Life is tough, and then...

The equivalent to “suck it up” in my generation was “life is tough, and then you die.” That appears to be the theme of “Death” by Shelly Kagan, reviewed in this morning’s WSJ. In the review, Andrew Stark summarizes the Buddhist view and the existentialist take nicely. 

Summarizing a summary is a good writing exercise, so here goes:

A practicing Buddhist works at letting go of self focus. When he dies, there is nothing to lose. For the existentialist, self is all there is. The end of self (death) gives value to a life well lived. In the philosophical sense, nothing is important to the Buddhist and making good choices about how to spend the time you have is important to the existentialist. Two paths: not doing and doing. There is much to admire in these views, humility and courage among them.

This clarity helps me better understand my own path. For those who practice the Christian faith, death is not the end. Self focus requires a modification to love God and your neighbor as you love yourself. One day after death you will stand before your God and explain yourself.

To the existentialist point, many scriptures guide us in the area of choices. The difference to the Christian is that it is God who sets the agenda and not we ourselves.

For the Christian, how we live our lives determines what kind of an experience we will have after death. I would so rather hear my King say, “well done good and faithful servant” than hear fading applause or nothing at all.

Birth and Death

I’ve sat by two death beds. I’ve watched the births of my two grandchildren, and birthed two children of my own. It seems to me that birth and death have similarities. Both seem to take an inordinate amount of time. Both involve hard work on the part of the person who is coming or going and helpless attendance on the part of those who gather to witness, encourage, comfort and support.
     Birth and death are messy, painful processes, suspending the traveler betwixt and between for a time. The one who is being born comes through a dark birth canal where there is no going back. Thrust suddenly into the light of day, the baby responds with tears of outrage. Memory of a dark warm place subsides and a new world of wonder beckons...sight, sound, smell, touch, taste – and love, the new normal.
     Similarly, the dying one travels through a dark place, moving toward light, we are told. Tears are shed, but not usually by the traveler. Does death pull the curtains on life as we have known it and direct our attention forward? Do we leave earth’s womb and burst joyously into eternity?
     Someday, we will know.

Letting Go

To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

by Mary Oliver

My friend Sharon sent me this poem. I’m thinking about the process of letting my mother go. It’s time. My sister, husband and children, in the company of our pastor and his wife, buried my mother on Friday. Words of appreciation for her legacy were spoken. Strums on a guitar provided comfort, accompaniment for her journey.

The earthly tether of daughter to mother, mother to daughter, now is broken and we are both free. When the mortal coil is shuffled off, love doesn’t leave but the constraints of relationships – the responsibility of parent to child, child to parent, fall away. I do not believe that my mother any longer concerns herself with what I am thinking, nor is she privy to my thoughts. Maybe the biggest adjustment is that she is no longer “mom,” she is Shirley.

It comforts me to realize that she is no longer stuck at the end of a life she increasingly lost interest in because it was consumed by pain and loss. I believe she is now at the beginning of a new life that compels her entire focus. No looking back, and so I will live the rest of my mortal life without looking over my shoulder for her. That is, as soon as I can break the habit of reaching for phone to “call mom” to check in and keep her up to date.

Leaving the Stage

I’m feeling the truth of Shakespeare’s words –the world is a stage and we are the players.

Driving down the grade yesterday morning I had a vision of my mother’s final exit. Stoic until the end, fighting a lonely battle with life, she drew people in and pushed them away at the same time. She embodied all the mystery of life, fighting for autonomy while holding death like a secret within her. The feistiness that so often seemed to us to be misplaced endeared her to the staff that cared for her in her final days. Feisty woman, perhaps, was the role life assigned her.

Feistiness is a touchy and quarrelsome reaction but also a spirited one. Much of what my sister and I said to my mother ignited unintended, often shocking, responses. In retrospect, she cared deeply about things we didn’t pay much attention to. Things like politics, nutrition, privacy and family history.

Mom took her last breath early on the morning of August 1, 2010. In her final year, she grew more accepting of the love people offered her. Although we were by her bedside much of the time, I suppose it is fitting that we were not there when death finally came. By choice, she fought most of her battles alone.

In my vision, mom leaves the stage to join those behind the curtain – the producer, director, stage manager and technical crew who create the play. “Good job, Shirley,” they tell her, and they mean it. She has played the role she was cast in, interpreting her part to the best of her ability. She has served as a foil for others on the stage as they developed their parts, not an easy role but apparently critical to the success of a good play.

