Although this series is focused on caregiving for a spouse with a terminal illness, it might be worthwhile to step back and look at situations when death is unexpected.
It can happen in a 'terminal' scenario; my beloved writing mentor, Marvin Mudrick, was diagnosed ith inoperable prostate cancer, and two days later suffered a massive heart attack. Two days instead of the year he and his family had been led to expect.
Quite a shock. And the terminal diagnosis eased none of it.
And there is this, the event which led to this post...the crash of a hot-air balloon near Lockhart, Texas, on the morning of July 30, 2016. The pilot and fifteen passengers were killed.
Each of those lives, cut off in mid-stream. Books unfinished, bills unpaid, pets waiting at home to be fed by hand that will never touch them again.
Hot-air ballooning is somewhat safer than taking a bath. No daredevils here; no one seeking instant apotheosis with the final words, "Hey, dude, watch this!"
Just some folks going for a quiet drift over the Texas farmland, and meeting a fiery death. On the news there was a haunting photo, taken from the gondola and sent to a friend by a passenger, twelve minutes before the end.It all looked so nice.
And the family has to pick up the pieces.
And they need caregivers.
They don't need to understand the reason why; they don't need platitudes about God calling people home.
They need help in tying up the loose ends of a life that is over. They need a cooked meal and a quiet place to cry.
They need the silence of...not "I understand", because you don't...but the silence of I am so sorry, and I will sit here with you, and talk if you want, so you know you're not alone.
They need a friend who understands that grief does not keep a calendar, a friend who will be here with the meals and the hugs this week and next week and next month and next year.
Grief can be in this for the long haul.
You want to be a caregiver for the suddenly bereft, you better put on your seven-league boots.
It's a long haul
AND YOU ARE NEEDED.
Marley update...he's received a lot of support, but STILL NEEDS HELP TO BE SAVED.
WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE! From a thousand signatures to OVER 160,000!
If you have a mment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
Once again it is time for Five Minute Friday, the keyword-driven weekly timed writing challenge hosted by Kate Motaung.
The work this week - which I requested, and to which Kate graciously agreed, is HIDDEN.
Because I have found some hidden truths along this road.
We have a problem in dealing with death, here in the West. We don't like it; we try to keep ourselves looking young, we often send older family members to hospice care in a place where they are surrounded by strangers, and we pay a lot of money to have cheerful and attractive corpses at open-casket funerals.
We use euphemisms; he passed on, she went to be with the Lord. When was the last time you heard someone say, "He died."?
We don't like it because we see death as defeat and loss.
But the truth is that when we push the awareness of death to the edges of our consciousness, like an obnoxious party-guessed shouldered outside, we're losing something now.
We're losing the present moment to that hidden fear we don't want to name, and we're losing honour, in the way a dying man may shamefully try to bargain with God.
Why do we hide from death? Is it that we find life of such worth that we must cling to it at all costs?
Is it that we want one more chance to make our lives right, to erase regrets, and to die with a clean balance sheet and our goals reached?
Is it that important to cross out every item on your Bucket List?
Do we really think we can find a way to hide from death?
Before I married I was a different breed of cat. IAs you may know I'm Asian, and practiced Zen Buddhism (thought I did then believe in Christ's divinity and sacrifice, as I do now). I meditated long and regularly, and took every moment to be sure I remained in the moment. I tried to make my soul a still pond, a mirror of whatever the sky chose to show.
I was a happy man. I needed little, and wanted less.
But when I took on the mantle of the householder I felt I had to be different, for Barbara's sake and for the sake of her family, that I would not be too weird to accept.
It didn't work well. I tried to keep what I truly am hidden from others, and for sure hidden from myself.
I tried to be the Western Christian churchgoing suburbanite. (And they still thought I was weird.)
And it led me to fear pain, and illness, and death. I spent far too many moments regretting the goals I would not reach, and hoping to outlast the reaper for another season. I took things of great importance far too seriously, and those of little significance I treated with shameful neglect. (This is not the fault of Christianity...it was my error in trying to be that which I was not, and bury that which I was, which is a Christian Zen Buddhist.)
But hidden streams have a way of resurfacing, and mine has. I've come to realize that very basic, hidden truth...
Accepting death is the way to freedom in each moment, and the acceptance of death comes at the death of ego.
