Cause of emptiness

When I feel empty I know that it is because I live in a universe where I am the center, all revolves around me…Today I feel that emptiness.

I acknowledge the feeling and the cause, don’t dispute either, and yet can’t go that next step of somehow stepping from the center of the universe, becoming more of an observer, I am stuck here feeling pretty lousy.

In my dream last night I was carving a human figure that ended up looking more like the shape of a mummy than a man with outstretched arms; there was no features on the head, not much of a head, no arms nor legs; I had been carving a large bar of Wisconsin Parmesan style cheese. The reason for the cheese is that I bought some recently, it was about six dollars a pound cheaper than authentic Parmesan, the only problem with the cheese is that it has no flavor nor odor, no character. But it carves easily and without surprises.

So what do I make of this featureless man, with neither odor nor flavor, armless and legless; just an ingot of nothing much at all?

As I write this I am playing Bach’s English Suite and drinking strong brewed Garuda Blend from Peet’s; Bach had more humanity than almost anyone who ever lived, Peet’s Garuda made double strength is not to be ignored, but that ain’t it is it? Trying to make something of myself won’t work by using stuff from the outside, no matter how strong they are in themselves.

Somehow I have got myself into a position where I believe that nothing matters unless it refers to me, I have been here before and so recognize the hole I am in.

I went and visited Bert yesterday; it was good to see that his dentures have been refitted, previously they were loose in his shrunken mouth, they moved about, we were both embarrassed. Now there is the dignity of a secure mouth. His medication was working pretty well, no pain, and he didn’t smell badly. There is indignity in sitting in a loaded diaper. We sat side by side in the hallway, listening to the aide doing morning activities, watching the other residents being wheeled in to hear the morning’s news being read to them, listen to the weather report, prepare to watch an old movie; we sat and watched the parade go by. Bert said that his daughter wouldn’t be visiting this weekend, that may or may not be true. He apologized for not keeping up his end of conversation, he does that most every time. We sat calmly, nodding, smiling, a few words going back and forth between us.

All I know is that Bert has some recognition of me, doesn’t know why or when, just that I am a friend; Bert is my friend, is a good friend of mine, has been for about four months now—Bert can’t remember my name, being a hospice patient means that he will go soon.

Maybe reliving the visit is what I needed to knock myself out of that phony position as the axis of everything. I feel the sadness of the upcoming loss of a friend, a more appropriate feeling than I had earlier.

Yes, this is a better place to be than where I was.

It is sad to lose a friend, each time I visit Bert something more of him has gone, has died.  I don’t have many friends, not many at all, to know that one of them is about to die is sad.  For much of my life I thought that sadness was something to be denied, to be replaced with happiness, that was wrong.   A friend is dying, it is fucking right to be sad.

Cold Monday morning

The sky is dull, mottled gray, the remaining leaves waving husks, the snow hardened by ice, the feeder is encapsulated and empty, the fun of yesterday is gone, . This is the weather to trim or cut down a tree, the sap has disappeared. Nothing alive but those waving husks.

But I know that everywhere the germ is waiting.

The interior of every seed and bulb has a vibrating molecule, waiting.

Within every tree are the dry tubes and cells, waiting.

Inside every window sits a person looking out, and waiting.

It may look as still as death out there this morning, but we all know that it is just a time, a waiting time, a necessary time.

And there is no stillness in death, there is sadness, loss, grief, there is a point of change: there will be the joy that arises from  sadness so intense that it is beyond tears; but there is no still ending.

Without man God is irrelevant

That powerful notion of Tillich’s came to my mind as I walked out into the cold morning after visiting Bert in the nursing home; there is just a sliver of Bert there today, a thread of the mind unraveled, repeating the same phrase, nothing I said could derail that circular train.

That fundamentalists don’t have the courage to embrace atheism, that atheist don’t have the courage to recognize what is inherent in them, what causes the change from animal to man, that the spiritual example of Jesus is more overlooked than not.  All of these notions and mixed metaphors ran into the raw spot of my soul, that place scratched by the experience of being with a man who was almost not one.

I wanted to write this while still feeling all of that experience, to put down without politeness the insight and profit I gain from this hospice visit; I grow when the callous of my soul is rubbed away, I have an opportunity to see and be a little bit more than I was because of what happened this morning.

And that’s really all that I have for now, time to rest.

The intensity of death

I have been wondering why people refuse to respond when I tell them that I do hospice, why they shut up or change the subject? What I am really wondering is what reason I do it, decided to do it?

I have written earlier about going towards that that I fear, but once that is overcome there is the next reason:

Intensity

The focus of being is on this one place, this end place, this boundary between being and the infinite black void; to accompany someone to that line may be about the most intense experience of my life, and of any life that I can imagine. I hope that when it is my turn to go over that edge that there will be someone there to hold my hand, to say goodbye, just to be there.

The strength of that experience makes the affirmation of life stronger; there is more joy at watching the birds at the feeder strive to get what they need to live.

And that may be all that I can put down here at this time.

I am watching a man die

Bert is in a wheelchair, sitting on a pad that sends an alarm if he tries to stand, and occasionally he makes that effort, there is also an alarm that goes off when he comes close to an elevator door. He is set into that chair as a doll is set on a shelf, tucked back as far as possible to prevent him falling off the shelf, he tilts against the right arm of the chair, the effort of sitting upright is to much for his body, the wherewithal to sit straight and dignified has gone.disappeared, that blow to his dignity is sad.