I look forward to the day when I can sit down with the real Shirley and we can share the good things in life everlasting. Will we reminisce about the life we lived in front of the dark glass? Who was the audience we couldn’t see? It is written in Psalm 8 that we are made a little lower than the angels. We know that they watch us. I think they surround us – a technical crew offering help and support and season ticket holders, appreciating the mystery God has wrought and the part we play in it.

Pain

I walk down the hall to my mother’s room with a cup that contains a small amount of mashed, tangerine-flavored slushie laced with morphine and anxiety medication. For a brief moment, I consider taking a spoonful of it myself. My mother is dying of an illness she has concealed from everyone. Her stoicism in refusing pain medication (not my word, but a kinder word supplied by others) will not allow her to relax and die peacefully, as my father did a little over a year ago. Instead, she will die as she lived, with her jaw clenched against the pain of life.

It is my sister and I, supported by the network we have put together, who will not allow her to meet death screaming in pain. It is the one thing we can’t handle. Without a reservoir of pain medication built up in her system, a last minute dose of morphine will have no effect.

Having reserves, planning for contingencies, these are important life skills that eluded my mother and so it falls to my sister and I to manage the end-of-life details. How many of our generation have said, “This is not the way we are going to do this.” Our parents chose not to burden us with their pain. Consequently, many of them have ended up in untenable situations and we have had to step in. We will be more open with our children, we say. We hope not to burden them with difficult decisions. Undoubtedly we will burden them in some other way we cannot predict.

I wanted to title this essay “Helping Mom Die” but my sister says I’m likely to invite prosecution if I do that. For the record, then, no lethal doses are involved. Her wishes were not to have her life extended with extraordinary measures and so our job has been to help her deal with what she already knows. She is dying.

We asked her grandchildren to send email farewells we could read to her. We printed them out and read them to her, beautiful testimonies to the legacy she is leaving them. This brought her peace and acceptance. Blessedly, she now will accept pain medication and we can drop the charade.

In nightly dreams, we process the shock and horror that has invaded our lives. My sister dreams about stepping in to help the mother of a black baby who has been kidnapped by five men. The men are torturing the baby but finally they return the infant, crying but seemingly unharmed. We analyze this strange dream at breakfast. Baby – the arrival of something new; a black baby – something foreign to us; kidnapped – snatched from life, beyond our control; five men involved in torture – the host of people we have to deal with who give us conflicting messages; and finally, the return of the baby unharmed – like birth, death is painful, even tortuous, but out of the process new life emerges.

In my dream, I have returned to college for a reunion and the possibility of taking some seminars that interest me. No one else in my party seems interested, so I change my clothes and go off on my own. I wander the campus, looking for a bathroom. I can’t find one that offers any privacy. My friends catch up with me and I am suddenly aware that I have dressed in a ridiculous fashion, one beige knee high stocking and one black one. They laugh at me. I feel shame and disappointment. No surprises here. Shame is the subject of the novel I am writing. My disappointment at having to cancel attendance at the Iowa Writers Conference feels like the death of a dream – eliminated, down the drain.

People who take care of my mother speak to me about the sacredness of this death watch, and they are right. It pains me to be forced to confront my selfish desire to do what I want to do. Death has inconveniently gotten in my way. I think about the sacrifice that Christ made. I think that in the Paschal preoccupation with the crucifixion, the church doesn’t tell its most compelling story. I can sympathize with being nailed to a cross; I cannot empathize. The real story is not the way Christ died, but that He gave up his life without complaint for such unworthy people. People like me, who try to dress up for the occasion but are found wanting in their hearts. People like my mother, who took such good care of the face she presented to the world but let illness to run rampant in her body and her mind.

God have mercy on our souls, and grant us Your peace.

Processing

What did my mother mean when she said, “Sydney, I can’t do anything,” in my 7 am wakeup call?

“What do you mean, you can’t do anything?”

“I can’t do anything.”

“You can’t get out of bed and get to the bathroom?”

“That’s right.”

Alarmed, we were at Skyline Assisted Living Community within the hour.

“Can I help you to the bathroom, Mom?”

“No, I’m okay for now.”

How can that be? I have to figure out what it is she really wants. Does she want me to cancel my vacation? I have the sense that this isn’t that kind of manipulation, though it is clearly manipulation of some kind. After meeting with the Wellness staff, that is clear. They say they saw her up and dressed and walking around just two days ago. But today, she says she’s done.