We all want to live, but the only way to really live is to be present in each moment, not looking ahead with anticipation nor back with regret.
The next moment will be what it is, and if I live, fine. If I die in the next minute, this post won't be complete but my life will be, and I am OK with that. I am ready. I would like to see tomorrow, but I'm not desperate for it. Better to enjoy today, and tomorrow in its time, if it comes.
Ego wants to catch us in a cage of clocks and calendars, bound to past and future by tendons so tight that they can only be severed with pain.
When we really need to be flowers, which are born to be cut, and which beauty always was transient, and meant to be so.
My honour is not lost by the mistakes I've made in the past. If I have my honour at the moment of my death, that is as much as any man can ask, and it is enough.
Life is composed of the small and the large, and it''s incumbent upon me to treat the small with respect and value, and not to puff up the large to the size that it dominates all, leaving no room for Life.
Make no mistake, I'll fight with everything I have to live. And I can fight all the harder, knowing I have nothing to lose, and nothing to fear.
Hagakure, the sayings of Yamamoto Tsunetomo which were recorded 1709-16, is the book that codified the concept of bushido, the way of the Japanese Samurai. (You can find a summary of Hagakurehere.)
It's all about accepting death in order to live more fully, and live up to one's responsibilities, and maintain one's honour.
The title, Hagakure, can be translated as hidden by leaves.
Interesting how the most basic truths are the ones we don't often clearly see.
Time to go sit zazen.
And yes, there were Christian Samurai.
(Side-note - I wrote this, and it took more than five minutes, ahead of time...and death nearly came for me a few minutes ago. I could feel my heart slow, and stop, and hesitantly start again, aided by Ladron leaping onto my chest when she saw what was happening. I'm a bit shaky at the moment.)
And here's a musical theme, which you may remember from the 80s (does anyone want to remember 80s music?)
And yes, given my work history, Barbara does call me her Secret Asian Man.
Marley update...he's received a lot of support, but STILL NEEDS HELP TO BE SAVED.
WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!
If you have a mment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
We're linked with Messy Marriage's From Messes To Messages; please visit for some great marriage resources!
As a caregiver to the terminally ill, you have probably seen something of "the review of my life" that most of the dying go through, a kind of stock-taking...how did I do?
A lot of this will probably be relational, because death does focus one on the question of how we lived with other people?
Was I a good spouse?
Was I a good parent to my children, and child to my own parents?
Did I keep my friendships the way I should have?
And then there are the enemies. For a Christian, the question...and it a very important one...is did I forgive them?
Sometimes forgiveness comes easy, but at other times...especially when the relationship with the enemy was close...it's a lot harder, and many terminally ill folks feel a kind of despair that they can't really let go of their anger, their hate, their unforgiving spirit.
There's a fallacy there, and that's in the word let go.
We aren't computers; we can't delete memories (actually, when you delete a file in your computer you aren't physically erasing the whole thing, you're erasing the computer's 'knowledge' of where the file is stored and freeing up the space to be overwritten over time because it's no longer associated with a remembered 'address').
Our memories remain, and they can be quite a burden, raising us to anger twenty years after the fact, an anger as rough and raw as it was when the offense was committed.
Is there any hope? Sure, as long as we don't look at forgiveness as a door through which we pass, and close behind us.
It's more of a mountain that we are trying to climb. Sometimes we can make good progress, but other times, we his a patch of loose rock and go sliding down. Partway, or even all the way to the bottom.
Forgiveness is not a single act. It's a commitment to climb that mountain, even when we slip.
And there's no need for despair, because as long as we are moving upward, we are forgiving.
Marley update...he's received a lot of support, but STILL NEEDS HELP TO BE SAVED.
WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!
If you have a mment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
The thing that really sucks about being terminal is that there's a lot more past than future, and it you're screwed up big-time, it feels like there's no way to get out from under the dreck.
And I was there last week. My careers are over, I'm a crap husband (Barbara had to remind me why people even take vacations), and being serious as a heart attack, I tended to scare would-be friends.
To say I don't mix too well with people is kind of an understatement. (Unless they're needing some kinetic attention, and then I mix rather too well.)
We have dogs. A lot of dogs, because we opened the doors to anyone who had no other place to go.
