Hunkering Down with Grief

Grief and sadness have been my (private) companions for some time, going back even before my life was forever altered by a car in my neighborhood.   But since I was forced to inhabit this place of extreme helplessness, I have felt myself hovering over my vulnerability and pain, wrapping myself around this so as not to burden others.  Not a wise course of action to be sure, but one that feels familiar.  I am tired of reminding people of my difficulties, my needs, my pain and loneliness.  So, what does this look like?  When I'm not out in the world carrying on normal conversations, performing common everyday tasks, I am at home in my refuge of a house, wrapping myself up in the beauty that is here, the comfort of my two cats, and the escapism of movie watching and working with my beads.  There is an antisocial element here that feels slightly off to me.  Do I not want to see people, and reach out to those I love?  Yes, and then again, maybe not as much as I thought.  It looks like I want to be with my melancholy and not have to justify this to anyone.  But then this sorrow seems to grow like a seductive weed inside me...  feeding on itself... I have the distinct feeling that something in my life has changed forever, and that I have left behind some wide open, spontaneous and carefree terrain for good.  Old age and death are certainly more vivid in my life's view.  There are psychologists who would agree that this self-focus is normal in someone who has suffered a trauma to their mind and body, and I would like to let myself off the hook as easily as that -- but I can't.
A woman to whom I was related long ago died last week, and I have been ruminating all week about this death, and the meaning of this loss to my children who have not really lost anyone very close to them.  A sobering conversation on the phone today with my older child reminded me that I couldn't address her loss, that I had failed her in a way that would normally be objectionable to me.  There were no words to explain this, I found, and I felt very sad indeed.  I had stayed turned inward at a time when I should have pushed myself out of my bubble and reached out to this young woman who lost one of the most meaningful family members in her life.  Why, why?  I wondered at the conclusion of the phone call.  Self-absorption yes, but perhaps there is something else here.  Was there a lurking resentment in me  that my oldest trusted her grandmother and her grandmother's vision sometimes more than she did that of her own parents?  And would that all be called up in the remembering we would do as we spoke about her grandmother?  There were many times when I imagined that my own feisty eccentricity drove her to find comfort elsewhere, and that she trusted her grandmother's stoicism and conservatism more than she did my messy inconsistency.   I know that I often felt unequal to this formidable mother in law, unequal and then contracted in my resentment.  But, over time we happily found ways to engage each other with kindness and respect -- we forged an amicable (perhaps not completely loving) relationship in the midst of the family landscape.  And I could let go of some of the judgment that had been rained down on me.  My eldest daughter has been a firm task master with me the way her grandmother was, and even now I sometimes wonder if I ever will measure up to her ideal.  I have tried and tried, and then again, I have stopped trying, hoping to be accepted and loved for myself, just the way I am... and just the way I am sure that I love her.
Families are so complicated.  We have such needs, dreams, and expectations of the good life together.  We all want the comfort of loving relations:  the kind attention, compassionate words, the presence of those who truly know us ...  And despite our desire for these really reasonable things, we thwart ourselves, moving often in the opposite direction from that which we want.  Moving inward may have its benefits (reflection leading to insight, or privacy in times of great duress just a few that occur to me), but it can also take us away from connection, and the happiness that emerges from this closeness.  I behaved lately much as the turtle or the snail, pulling myself inside my shell in an effort to somehow protect myself.... but protect myself against what, I wonder?  I need to take a page from the Buddha's wisdom, I think, and ask what the intentions and effects of this choice are.  If I wish to continue a life of non-harming, then the path is clear; it is the path that leads outward to others, to compassion and understanding, and love  This shell of mine must be discarded until such a time as it is truly needed.

