Your Dying Spouse 291 - Peter Pan Will Live Forever

Welcome back for my offering to Five Minute Friday, the timed writing challenge hosted by the wonderful Kate Motaung. Please drop by and sample some awesome writing!

Once again, this is written ahead of time. I will try to work in the keyword. I hope! (It's DEFINE.)

Recently (well, two days ago) I was told, "It's OK. You can let go. You'll be better off. You've lived a long life."

Very true...from a certain perspective.

But in watching Ken Burns' PBS film on baseball, I was struck by something that was said by the historian John Thorn:

""(Our love of baseball) says, I think, that we're children, or we'd like to be. The best of us keep keep as much of that childhood with us as we grow into adulthood as we can muster. The most creative, the most happy, the most fortunate of us are those who don't lose the sense of play. Even after we're past the point of being able to play the game with skill, if we love it, it's like Peter Pan. We remain boys forever. We don't die."

EXACTLY.

Taking stock, I'm in severe and unremitting pain, I'm incontinent, my career is in ruins, and I know now that I was a crap husband to a woman who deserved far more. I'm fated to a messy and humiliating death.

But I still love the game.

It's de finest game around. (See! I worked inde word...sort of.)

I love the nights, when the pain retreats a bit and I can use my service dogs as pillows, taking in their steady breaths to comfort me.

I love the humour of said service dogs running desperately to avoid being puked on - or worse - and then stoically enduring yet another bath.

I love the fun of going online to find DVDs at the local library (like Burns' Baseball!) and looking forward to seeing them.

I love remembering the times when I was strong enough to saw through steel, to make one more part for the Comper Swift replica that I will never finish, but will fly in my imagination. I still turn over the pieces in my hands, and enjoy their cold yet living grace and symmetry.

I love the evenings, when Barb and I can watch either The Voice or Star Trek reruns, even though I'm way too trashed by dry heaves to understand what's going on.

I love kissing my long-suffering wife goodnight, and attending to the nighty-night rituals of the dogs, so that they can have pleasant dreams.

I love the sound o the dogs dropping off to sleep, snoring and chasing dream-cats.

I love this life. I've done some things well, some would get a 'nice try'...and some, well as the cowboys say (please pardon this):

Some folks learn by readin'
Some folks learn by bein' told.
And some folks got to piss on the electric fence all by theyselves.

But by God, I love it all.

And like Peter Pan, I'll be a happy boy forever.

Jesus, after all, said that the only way to enter Heaven is with the heart of a child.

So I'll never die.

Just for fun, here's one of my favourite artists, Petula Clark, singing her signature song, Downtown.

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 290 - When Friends Fall Away

We're linked with Messy marriage's From Messes To Messages - please visit Beth's place for some great marriage resources!

One of the most distressing things about being a caregiver (or a patient) is the loss of friends, the falling-away of community.

I hope that you have a core of steadfast and stalwart people who stand by you, who are there in loving support, gently taking some of the burdens when you can't carry them. There to listen, and to speak love into your heart.

But there are inevitably others, some on whom you'd been sure you could count, who fade away.

You notice that gradually the phone rings less often, there are fewer Facebook or twitter chats, and Instagram goes quiet.

Your inbox is full of offers from Ebay and not much else, and everyone seems to be so busy.

Your friends are going from strength to strength o Facebook, and you feel like you're strugging through a swamp...and you sometimes feel so alone.

What's going on? Why are you suddenly forsaken?

Well, this -

• When you're a caregiver of patient, a lot of people just don't know what to say, so they don't say anything, thinking their words will be trivial or trite. After not saying anything for awhile, they feel it will be hard to come back. They're ashamed of their silence, and therefore perpetuate it.
• Some folks feel that associating with the sick is bad luck, that it'll invite illness into their life. It's a silly superstition, yes, but it's rooted in a primal dread of illnesses that really were fatally contagious. Cancer are heart disease and the like aren't catching, but somehow they feel like an evil miasma that may ensnare those in attendance.
• Some don't want to get in the way. Caregiving and illness are all-consuming, and they don't want to place demands on you for interaction. They think you're too busy.
• Illness is depressing, and there are those who can't bear to see it, because they're afraid of what they might one day face. The caregiver and patient become a symbol of something fearful.