This comes with a cost; Barbara works - hard - and I have limited energy, and it's fading fast. These guys do not get the attention they deserve, and you look at Facebook and stuff, and you think..."I'm not enough. They get food and shelter and each other, but there's not enough me to go around."
I felt like crap. I felt like I was failing them.
And last Friday (this is Sunday night) a little Belgian Shepherd pup turned up, and insisted on coming into the house. I hadn't seen him around the area, and so said, "Sure...come on in!". Thought, well, one more. Bring it. A dog out on his own lasts less than 24 hours here.
He stayed the day, and that afternoon his parents, having just gotten home from work and finding their dog missing, were driving round the neighbourhood, slowly. I flagged them down, having a gut-feel for what they were looking for.
And so Rex went home, much to the dismay of everyone here. In a few hours he made himself more popular than a snowcone vendor in an Arizona summer. He's got a warm, winning, and just plain FUN personality.
This morning...guess who showed up?
Yep. Rex. He wanted to be here. With the minimal attention that I can now give, with the heat in the house (this is July New Mexico, and we can't afford AC, with all that...he wanted to be here. He jumped into my arms. And didn't let go until I took him inside to meet his friends.
Yes, his folks came and got him, but he'll be back. They don't mind; they know he's happy.
Everyone's happy.
And I am not quite the failure I thought.
Marley update...he's received a lot of support, but STILL NEEDS HELP TO BE SAVED.
WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!
If you have a mment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
Time for Five Minute Friday, the weekly timed keyword-inspired writing challenge hosted by Kate Motaung.
First, my apologies for not replying to comments nor visiting from last week's FMF. It was a hard week, and I spent a good part of it without the sight in my left eye due to an infection pressing on the optic nerve. I can sort-of see again, but it's still a fuzzy world.
This week's word is HELP.
I can do this myself!
No, I can't. Not anymore. I need help dressing, and bathing. Food comes from a box, sometimes via the microwave...and I used to be able to copy recipes like Alice Springs Chicken from scratch.
So, yes, I'm required to ask for help in a lot of things.
AND if that weren't enough I'm supposed to accept it gracefully!
Wait, There's more.
I'm still supposed to help people, even while wearing the humiliation of being helped myself.
Sheesh. This is just so...WRONG.
What the heck is God up to, here?
Could it be that this presumptuous Deity of ours is actually trying to make me a better person? The nerve of Him!
He already created me perfect to begin with!
When I get to Heaven, God...we will have words.
Oh. Okay, then.
He's just reminded me that we can have all the words I want, but I'll be outnumbered Three to one...and one of those I won't be able to see.
Sigh.
So...anybody need a hand with anything?
The musical accompaniment for this post is...wait for it...
Marley update...he's received a lot of support, but STILL NEEDS HELP TO BE SAVED.
WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!
If you have a mment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
We're linked with Messy Marriage's From Messes To Messages...please stop by for some great resources!
The choices involved in caregiving can be hard. Perhaps the hardest is choosing where to put the bulk of your effort when you're needed in two places at once.
The situation that probably comes to mind is having a relatively young spouse develop a terminal illness when you've still got children living at home. The kids need care and attention for their development and their future, but where do you make the choices on what you can't fulfill?
It's easy to point to the almost cliched 'sense of entitlement' that American kids are supposed to have, being driven from music lessons to soccer practice to church youth groups by harassed parents. I mean, kids didn't have all this fifty years ago!
True, but our society's changed, and children need something like a resume to be able to get the best path through even high school. In sports, for instance, a child who wasn't involved in Pop Warner football in grade school will have no chance of making a high-school team. None.
Choices have to be made, but they have to be the best possible compromise for everyone...and they have to be choices that you, the caregiver, can live with when death ends your duty.
Some suggestions -
Talk about the situation as a family. Kids can surprise you by actively jumping at the chance to take responsibility, and to be part of the caregiving team. Give them a chance to give you 'respite time', and the opportunity to help their siblings. (Obviously, this bespeaks a level of maturity and does require some supervision and accountability.)
Reach out for help. Many churches have support groups that can help you not only cope with the emotional stresses of caregiving, but also the practical aspects, such as getting kids to activities when you can't.
Involve your ill spouse. Your husband may not be able to drive your son to football practice, but your son may be tickled pink to run his wheelchair to the bleachers so he can be at least a spectating participant.