A Long Life Ends

There's a woman who has been in my life for a very long time  -- some 50 years now -- who died last night.  She would be my mother-in-law if I had remained married, but happily perhaps for her and for myself, we ceased being related in a family way about 20 years ago.  We rarely found ways to accept one another:  I seldom dedicated myself to the minutiae of being a homemaker, and she wouldn't and couldn't accept my untidy, lawless, eclectic self.  She would have been 100 years old this December if she had weathered all the deterioration of her life -- the blindness, deafness, the growing sense of not belonging in this world ... She leaves behind saddened grandchildren, an embittered daughter, and emotionally limited (but adored) son.  She died alone, which seems sadly appropriate, dying as she had lived for so long...  Not comfortable, but appropriate.  Earlier tonight I was hoping that I would have the chance to pay her a visit, to offer some respect for the long journey traveled, and some comfort in this mysterious passage between life and death. I could bring some of my hospice wisdom and compassion, perhaps, and offer it to a woman who knew so little love in her long life.  I could help heal some of the scars left over from our past...  And then a phone call letting me know that she was gone.  Her daughter took the news bravely at the beginning, but then unleashed her sorrow and bitterness that her mother who had apparently never offered her much kindness through her life had died alone.  For her this felt like the cruelest fact of all.   I sit here now in a quiet living room and remember soberly that we all die alone.  And, does having someone there in the end really make a remarkable difference, or ease the way for us?  This is a question I ponder and turn around in my mind continually as I sit at the bedside of the dying.
Watching someone you love and have a history with die is very painful, and it returns us to our own mortality.  We know where we are all going ...
My youngest daughter sat with her grandmother a few days ago and felt huge discomfort and fear.  She had never seen a person so close to death, pale and immobilized, the breath rasping irregularly in the throat, the chill of the body growing .  This death seemed alien and terrifying in the context of her own vital, warm, loving life ...  I heard this and wished I had been able to be at her side.  But, as we all must die alone, so we must allow those we love dearly to have their pain - alone.  Will you sit with me when I'm dying, I asked?  Will you be able to do that which you find so hard to do now?  Yes, she said.  Good, I said, as though I really believed that we have any control over these things!
I will miss this stark, lonely woman who died tonight, a woman who cut me no slack when we were related, and who often armored herself with views and prejudices I couldn't support.  She had a life, a very long one, and I'm sure it was filled with both the joys and the sorrows that I have no knowledge of;   I wish now that she be free of suffering in her continuing journey.  She might have been an "enemy" of sorts in my younger days, but in being that, she was perhaps one of my best teachers, helping me to conjure up both the worst and best of myself.  I am grateful for this.  I am glad she lived.

Just This Step, Just Now

Last night I walked up the hill and around the corner with my cane, taking myself out to sushi (alone) for the first time, and I found myself paying attention to every step I took on the not so even sidewalk.  It was like walking meditation:  first one step, place the cane, then another step, and of course be sure not to see yourself as this fragile being closing in on the end of life.  Rather think that you're a peaceful monk taking his evening walking meditation, each step keeping him mindful of his body, his practice, his life...  And, when you cross the street, keep your eyes not only on your steps, but also the comings and goings of automobiles.  I'm sure I will never again take for granted the act of walking across the street!   There's uncertainty, for sure, and then there's the memory of that night of June 15, of being flattened on the pavement in a fraction of a second.  I came close to a car as I approached the restaurant - it was running with someone in it, someone on her cell phone, and it was almost as though I could smell that trauma of two months ago.  How strong are our memories and sensory selves...
Playing the piano again with my young teacher I was returned by my senses to that comfortable cultured world I was so happily inhabiting before everything changed.  I again delighted in the sound of Bach under my fingers, and felt the joy that comes with being a transmitter of beauty.  My left hand is working fine, if a little weak and tentative at times.   It needs some extra attention.   I will do some Well Tempered Clavier pieces left handed as exercises to both relax and train that left side of my body.   So, even playing the piano can serve as physical therapy...
Am beginning to see more and more of the things I do these days as pieces of physical therapy, from the lifting of a cup of tea, putting on my new silver running shoes, or the filling up of the bird feeders with fresh new seed for my little wild friends....  And when I was at physical therapy yesterday and was being worked on quite forcefully, and all I wanted to do was scream out in pain and discomfort, I found these words to repeat to myself: "this is just discomfort, that is all. this will come and it will go."  A helpful choice.  It is ALL coming and going.... And as I take my monk's walk on these neighborhood streets in the days to come, I know I am becoming stronger in my 66 year old body, and in spirit too.  I am becoming more of who I am, who I have been all along.

