The View From Here

This has been my life for the past five days:  grief, love, family, logistics, Michael's cancer, my mom's overwhelm, having my daughter in town, meeting my son's lovely girlfriend, tired to the bone, amazingly beautiful spring weather, medical bills, acts of kindness, hearing of more and more friends and family with cancer, healing of family issues, shortness with each other, knowing it's time for flexibility and letting everything go. 

I think that's the short list.

Below are a few words that I just wrote to my friend.  I mean them.

Life is only grace - not just because we are brought dinner when we are being stretched thin, but also because we get cancer, our parents and beloved dogs die, and our colons go berserk and have to be removed so that we can feel better than ever.  It all feels like one big, colorful kaleidoscope, and we are a dash of blue or green or purple moving around amid the other colors in what can feel like a jumble, but what looks like exquisite, changing patterns.  No control, just chaotic perfection.



(Or maybe it's not really all so chaotic.  It only seems that way when we find ourselves wanting to make a human kind of sense out of it.)

and today as we drove to the funeral home to make final arrangements a bald eagle flew overhead 
some people believe that such auspicious moments are their loved ones giving them a sign
i have no way of knowing if my dad was flying high above me, white head and tail, finally free, finely free
i love bald eagles and to see one here is so rare
i just want to say thank you
to eagles and dads and skies and friends and family and myself and baby crocus bulbs peeping out of the ground and the great mystery

Liberation

Yesterday, around 4:00 in the afternoon, while peacefully napping, my dad escaped his body.  It was the death that everyone says they wish for for themselves.  His last words, before he closed his eyes to nap were to my Mom:  "I love you."  Then he slept.  And, at some point, he was gone.

Even though his final act of leaving this earth was peaceful and easy, the labor that got him to that point took more than a year.  Throughout the last 15 months, there were many times that we thought Dad wouldn't make it and, overall, his last year of life was a long, slow decline.

Last night I asked the universe - or anyone and anything else who might be listening - the question, "Where is he?"  And absolutely nothing returned in answer.  Nothing.

How could I even be sure that the body in the wheelchair this past year was my dad?  The only evidence came from the fact that that old body looked somewhat similar to the body I have always called "Dad".  Anything dad-like in behavior has been gone for a long time.

So when did he take leave of this world?  I don't know.

It is very easy for me, for a lot of people, to think that we don't contribute enough to this world.  We think we need to stop wars, eliminate hunger, save the planet, etc., etc.  In his last months, my dad taught me that, just by being who we are, we contribute far more than we can ever know.

For a long time, Dad rarely knew who I was.  He contributed nothing to a conversation.  So often, we wondered why he was still here.  But in the last 15 months, his hanging around wore down so much resistance in us that, at his death, there was nothing left of the roughness that has characterized the relationship between me and my mom throughout my life.  The old stories had been melting for a while, and the love and acceptance that was being nurtured was apparent as we stood by my dad's bedside.  It is as though Dad was willing to barely inhabit his worn-out body for as long as it took for healing to occur in his family.  I don't think that he set out to be someone who changed the world, but the world changed because of his being.

After the call, when we went to the nursing home to see Dad one last time, he was lying on his bed, peaceful and at ease.  There was nothing tragic about it.  My dad was liberated.  Still tears flowed and we held each other.

Something big in me has surrendered to life.  There is less resistance to what is taking place.  No more resistance to my mom or nursing homes or keeping alive a tired body.  The miracles are all around, and I am in awe.

Last night, the full moon.  My dad was out there dancing with it.

Haiku Monday

Ms. Foam is hosting the weekly Haiku Monday over at her place.  I have never even contemplated participating.  How could I ever put myself out there like that?  But for some reason, tonight it sounded like a fun challenge.  Maybe I've found my inner "who gives a shit", due to walking this road with Mr. CfP's cancer.  The theme is "silence"

Rust-colored desert
sands rest after spring rainstorm.
Listen for its breath.

Blood pulsing through veins,
Wind in trees, belly gurgling.
I can't hear silence.

"Yes" Revisited

I remember a post I wrote here on January 29th titled, "Saying Yes".  I didn't come up with that topic by myself.

My friend, Lesa, and I challenge ourselves to write on a different topic each month.  Then we share our writing with each other.  Every month is like Christmas.  I wait in anticipation of our deadline when I will get to open an email that will contain the gift of Lesa's voice in prose or poetry.  And every month, I get to stretch myself by delving into a subject that I might not have otherwise thought about.  In January, our topic was "Saying Yes".

My mind had been churning on that piece for a couple of weeks.  And, as usual, when conditions were right, it spilled out of me in no time at all.  It spilled out of me three days before Michael's lymph node biopsy, eleven days before we heard his diagnosis of Mantle Cell Lymphoma.  