None of these are hard to understand, and we've all felt these at some point in our lives. Friends who 'drop' you are very rarely subscribing to the Pirates' Code: "He who falls behind is left behind."

But it sure feels that way, doesn't it?

Is there anything you can do, short of metaphorically running after them and tugging on their shirtsleeves, saying, "Hey, please, come back!"?

Yes, there is. You can keep the road back open.

• Stay in touch; even if you get no response, send the occasional email, and keep them friended on Facebook, sharing posts and status.
• When you talk to them, don't but these people on the spot. Be gracious and welcoming, and show an interest in their lives, genuine interest in their problems (even when they seem so much less serious than your own).
• Pray for them, because at some level they know they've turned away in your hour of need, and it will eat at their hearts.
• Don't take it as a judgement on you; see their weakness for what it is, their handicap.

What do you think? How do you deal with fallen-away friends?

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 289 - False Doctrine and Faith

This is going to be short. It's been another horrible day, and I am not sure how long I can keep this up.

Being pretty immobile, I got to see a lot of church TV, and while the vast majority of it is really solid teaching, there's some that absolutely makes my blood boil.

For someone in bad shape (and I don't count myself in really bad shape), it can lead to a loss of faith. I've been down that road.

First is the idea that God never gives one more than one can endure. There's something a bit passive-aggressive about this, because it makes you feel that if you can't stand it - if you break, as many people do - you're somehow unworthy, that your faith is inferior to that shown by others who shine through their trials.

There are things out there that can break us, and no, I don't agree with Ernest Hemingway that we become stronger in the broken places. We're just broken.

And this is where God comes in. When we face the unendurable, He can offer the only lasting comfort there is, the comfort of Hope...th Hope that came to life three days after Calvary.

We may be crushed, and never become stronger, but if that tiny spark still flickers, we can at least go from one moment to the next.

The second is the idea that when God takes something from you, it's because He has something better waiting, and your hands have to be empty to receive it.

I would not have dared to try that out on a couple I knew, who lost their only child in Viet Nam.

If God took Paul (his real name) away, all He left the parents was a hole blasted through their lives, an empty place that could never be filled.

But God did not kill Paul. A Viet Cong sapper did, when he activated a command-detonated mine. God's hand was not on the firing circuit.

What God could do, and did do, was provide a context for loss, and the ability for two totally torn-up people to go on, living their best for the memory of their boy.

It wasn't something better.

It was something they felt they had to try to do, and that they knew they could only dowith divine help.

 bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 288 - Embracing God's Will {FMF}

Back again with Kate Motaung' Five Minute Friday, the timed and keyword-driven writing challenge that always yields a bumper crop of literary talent...please visit!

As things have been a bit ghastly (almost died again, two nights ago...this is getting to be a habit, and not a good one) I'm writing ahead of time in the hope that I can edit in The Word Of The Week.

We'll see.

(It's EMBRACE.)

And so...

Accepting this as God's will has been a hard process.

I mean, being at least nominally a writer, I see some folks talking about God's Blessings in their lives, in the form of getting agents and contracts and multi-book follow-on deals.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to evade incontinence's effects by never straying far from a lavatory.

What's the deal, here? Is God dumping this on me because I need to be made better or stronger? Am I that bad that I need the 'smash course' in character-building?

There are those who have suggested that this is saving me from a worse fate, like Alzheimer's. To be honest, I am kind of glad that I won't grow old, but the theological basis for that 'comfort' is pretty sketchy.

I mean, if He could deliver me from this, He could deliver me from Alzheimer's, too. Right?

The more rational view (to me!) is that illness is a byproduct of the requirement for free will, and for God to 'take it away' would be something of a negation of purpose. Having to choose to believe when you're lying on the floor, your bowels voided because you collapsed on the way to the lav, is something of a test.