Part of the difficulty is being sandwiched between two communication styles. In my parent’s generation, women talked on the phone for hours and never really got to the point. My kids, on the other hand, are alarmingly direct and apt to text me, “Getting a divorce. How R U?”

With the parents, I’ll know how they feel, but not what they want. With the kids, I’ll know what they want, but not how they feel. (Caveat, to the best of my knowledge, neither of my children is getting a divorce.)So I am left wishing for a little less information from my mother and a little more information from my kids. I couldn’t even begin to analyze my own communication style.

A call at 7 pm this evening confirms that we really do have something to worry about. Mom is now on a two hour watch and if they don’t like what they see, she is off to the emergency room in an ambulance. If she doesn’t die from an undiagnosed illness, she will die from embarrassment.

I’ve tried to honor her express wish to have no medical attention. Now I have to shield her as best I can from the result of that decision. She has no primary care doctor so no one knows what is really going on with her. She wants to be made comfortable, but we don’t know how.

Finally, I think I understand what she is trying to tell me.

“I’m scared. I’m sorry things have turned out this way. It won’t be much longer. Will you be there?”

Yes mom, I’ll be there.

Fox News killed my mother

Ha! Made you look! Mom isn’t dead (yet), but she has declared that this is the end of the line for her and taken to her bed permanently. A steady diet of Fox News has so depressed her that she can think and speak of little else but “that evil man” who has ruined our country, and it’s killing her.

In its unrelenting quest to “make us look,” Fox News pundits and other alarmists pump out doom and gloom messages that, bookended with the mute video of oil spilling ceaselessly into the Gulf, is most depressing. For a generation of people who thought they would never have to go through the hell of watching the world fall apart again it is too much to bear.

Of course, there are other channels and a power switch. Mom chooses to swill a poisonous dose of tainted information. That is giving “that evil man” way too much control over her life, I point out. She believes that the government is set on confiscating the house she owns free and clear, emptying out her bank account and cancelling her health insurance. She will die first.

Sadly, I have no argument that things aren’t bad, probably worse than we know. Focusing blame in one direction doesn’t seem productive and my pleas to her to consider the lilies of the field or think about whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy fall on deaf ears.

“You raised us to take pleasure in the simple things in life,” I say, but pleasure seems to her a poor aspiration -- Nero fiddling while Rome burns. She feels bankrupt, although in fact she has a family who loves her and a pension my father worked all his life to provide for her.

She is convinced that I just don’t understand what we are losing. I am deeply aware that I have had the privilege of living through one of the most prosperous periods of time the world has ever witnessed, and that men died to make it so. But clever riposte won’t save us. While my mother finishes her days watching the thrust and parry of self-appointed talk show titulars, I mourn her loss of hope. That is an even greater thing to lose.

A Compassion Cocktail

I'm sure I'm not the first to define Existentialism as:
God is dead.
Get over it.
The book of Ecclesiastes might in turn be defined as:
God lives.
Get over yourself.
When I was at university, I found Existentialism to be compelling. Not the God is dead part, but the part that suggests that we might have the ability to live well and die with courage and dignity even if God were not in the equation.
I've always found Ecclesiastes to be heady stuff as well. Living well is not living for enjoyment, but it's a good second.
I just finished reading The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman. In this book a man loses a piece of his soul in a passionate act of selfishness and cruelty. The young girl who witnesses the scene loses her will to live. Both are redeemed by performing acts of compassion. In essence, the only way they could get on with life was to move past their own experience of joylessness and focus on the needs of others.
The dictionary definition of compassion is:
The deep feeling of sharing the suffering of another in the inclination to give aid or support, or to show mercy.
The proper mix of elements found in Existentialism, Ecclesisastes and compassion can be a powerful cocktail Consider this recipe:
Add together one living God as the base (the single spirituous liquor), the people around you as a modifying agent (aromatic wines, bitters or fruit juices that soften the raw taste of alcohol and enhance the natural flavors) and a dash of your abilities (the special flavoring and coloring agents). Stir with ice, strain into a glass and serve.
Other mixes are possible, but maybe not as powerful.