Learn to say no in a compassionate way. Some needs and wants, you just can't meet. You have to be able to protect your spouse's interests, and your own, by not taking on more than you can handle. Everyone has a limit.
What do you think? What are some other ways to merge caregiving and your kids' upbringing?
If you have a mment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
I'm too ill to write much, and pretty disheartened. Barb's dad had a major setback after his great rally from a major stroke on July 3, 2016.
Doesn't look good.
I still believe in his miracle, that he came back from the first crisis long enough to have a few more conversations with the people he loves.
That is, in itself, a victory.
Don't turn away from God because He doesn't follow the teachings of idiot TV preachers who say you just have to pray in the right way (and send them some money) and all will be fine.
We work for the God who let that fate from which He caused Abraham to spare Isaac befall His own Son.
Christianity is not a children's story with a pastel, smiling Jesus.
Neither is life.
But at the end of it, there is Someone who loves us.
The musical inspiration today comes from Linkin Park...
If you have a mment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
Time for Five Minute Friday, the weekly keyword-driven timed writing challenge hosted by Kate Motaung.
This week's word is CREATE.
Well, that's an easy one. I have to create my own paradigm for living, my own reason to go on, every day.
And I have to create the life that supports it, and makes it possible.
I used to have a very different view of life; a profession ait which I had at least some respect (and which I enjoyed), reasonably good health, and things on my lifetime to-do list to which I looked forward.
And now it's all different. There's no profession, and I don't even talk with anyone except my wife...and her, not much, because it hurts to ta,, and I think more slowly than she does. Makes it tough on her.
There's no grand life plan, no to-do list that gives purpose to my free time. Why work pn projects that won't be finished, and that I can't even use?
And there' the thing. I have to change my thinking, to allow for the fact that I may still have some kind of future.
I have to create that hope in my heart, and create the mechanism by which it can be realized. In writing, say, I have to make up reasons to keep working on my unfinished novels, and not to just let them slide.
I have to create the reason for my own survival.
The musical inspiration for today's post comes from Phil Collins...
If you have a mment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
Almost missed today's post, which would have been kind of a first, as I don't like not to meet a goal. And my goal here is to be consistent.
However...two abscessed teeth and the related damage to vision in my left eye (hope it comes back!) put writing pretty far down the priority list.
But not all the way, because in spite of a new chapter of pain, and having to re-learn depth perception on the fly (my left eye is covered by a homemade and hokey-looking patch)...there's good here, and that good is found in God's grace.
It's found in the fact that for whatever reason, I really don't resent this. It's not that I'm a particularly good person, and I can have a truly nasty temper (wanna play golf with me? I thought not). But the 'resentment gene', or whatever it is, just isn't there. It's really OK.
Prefer not to have it, sure. But that's not what's happening. So...it's OK.
The other part of the grace is found in Sylvia, who has been sitting up with me through some long nights. She would much rather go sleep in the bathtub (yes, she does), but duty has called and she is less than six inches away.
Life's good. period.
If you have a mment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
If you've been following this blog, you may recall that my beloved father-in-law, Dick Schmeisser, suffered a massive stroke on Sunday, July 3, 2016.
Today he is having conversations with family, and the plan to bring in 'memory aids' has been shelved. It's not necessary.
The doctors say that he has gone through three months of 'optimistic' recovery in two days.
They call it a miracle.
I used to think that God grants miracles dispassionately, to make a point. The recipient was, to some degree, random...in the right place at the right time. But I may be wrong. I mean, look at Lazarus.
Maybe He saw a family that was broken-hearted, good people that needed one more I-love-you from their Dad and Grandpa, And maybe God's heart broke, too.
There's no medical justification for what has happened. None. On Saturday they were talking about permanent feeding tubes and a nursing home to the end of life.
Now...well, there's going to be therapy, but there's also a woman he's going to marry. (He's 79, and was widowed three years ago.)
Never give up. On yourself, on your family and friends, and most especially...never give up on God.
For some musical accompaniment, here's Mike and the Mechanics with "All I need Is A Miracle".
If you have a mment, I'd like to ask you to visit Change.org to consider a petition to free a 'death row dog' who has been separated from his family for ten months over a misunderstanding. Marley was saved from Afghanistan by a US serviceman; please help make sure this story doesn't end in needless tragedy! Marley's gotten a lot of support...but he still needs our help.
If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one. Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