(This doesn't proscribe miracles, but I think that a careful reading of Scripture shows that miracles were brought for a larger purpose than to benefit the individual or individuals involved, but I may be quite wrong.)

At any rate, somewhere in this mess of blood and puke and faeces (sorry) is God's Will, and what am I to make of it?

The answer's pretty simple. I have seen enough love and grace in this life that I am willing to take everything else on faith, and that includes a purpose in suffering.

I don't have to know the purpose, now or, really, ever. The only thing I know is that my job is to tell of God's Mercy to my dying breath.

Why?

The only thing I can do now is to reach out with my words, to you who are reading this, and to say that while gems of grace in life may be rare, their beauty is enough to fill a heart.

When I look back with honesty and not an egocentric prejudice, I can see that I have been blessed and loved, by God and His ministering angels (in canine and sometimes human form) far more than I would have had a right to expect.

And I've lived the grace of trying to return that love in full.

I can deal with another needed change of underwear, another sleepless night of pain.

And I don't need to know why. I can embrace His will, and that's enough.

Just for fun, here's a lovely song, Who I Am, sung by Jessica Andrews. I hope you enjoy it!

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 287 - Spiritual Buoyancy

We're linked with Messy Marriage's From Messes To Messages - please visit Beth's site for some great wisdom and resources.

When things get dark, either for you as a caregiver, patient, or concerned friend or relative, how do you keep your spiritual buoyancy?

How do you keep your head above the roiling sea of despair, and how do you find the strength to reach for Christ's hand and walk on the waves with Him?

I think it's very much an individual thing, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution. We can take suggestions, and follow advice, but in the end we have to find in our own hearts that hope floats.

I've been both caregiver and patient, and I can tell you what I do. I hope that it will help you or someone you know in some way, or at least give some hints of where you might look.

As a patient -

• I try, every day, to accomplish at least small things, like writing this blog (and Starting the Day with Grace)and leaving comments on others' blogs. My writing is driven by faith, and particularly by a desire to help bolster others' faith...so helping other folks helps me.
• On weekdays, I email a prayer to Barbara, timed to reach her as she arrives at work (I can't talk on a phone any more, so email's it). The prayer's specific to what she's facing at work). At lunch I email her some Scripture, and I do take some time over finding something appropriate. It has to be short - she has little time - but the effort to help her, again, helps me.
• I am ruthless about eliminating faith-damaging media. If a book or movie gives me the wrong feeling, I'll drop it without a qualm, however 'valuable' it may be. And the only news outlet to which I listen is Fox. I've got no interest in hearing my faith assailed.
• While meditating on individual Bible verses doesn't help me, I do think about Jesus' human life, His message, and His divinity. The total picture makes more of an impact on me.
• CIGARS. There is something spiritual in the way the smoke from a cigar rises, something ethereal. And no, I am not making this up. When I smoke a cigar I feel a little bit closer to God. Economy generally forces me to smoke cheap ones (which aren't bad), but the creme de la creme, for me, is the Drew Estates 'Acid' Blondie Belicoso. It has a hit of vanilla, and a smoothness that soothes the pain in my pancreas.

When I was a caregiver -

• I tried to attend church regularly. It could be hard, and often I had to pick the closest...which happened to be a mosque. The imam was cool, and made me welcome to pray in my own way, in a setting of reverence.
• I read a lot of Christian apologetics, beginning with C.S. Lewis. I read anything and everything I could find to define and strengthen my faith.
• And I held onto the thought that there would be a life after caregiving. It made me uncomfortable, because the caregiving would end in death, but I was sincere about carrying the revelations I received into the new life that would open, and occasionally I did just that.

What about you? What do you do when you find faith fleeting?

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 286 - Songs For My Funeral

This will be short, because the past few days have been awful, and it's still awful. More pain than I could ever have imagined enduring.

Wow, sounds like I'm trying to be noble. I'm not; self-defined nobility is a luxury about which I don't care a bit.

It just hurts, and I'm glad I didn't know this was coming. And I fear tomorrow.

But anyway...I have been given to understand that some folks have definite ideas for their funeral, their 'farewell to this wold' event.