Elbow Portrait

No More Training Wheels

Yesterday I took a photo of my elbow's xray so I could keep an image of what the esteemed surgeon had done to it six weeks ago.  It was an astonishing image:  a long plate around the end of the elbow affixed with 7 screws, I believe.  To look at it you might find it hard to imagine ever bending and moving that elbow again, but of course all that metal is there to facilitate bone healing.  The laconic surgeon, Dr. Kandemir (from Turkey) informed me that it was essentially "healed."  In other words, he saw no more evidence of fracture.  I peered at the picture, and concurred.  But all that metal!  I couldn't keep my eyes off  those brilliant lines in the xray....  New parts of my body.   We went on to talk about the future -- what I now needed to do to make limbs work normally -- and I realized that the doctor was releasing me to the care and wisdom of the physical therapists whose job it is to make me work hard, endure pain, and ultimately regain function.  Healing of bone had occurred in both elbow and leg/ankle, and now the body needs to be retrained.  My immediate response was fear.  Oh my god, this is going to hurt, I'm going to have a really hard time, I want there to be an easier way, etc., etc.  Sort of like what a young child might feel when told that he or she can actually ride that bike with two wheels ....  "you can do it ... yes! .... you can do it .... go for it ...."  We all have memories of that.  We've all stood at that threshold separating protection (training wheels) from the big wide world (motoring on two wheels)....
I've never been very good at physical feats, rarely trusted my body to do anything correctly, and so moving across that threshold is a tad harder for me, perhaps.  When the doctor said my boot could come off my leg, and there were no restrictions to my physical activities, I should have felt some sort of excitement, but instead sensed a little panic inside.  What will I do with the pain?  the fear?  How will I know when I've done too much - gone too far?   Obviously the time has come to remember to trust, and to know that I can take care of myself.  Have faith in the body's phenomenal power to heal, and in my heart which knows I can tend to myself.  
I have been doing just that for quite some time now, without supervision from those related to me.  My mindfulness practice has shown me my inner wisdom and I have finally paid attention!


I have a plan, I think, to begin to tell stories in a different way, without benefit of the computer's keyboard.  I ordered a recording device, and I hope to speak into this.  The more I look back at my life - and there has been a lot of that lately during this recovery - the more I know I want (need?) to tell some stories that lurk in the memory web.  I want to bring some people who have informed and delighted me to the forefront, so that others may see them and like them too.  The free associating mind I seem to be endowed with can spin out stories, I suspect, once I get started reflecting on someone, like my mother, my grandmother, my very eccentric stepfather ...  It will be good not to look into a computer screen at the words popping up, and popping up ungracefully or inarticulately, causing that fatal pause in the narrative stream, and stifling the true voice which holds us spellbound.   So, without too many expectations, I will do this.  It will make me feel useful, much the way I feel useful when I practice the piano, create a great necklace, or knit a beautiful scarf.  Those will come also, but for now they feel daunting physically.  Who knows  -  it is likely they are entirely compatible with the doctor's wishes for me to continually push myself.  One of these days I'll park myself at the piano and revisit my dear JS Bach, and see just how my hands/arms/whole body do with the challenge!


A lot came up for me as I finished A Widow for One Year by Irving, the narrative of a woman who struggled with the loss of a mother, defining herself as a creative being (a writer), and discovering the nature of love with a man.  I was particularly touched by her willingness to allow love for the woman who abandoned her.  That and her commitment to writing.  These are familiar pieces for me indeed.  It's a sprawling, yet well composed novel, and when you reach the end, you feel just a bit of loss as you say goodbye to that manufactured world, and thank the writer who gave it to you.  My heart goes out to those who give their life blood to writing so that I may be enchanted and inspired!  Question is:  can I perform that kind of enchantment for myself?