But it is that his mind is leaving the stage that one most notices, that that makes a man human is going away, Bert knows it, he tells me it and I nod agreement. Again I see the frustration as what is left of a mind tries to formulate a sentence, tries to find a word that once was common to it, and now can’t be found; the mind that is left races about in a smaller and smaller area memories and vocabulary now forbidden in their disappearance, frustration gives way to anger, and who would blame him, who would deny him the anger over losing his humanity. The mind plays on a smaller and smaller field, looking to do what a mind does as the resources diminish daily.

I have watched an infant discover his first word, ‘ball’ is the entire universe, he repeats ‘ball’ and laughs each time, it is the laughter of creation, the child is creating a life, a universe, and right now the universe consists of ‘ball’ and ‘not ball’. Soon ‘chair’ will share that universe with ‘ball’ and ‘not ball’, there is laughter and the purest of joy with each step of creation.

It was written a long, long time ago that “In the beginning was the word”, and that is what can be seen in a child’s eyes; the mundane among us argue that ‘creation’ has to do with making stuff from non-stuff, and other stupidities; they can witness creation by sitting with a child as each new word makes his universe explode, with joy and laughter.

From what I know it seems that it took humans about 150,000 years to do words, to make the change from dumb animal to that that creates, a process anyone can witness while spending time with an infant.

Bert’s world, his universe, is collapsing, his creation is in reverse, and he knows it, every person I have known who is demented knows it, and the anger at its disappearance is entirely appropriate, I will be angry too.

Right now I am not angry, I was, but now I am sad, there will be other emotions, but right now I am sad to watch death overtake this mind, this universe;

just as I laughed with the baby as it experienced creation, I have a few tears as this universe diminishes.

Bert’s teeth don’t fit any more, there wouldn’t be much justification in having them redone to fit securely; Bert is sick, he is very sick and won’t be here much longer. As on every visit, his mind summons itself enough to look straight at me, as honest and deep a look as I have ever experienced, as he says ‘thank you’, ‘thank you for coming to see me’, and then I walk away.

It takes a lot from me when I sit and watch this new friend die, I have asked myself if there is anything I can do, the answer is that all I can do is sit beside him, touch his hand, and understand when he tells me that his mind is going, this takes a lot from me, I go home fatigued, will have strange dreams, will find myself in the middle of the night typing this story. I may now be the best friend he has in this world, yet he can’t remember my name, and I am not allowed to display my last name.

The people whose jobs are to take care of the dying grow a callous that is obvious, they are kind and considerate, there is no cruelty, but there is an absence of connection, they have a job to do, and to do it again, and again, and to rejuvenate themselves enough in order to do it again tomorrow. I see this on nurses and aides, on administrators and pastors; at first this callousness made me angry, until I realized that if they were to explore dying with each one of their patients it would destroy them. It is for a volunteer, one without an agenda, to occasionally sit and explore dying with the Berts and Marys. If I ever see that I am growing such a callous I will stop doing what I do.

Dedication of a hospice facility

I have just returned from the dedication ceremony of a hospice unit at a large local hospital.

To say that it is as you would expect, is to say that there is something missing; the decor is Holiday Inn formula, everything soft with gentle curves, everything is bland.

It is the overwhelming blandness of the place that bugs me, from the painted clouds in the overhead lamps to the quilts and tapestries that leave nothing in my consciousness or memory. When the final paragraphs are being written in my life I want Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto 3, 5, and then all the others, at a volume that demands attention; I want an exclamation of life that contrasts with the absolute black void that is arriving.

I don’t think that embracing death, accepting the end means an absence of color, contrast, shapes that demand the attention.

Death is many things, it needs be many things, it is necessary in order for us to define and proclaim life; death is many things, but it ain’t bland.

I had dreaded going to this ceremony, visions of a lifetime of funeral home visits crowded into my mind, the process of packaging and dispatching the someone whom I once knew and loved, intense and heavy memories.

Hospice for children and parents

Today I had my first discussion about hospice activity that would involve both children and adults; I am giving thought to how a 69 year old guy can be helpful to those sorting out the new situation of loss.

I am attracted to this area because of the difficulty I had finding someone, especially a male, when my daughter lost her mother, and the unresolved issues that may now be addressed and put to rest.

That I went through this business and came out the other side may be helpful, at least that is the assumption that a few of us are making.

It has taken a week for me to write this much and post it, this tells me that there is more to look into here-and I will.

Why blog? 2

I don’t have a clear answer to my own question, I don’t know why one would spend time and effort on a web log, but I do know that getting it down, getting it down right has been much on my mind.

I turned 69 last week, and am fighting that often misguided urge to make a statement that shows that I am, and eventually that I was. It is misguided if it is based upon the wrong belief that there is meaning to all of this, and subsequently that I need justify my being against some absolute metre. Not that people shouldn’t make meaning for their own lives, that one can co-ordinate and drive all one’s facilities in a particular direction, we should, we do. It is that there is no great meaning in being, that the day there is no human life will be no more than the day before there was; the change will be that there is no one naming days and counting days, there will be no such thing as days.

The person who said that the greatest courage of all is that needed to face meaninglessness, that person was square-on right.

Anyway, back to why I am getting caught up in making a blog:

That saying of Epictetus, that I don’t know what I am thinking until I write it. I am charting the course direction for the next part of my life in doing this hospice work; but the work I am going to do isn’t yet clear, it will not be all traditional sitting at bedside and working through the stages. My intention is to do something that has to do with parents and children, something to make up for what was missing when Jeanette went into coma and then when she died.

I think that is as far as I’ll go just now.