Weird. Or maybe not so much.

I doubt there will be much a service for me, for practical and financial reasons. Too bad, really, because the one after-funeral-reception I organized had an unexpected feature...the dogs got out of the back room where a hippie chick was supposed to be keeping them entertained (she stepped out for a 'smoke').

They thundered through the guest, helped themselves to the food, and launched out into the neighbourhood.

And all these people, dressed in somber mourning clothes, put on some big smiles as they wrestled the happy beasts back to the house.

That's the way it should be.

probably won;'t happen here...Barb does know how to keep the critters contained...but I do have my choice of music. She promised.

So...no sad stuff. Some AC/DC, some Def Leppard, and my favourite of all...Van Halen's Jump.

So, here's David Lee Roth and the crew with some final words for today!

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.

Your Dying Spouse 285 - The Brutal Flickering {FMF}

We're back with that wonderful flashmob of writers at Kate Motaung's Five Minute Friday; please visit to be inspired and awed!

I'm writing ahead - again - because I don't know if I'll be up to writing when the week's keyword is revealed. I'm not entirely sure I'll be alive, because I stopped breathing again, and had to be revived.

Being conscious during the process is scary.

So, here goes, and I'll try to work in the keyword later if I can.

(It's FRIEND.)

The past few days have been physically the roughest yet. If you'd like to know what it's like, imagine the worst flu you've ever had, chest pain and fever and shortness of breath and fatigue, with two strong men punching you, one just below the liver, and the other from the back, corresponding to the same spot.

Pain does not come as a friend.

You don't get used to this, ever, and life becomes episodic. Life flickers.

Caught between now and some other place, I sometimes hear distant music, too faint to even characterize in genre but infinitely appealing.

In the midst of the dreadful smells of vomit and worse, there's suddenly a smell of flowers under a bright springtime sun, and the cool tang of a sea breeze.

The pain will pull me back...but them something forces it to loosen its grip.

Is it God? I think so, though I'm not having visions of Jesus or hearing Scripture or seeing any golden streets.

There are those who would call these buried memories, dredged up when the body weakens and consciousness wanes. Oxygen deprivation and all that.

Bless their pseudo-scientific little socks, but these folks are all wet. I've been oxy-deprived; this ain't that.

I've been unconscious (badly concussed many times), and it's not that, either.

And it's not dreaming; my dreams are generally unpleasant memories involving getting shot at, or pleasant memories of shooting back. With visible results.

These flickers through the brutal facts of life are coming from outside.

They're not a road-map or a prophecy or a promise, as near as I can tell.

They're a brief balm, gently administered to keep my head in the game.

But that's just the what. What's interesting is the why.

I think it's pretty simple; I'm kept in the game so that I can say, without a doubt, that even in the midst of ferocious pain and fading hope, life is still worth living.

Not so much for "me waiting for my miracle", but for the love I can spread. For the kindnesses I can offer through my hands and heart and eyes, even though speech is now beyond me.

For the love. Because, dear reader, I love you. It's not a Kumbaya let's-have-a-group-hug moment, and it's not an "I love my Christian brothers and sisters!" thing. I love you as much for being a Buddhist or a Sikh or a Muslim or an atheist.

See, we all share things; we all share the ability to be hurt, and to have relief from pain.

I love you enough that I want your pain, whatever it is, to be relieved.

I was once a hard and selfish man; I am still a harder man than one whose company you would find comfortable. Don't drop by for a visit; you would not like me.

But I want you to be happy, to find bright and shining gems of happiness in everyday sorrow and tragedy.

And I am honoured to dedicate my remaining strength to that end.

And, yeah. I would die for you. And I will.

A bit of news..."Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart" has come home! Tate Publishing has gone south, and I regained the rights, so it'll soon be available in both Kindle hardcopy versions once again. In the meantime, if you absolutely can't wait (!), you can still get used copies from Amazon.

I have another blog, "Starting The Day With Grace". The focus is a grace quote from someone you might not expect (like, say Mick Jagger) and a short commentary. I hope you'll join me.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

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.