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.

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 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.

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 161 - Readings

Last week, the Books and Such Literary Agency ran a blog post about what reading can do for an individual, in terms of stepping back from stress and, more generally, finding something of a paradigm for living.

I was well enough to leave a comment (that doesn't always happen, now). Briefly, I said that I read mainly nonfiction to keep myself going, because fictional stories generally have an arc and a resolution...and my life's become something of a disaster, with a lot of things going to be left undone.

The moderator suggested that I an finding bases for comparison in reading about people who handle adversity. It's a valid point, but in thinking about it I realized that I'm somewhere past that.

And this is what a caregiver needs to know. There is a point at which inspiration doesn't work.

In facing terminality, you do come to a place in which stories about overcoming adversity are nice, but they're kind of like hearing testimonies of healing miracles on Trinity Broadcasting...I'm glad for the folks, but it isn't me.

There are no happy endings here. I wish there were. I sometimes talk a brave game, but the fact is that this is really discouraging, and really scary.

So I read for atmosphere, for milieu, for a paradigm against which my life can make some sort of sense. Light romantic comedies (in print and on film) that I used to love grate on me now.

There's no identification with 'heroes'; I'm not one of those. There is little nobility in dealing with a situation you can't change. We're expected to make the best of it.

I read to find a place in my soul in which life makes sense.

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 160 - Voices {FMF}

Time for Five Minute Friday, hosted by Kate Motaung. It's a weekly timed, key-word-inspired writing challenge, and there are some great writers of faith there. Please visit...and if you're not participating, join in!

It's getting down to time to embrace the suck.

And that is not entirely a bad thing. Having a life in which every day has become a survival situation - as in, how on Earth am I going to get through this particular 'episode' - it does lend a certain perspective that is probably hard to obtain anywhere else.

But it can't be shared, except through these words, and they are only marginally effective.

The people around me have their own lives and concerns, and things that bug them kind of roll off my back. An unmown lawn, for instance...that's pretty far down the list of annoyances for me. (OK, I'm on a mesa in New Mexico, and there is no lawn, but you get my drift.)

It's my own private Alamo.

But there are voices...

"I prayed to God to heal you, and got an answer...He said No." (Gee, did you really have to tell me?)

"We've been expecting this rapid deterioration for a long time." (Well, gosh, at least you don't have to live it, eh?)

And there are plans made, of which I can never be a part.

It can be pretty discouraging. This can be a pretty lonely path (especially when you're lying o the kitchen floor, too hurt and tired to move), and those voices make it lonelier still.

The word this week is cheer, and I guess I can work it in here.

These voices bring to mind - unfairly - a verse from Siegfried Sassoon's poem 'Suicide In The Trenches" -

"You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
who cheer when soldier lads march by,
creep home and hope you'll never know
the hell where you and laughter go."

Yes, it's unfair of me to think this when others are just living their lives, and responding as best they think they can to mine. It's harsh, and cruel of me to even think this...but life has become harsh and cruel, and the only way I can survive each day is to be harder than death itself.

But there is also the good cheer of a soul reduced to the honed edge of killing steel...

There are other voices...

"You are never out of the fight." - from Lone Survivor.

"The only easy day was yesterday." - the SEAL motto

"I ain't got time to bleed." - from Predator.

"Come on, Lakotas, it's a good day to die!" - Sitting Bull

"On the third day I will rise again." - my boss, the Jewish carpenter.

Voices. All depends on who you listen to, I guess.

The musical inspiration for today's post is Russ Ballard's 'Voices' (remember the 80s?)

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 159 - Keeping Promises

We're linked with Messy Marriage's Wedded Wednesday. Please visit Beth for some great marriage resources!

As a caregiver, one of the most important things you can do is...keep the promises you make.

It doesn't matter if it's something small, like agreeing to prepare a special meal that your husband or wife might still be able to enjoy, or something big, like working to fulfill a last 'bucket list' milestone.

When the person you love is on a mortal timeline, a promise kept is a validation.

It says to the recipient, you're still important...what I can do to make your life easier, I will. No excuses, and no unnecessary delays.

Until you feel your days dwindling, you don't know how that feels.

We're used to promises deferred. I mean, life happens, and in the normal course of events, we understand that.

Sorry...stuff got in the way...how about next week?

I just can't swing it now...but wait 'till next year, and we'll take that trip.

That's part of marrie life, bit the situation and the expectation that it will be accepted.

But when next week may bring a further decline that makes the homemade pizza impossible to eat...or that there is likely not going to be a next year...that puts a different complexion on things.

This is not to say it'll be held against you. I think that most people, when faced with death, become pretty philosophical about disappointment. After all, the process of seeing one's body fail is a seemingly unending string of disappointment.

But why add to it?

This situation seems to call for invoking a What Would Jesus Do paradigm -

Only say yes when you mean yes.

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 158 - Walk Of Life

Too ill to write today, so with apologies, here's a video I hope you will enjoy.

Your Dying Spouse 157 - Don't Expect That I Will Fail {FMF}

Time for Five Minute Friday, hosted by Kate Motaung. It's a weekly timed, key-word-inspired writing challenge, and there are some great writers of faith there. Please visit...and if you're not participating, join in!

The word this week is a good one...EXPECT.

Not quite sure what to say. It's hard to breathe, very hard to move, and this has gotten really, really scary. There is a new and nasty symptom, a fell harbinger, and my right lung's screwed up. This really sucks.

I don't want to be brave. There's a part of me that wants to curl up in a ball on Abba-Daddy's lap, and close my eyes until He makes the bad things go away.

It's an appealing image. Trouble is, it's not how He made me.

He made me something of a hard man; not unsympathetic, and not lacking in compassion (I hope) but relentless in the fight. I take injuries pretty well, and will happily improvise a splint rather than take a broken arm to the doctor. I've done minor surgery on myself.

Still and all, pain and fear make for some pretty high walls. But there is something in which I take comfort...the first verse of I Shall Be Released, written by Bob Dylan and best-performed by The Band (anyone old enough to remember?).

They say every man must need protection
They say every man must fall
Yet I swear I see my reflection
Some place so high above the wall
I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released

I am going to scale those walls. Hardness is my strength; ferocity is my mainspring; and victory will be mine.

The victory is not over death; that comes to all. The true enemy, revealed ever more clearly, is despair astride the fell steed of hopelessness. He will not prevail.

I hear the deguello all around me now; but it's not my throat that will be cut. I will be the last man standing.

And ready for another fight. Which I expect to win.

If you're interested, here are the musical references - first, I Shall Be Released...

and next, the deguello (it';s a bugle call signaling 'no quarter'; it means 'to cut the throat')...

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.