Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Your Dying Spouse 169 - Win At All Costs {FMF}

Time for Five Minute Friday, the weekly keyword-driven timed writing challenge hosted by Kate Motaung. Please visit to see some really good writers!

First and foremost...Strawberry is learning to play. It's heartwarming, and because she's still completely uncoordinated, hilarious. She is also learning to sing, with an absurdly high voice.

This week's word is LOSE.

I don't like to lose. As in I really hate to lose.

And so, I don't plan to. Things are getting worse - and today I had rather a bad fall - but there is a plan.

(Over to Barb..."You have a plan? Mr. I Wanna Be Spontaneous If It Kills Me?" Yes, dear, and if you roll your eyes like that they'll get stuck and you'll look like a zombie.)

Where was I?

Ah. The plan.

It involves giving myself Hooks To The Future.

See, if I have enough to look forward to, I'll be more likely to keep fighting when I do stupid things like...well, stop breathing. As I did on Monday.

Lay down on the floor because I was about to pass out, and suddenly I could not take a breath. It was like drowning. Couldn't call out, but I did beat on the floor with my hands...well, you would, too...and Syl and Ladron came running. I grabbed Syl's collar and she pulled me upright while Ladron pushed from behind. And I could breathe. Kind of. It hurt. Still does.

But I want to live, and I set small goals to tomorrows...like seeing the next Star Trek movie.

Seeing Strawberry grow up.

Reading books I have been saving.

And yes, getting well enough to work on the aeroplane again for at least a little while each day.

Not losing means finding an excuse to win. Any excuse.

It means overlooking things that are demeaning, like puking and incontinence. Those are passing things, really. (Did I just say passing? Forgive me!)

And it means flogging myself to the point where my dear wife simply can't bear to look.

But seriously, if you win ugly, it's still a win.

And there is only winning. "I'll do my best" is an excuse for losing.

Game on.

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.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Your Dying Spouse 168 - Orlando, Death, and Caregiving

In the world in which I once moved, an incident like Orlando would not have been more than notable, raising some eyebrows. "Fifty? Bad show, that. Pity. Let's go sort the buggers, shall we?"

San Bernardino? Part of the daily grind. Fourteen was the low side of the usual wastage.

And that, frankly, is a pretty horrible way to look at tragedy. It's a hardening that cracks the soul, allowing humanity to leak away.

Including humanity toward oneself. I make jokes about things, where I really shouldn't; jokes about not being able to breathe, jokes about puking blood, jokes about world-class incontinence.

"Could be worse, I could have acne."

And Barbara hates that. She wants to be sympathetic, but who wants to extend feelings toward a jerk who can't even sympathize with himself?

And yet...it makes my life easier. If I took the time to really think about how crappy this all is, and how bad the outlook is getting, I'd probably be a quivering mass of tears, and sure as heck I would not be writing this.

And I think it's helped me survive. Yesterday I did stop breathing again, and it was terrifying in the moment. I was lying on my back, it was like drowning, and all I could do was to beat my hands on the floor.

The service dogs came running. I was able to grab Sylvia's collar, and she pulled me upright while Ladron pushed from the back. I could breathe again, painfully.

And I joked about it when Barbara came home./About how the girls must have rolled their eyes and said, "What, again?"

Makes me smile to think about it. But makes Barbara sick to her stomach.

I am taking something away from her. I am robbing her of the role of comforter, the role she should by rights have as a loving wife and a diligent caregiver.

"Pity. Let's go sort the buggers, shall we?" Would you want to live with that?

And so, a question...how does one reconcile one's own hardness of spirit, as a patient, with the need to allow the caregiving spouse to express sympathy?

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Your Dying Spouse 167 - Spiritual Darkness

This weekend Barb rented The Letters, a recent film about Mother Teresa.

She wrote letters to her spiritual advisor during her career of working with India's poor, describing the torment of the spiritual darkness in which she found herself...abandoned by God.

And yet, she didn't abandon those who depended on her for care...and for her just plain showing up.

We may feel abandoned by God. Sometimes I do. Mother teresa did. Maybe you do, too.

But we can't break faith with those who expect us to show up.

Feeling abandoned does not give us the right to turn away.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Your Dying Spouse 166 - All I Want {FMF}

Time for Five Minute Friday, the weekly keyword-driven timed writing challenge hosted by Kate Motaung.

The word this week is...WANT.

Today, I realized...I want that.

Barbara rented a DVD of 13 Hours for me, the true story of the debacle in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.

And seeing it made me homesick for the person I used to be.

Sheer lunacy, of course, and even addressed in the film when one of the guys says, "Why can't I go home?"

He's told that warriors aren't trained to retire, but the truth is...sitting on a rooftop in a crappy foreign neighbourhood, holding a machine gun and surrounded by people who wanted to kill him, he was already home.

And I want to go home, too. I don't want to die by degrees, screaming in the night because my belly hurts (that was the past few nights' experience, and it sucked).

I want to go home to a place where life seems normal, and where death makes sense.

Welcome to my world.

And, as promised, a couple of pictures of Strawberry...

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Your Dying Spouse 165 - What You Say Matters

Caregiving is hard, and it can drive you to the limits of your patience. And sometimes the triggers seem so trivial

My wife, for instance, has admitted that she has a hard time not resenting that I can't stand and chat. Standing hurts; I either have to move, or crouch on the floor. (Chairs ain't comfortable, not hardly.)