Life and Death

Last night I watched American Songbook on PBS. I was again deeply touched by Paul Robeson slumped against a dockpost by the Mississipi, summing up a bone weary lament with the refrain, "I'm tired of living, but scared of dying."
We deal so efficiently with the fear of death by focusing our attention elsewhere. When death does manage to get in our face, we may be willing to put our earthly affairs in order for the benefit of our heirs, but we put off any reckoning that may be required of us until another day. It's a handy self-deception with consequences we all complain of daily -- busyness that robs us of joy.
Though I've always sought to account for my soul, more often I have lived the deconstructionist life of a brain ticking in a body with God as the clockmaker who winds us up and leaves us to wind down on a timetable only He knows. Consequently I've tried hard to stay wound up, fearing to remove my hand from the key that locks me in place.
What freedom there is to remove my hand from that key. In the existentialist view, I can do merely that and let whatever will be, be. Or, I can go further. I can yank the key from the keyhole to my being and toss it to God. My ticking ceases and I begin to match my breath with His, my steps with His. This is prayer, and it is a whole body experience, often expressed as a dance with God.
I imagine this dance. Raising a torchlight above my head, I lose the shadow of myself as I illuminate the path ahead and move toward that light. Taking in breath, I test new ways to move, stretch forth my leg, point my toe, place my foot down lightly with purpose, shift my weight over my leg and find balance. I reach out my arms and link my fingers to the strong fingers of One who tugs me into a new positon and whispers in my ear, "See what you can do?"
With a touch, my soul lover helps me find my balance. Like a pas de deux partner, or a yoga master, He closes strong hands around my wrists as if to say, "I've got you now, I'm with you."
When we've worn out our bodies with the business of life, when we finally tire of ticking off the days of earthly existence, is there a dancer inside us to be gotten?
At the end of Paul's song in Show Boat his people, who have gathered around him in sympathy, turn toward the river and wave a greeting to the boat coming that is coming by. And that, perhaps, is the choice.

Smile

No smile is so candid as that of a man or woman with Alzheimer's disease. To look full in the smiling face of one who has been robbed of higher function is to glimpse a soul now unblemished by pretense. Stripped of sophistication, their smiles often mask confusion, but sometimes radiate a young child's joy.
This morning from my place in the choir I watched Gene stretch an enthusiastic hand out to greet Phyllis as he made his way up the aisle ahead of his faithful wife Kay. A sweet grin spread across his face, testifying to his recollection that God's house is a good place to be, in fellowship with others.
We opened our books to sing and I caught the eye of Judy, whose powerful soprano voice has been silenced by this awful illness. Delight registered on her face as she seemed to recall from somewhere in the depth of her being the breath before the first note.
When the trinity of body, mind and spirit is broken, when the mind goes, we often say the person is gone. Truly, the person we knew is in the process of going, and it is agony for the family. But those smiles are postcards to those left behind, reminding us that the ones we love will one day repossess their minds in the new heaven and earth.
Surely the God who knit us together in the womb retains the pattern of our being and will restore us to health, as he did his own Son.

Papa

This Sunday marks the first anniversary of my Father's death. In his memory, here is the eulogy I delivered at his memorial service.My sister and I called him Papa. In some senses, he wasn't unique. He grew up in tough times. As a very young man, he fought in World War II and survived to come home, marry, buy the home he lived in with my mother in Mountain View, CA for over 50 years and raise two daughters. But I want to talk about the ways in which he was unique.
I was raised by a man with good character. From him I learned fortitude and perserverance -- to stick to a job until it was done; that a job worth doing was worth doing well. Whether it was getting on a train to commute to his job at PG&E in San Francisco every day for 34 years, or a building a project at home, Papa always had the right tools for the job, and he taught me how to use them.
When I was in college I commuted to San Francisco for two summers and worked in the file room -- he said that to this day there are invoices PG&E can't find because of the time I spent in the files. Papa loved to tease, but his teasing was kind. Despite his cruel illness in his final years, that sense of humor never left him. He cracked jokes literally until the day he died in an Alzheimer's care home in Sonora, CA.
Every one of Papa's caregivers said the same thing about him. He was a gentleman. He was a gentleman and a gentle man. He loved football, good food, his cats and all the neighbor's cats and the city by the Bay, but most of all he love my mother and his two daughters. He wasn't a churchgoer, but I had the privilege to witness his declaration of faith in Jesus and his baptismn in our church in Campbell about 10 years ago.
I also had the privilege, along with my mom, of being with Papa when he left this world. Our prayers were answered and God took him gently. His character shone through to the end. He communicated his love to us and he worked hard to leave us well. He was prepared for this journey, with his earthly affairs in order and his spirit in God's hands.
I miss you, Papa.