lichens. Time, rain, and wind have erased names, memories. No flowers decorate the older side. However, the past leaves unanswered questions. This person lived only twelve years and this one managed to reach his eighties. Unusual for early 1800. Personalities lose their touch. What color hair did she have? Did he treat his wife as an equal, or with the attitude of the times? Even the most ornate statue remains carved stone. It never speaks, leaves clues about the human spirit.

My meditative stroll reminds me of the last four lines of Robert Frost’s poem, “In a Disused Graveyard:”

It would be easy to be clever

And tell the stones: Men hate to die

And have stopped dying now forever.

I think they would believe the lie.

A baby sparrow hops among the stones. I maintain my distance. Unnecessary fear helps no living creature. He is no longer in that area when I return ten minutes later. Perhaps he has found his way to the sky. Perhaps not. I can’t help him any more than I can help my father’s long-ago past, or anyone’s past—including mine.

Instead I fly back into the moment: overcast, yet warm, externally quiet, internally alive with possibilities. The secret is to stay in the present and to love with as much power as I have. Now. On this June day. I pray to remember that, for longer than it takes to think it.

Peace to all, continuously renewed.

(pic from Morning Coach.com)

only live once MorningCoach

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