For her, one of the things that most people take for granted - a conversation, say, in the kitchen - simply isn't possible.

But saint that she is, she's held her tongue. (I did 'interview' her for this post, and she agreed to address this topic.)

But remaining silent was hard for her, because...well, she wants things to be different, and they can't be, and since God sometimes doesn't seem to be listening, the only place to vent, effectively...is on me.

She won't do it because she knows that will colour what I take with me across the Divide. And she wants that to be something good.

There is the saying...language alert here...that it takes seven "Attaboy!"s to make up for one "Dumbshit!"

And it's true. We tend to recall the negative much more readily.

When time's limitless, it's an inconvenience, yeah, an annoyance (especially if you've been the dumbshit), but things eventually stabilize. You just sometimes have to live with feeling bad.

But when time's limited, negativity in a relationship really hurts. It takes away, measurably, from what joy remains.

And it does go both ways. As I write this Barb is watching a variety/comedy show that I find distinctly unfunny. I could say something, and ask to put on something else...but why? She likes it.

And why does my loathing it matter? I'm old enough to take care of myself, and to tune out what I don't like.

Sometimes, you've just got to let it go.

So you can let the ret of life be.

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Your Dying Spouse 164 - Not Cursed

First, for all who have been following the story of Strawberry the Baby Bullmastiff...she's grown.

Since this morning.

And she is fascinated by lizards!

Still haven't heard her bark. She has a very high-pitched whine when she needs to go out, but I am curious as to what her voice will sound like in full bloom.

I was recently thinking about the story of Jesus and the blind beggar, and the question posed to Him...was the blindness a result of the man's sins, or those of his parents?

Jesus said that it was neither...it was, in effect, a chance for God to show Himself in the world through the restoration of sight.

Exactly. Obviously, not all of the blind are cured, and not all of the sick are healed, but in every case, I do believe that there is the opportunity to turn the affliction into something positive. Reflecting God, if you're a Christian...and even for those who may not believe, there's still a chance to set an example of courage and compassion.

Compassion is perhaps the key word, here. Only those who have gone through a great ordeal really know what it's like. Their feelings are 'stretched', as it were, and in that stretching comes a new perspective, and an understanding of what others may be experiencing.

Immanuel Kant said that to understand all is to forgive all. The 'all' may be an overstatement, at least for mortals, but Kant was a pretty bright dude.

For the caregiving spouse, this has a lot of relevance, because you are going through an ordeal. You are seeing your husband or wife decline before your eyes, and you're seeing the future of which you dreamt retreat into misty fantasy.

Meanwhile, at work, you likely hear co-workers whose lives seem to go rather more smoothly complain that the break room is out of their favourite tea, or that someone dinged the fender of their new car.

A part of you, I'm guessing, is ready to go volcanic, with the thought, "You're whining about this while I'm going home to dying dreams and bleak hopes? How dare you!"

And that's natural.

But I'm willing to bet that there's a bigger part of you that sees the complainer as something of a child, crying over a playground insult or a broken toy...and that you're metaphorically picking him or her up in your arms and saying, "There...it's OK. I understand."

Because you've seen Hell, and it's fires have not hardened you, and that you're glad that this is the biggest problem in their lives.

I'll bet that people consider you a good listener, and someone whose sympathetic ear makes them feel better for baring their souls.

I'm betting on you, dear caregiver.

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Your Dying Spouse 163 - Saving Strawberry {FMF}

Time for Five Minute Friday, the weekly keyword-inspired timed writing challenge hosted by Kate Motaung.

Today's word is HAVEN.

And I have to say...I suggested it to Kate, because in giving a haven to an abandoned and abused baby Bullmastiff, I found something of a haven for my own heart.

Six days ago, the waif appeared on my doorstep. Took footsore to walk, and too sad to lift her head, she had been dumped in the desert and used for target practice by what Chris Kyle (American Sniper) called savages. They aren't just in far-off lands, guys. They are among us.

We got her into the house, and got some strawberry Pedialyte into her (hence her name, Strawberry Hill). She accepted that, and food, with a kind of grave dignity that belied her age...for though she's the size of a grown German Shepherd, her adult teeth - so white! - have just grown in.

She has a sleeping crate in the kitchen, and likes its dark coolness, but more and more she's venturing out...not to play, yet, but to explore a little bit o her new home, and meet some of her noisy brothers and sisters.

And yet, she's almost silent, aside from a quiet whine when she needs to go out. She's very neat, and fastidious.

My physical state kept going downhill this week...but what are you gonna do? leave her to the desert? Call animal control to take her away and kill her?

Not likely.

And I have learned that saving Strawberry has saved a part of me. I thought I was hitting bottom, but it was a false bottom (like a spy's briefcase!), and there is a reservoir of care and love that was just waiting to be opened. There is still resilience in my heart, and that lends stamina to my body. My haven is strength, forged by the love that says I'm not walking away from this.

Truly, of faith, hope and love...the greatest is love.

Love is what provides a haven, that place for which we all look, and so few find.

Strawberry found it, and in so doing, she showed it to me.

And so, here's some music to go along with it...

This is what she looks like. We actually don't have a picture yet, but this one is a dead ringer from

this website.