How beautiful that a week and a half after proclaiming my exuberant yes-ness, I would be tested in such a way as I have been tested.  Did I really mean what I said?  Can I say "Yes" to Michael's cancer?  Can I say "Yes" to any treatment that he may undertake, no matter what?  Can I, as I wrote, truly say "Yes! to what comes next:"?

It hasn't been so easy.  Does it count that I haven't said, "No"?  I haven't railed at the gods and at the company that exposed Michael to toxic chemicals 25 year ago.  But there have been times that I have resisted this.  Fear has caused me to hesitate when asked if I want to see the PET scan photos. And I have closed down a couple of times out of fear of losing myself.  It's ironic that I ended up losing myself by the very act of closing down in order NOT to lose myself.

Good thing I gave myself an "out" in that poem, only saying that "there are days when it [Yes] swells in her heart and out through her pores".  It doesn't happen every moment.  I have seen the days when it wasn't so yessy around here, and they aren't real pretty.

I don't believe that saying "Yes" to this cancer will make it proliferate any more than I think that hating it will cure it.  But loving it will ensure that no part of Michael, no part of our life together, no part of me will be cut off from wholeness and love.

Even the least wise among us can have a tad of wisdom, although they often misplace it.  So, I tip my hat to one of the least wise men I have known about and I take his misplaced wisdom and put it where it belongs:  Dear Life, Bring it on!  I say Yes to what comes next!

For Diane

Another Blogging Transition???

The Bobs.  I remember a song of theirs from the 80s.  "First I was a hippie, then I was a stockbroker, now I am a hippie again."

Many times, I have identified with that song.  I was once a hippie mama.  When I got divorced, I got a job at a lending company.  Yearning to do work that reflected my values, I eventually quit that job and went to massage school, shedding my office attire and ways, and feeling my hippie mama aura return.  Now, the song comes to mind as I put this blog on hold while I begin again at another location.  For me, though, the lyrics would be, "First I was an activist, then I was a ?, now I am a lost, loving supporter.  There is no "again" for my song.  I'm not going back to the theme of my first blog.  I must have graduated to a higher, more challenging level.

The last two weeks have been beyond intense.  As if one moment, we were walking down the beach, noticing the beautiful waves, breathing in the marine air, feeling the hot sun, and then the next moment, the world turns upside down, out of control, with nothing to hold on to. 

I know that this experience of having the ground pulled out from beneath us is not an experience that is unique.  Every human gets to have it at some point.  I also know that I have never walked this particular upside down world before, and I'm working to navigate it.

If you want to follow the path that my sweet Mr. CFP (Michael) and I will be taking for now, you can visit my new blog, "Healing into Life". 







The Bobs- "Now I am a Hippie Again" from Introinexile on Vimeo.

Bowling for Freedom

It seems very common to have bowling pins all lined up.  They are our beliefs about how things are or how they "should be".  Some pins/beliefs are conscious, and some aren't.  If we are lucky, some big bowling god will come along and decide to do some bowling.  She will then knock down those beliefs, sometimes earning a strike, but usually only getting one or two pins at a time.  She is not the best bowler.  Or maybe, out of kindness, she chooses to only take one or two pins every turn, knowing that a strike - the erasure of all our illusions about life at once - can be much more than many can tolerate.

The point at which all or most of our pins/beliefs are knocked down can be called freedom.  Because at that point, all we are left with is "what is".  We are freed from our illusions, our stories, and we can finally be in this very precious moment. 

This very moment is pristine.  It has never existed before and it never will again.  Those bowling pins, if not knocked down, pollute the purity of the moment, because we think that we know how it is and how it should be.

We already know that this is an elm tree, so we don't see it.  Instead, we see our concept of an elm tree - maybe we only see an allergy-irritator.  And the saddest part is that we do the same with people.  We know that Aunt Whatsername is cantankerous when she gets up in the morning, so we begin to stay away from her, not seeing the sadness she carries - the sadness that is screaming for someone to acknowledge it.  Ultimately, we think we know that life is supposed to go a certain way, so when it doesn't go our way, we kick and scream, trying to change it.  While Life is calling for our attention, love, and kindness - even offering us those same things in return - we don't notice because we are too busy getting angry and trying to control it.

Why am I writing this?  There are no "shoulds".  There is no "Thinking about this, I should really start to appreciate that elm in the backyard.  I should slow down and listen to Aunt Whatsername."  The bowling god will take care of our pins in the right time.  And we may or may not notice that it's happening.  We may put up replacement pins, or we may gently let go of all pins, or we may start kicking and screaming.

It's all good.

A Peach Carol

Enough of this, I say! If it must be forever white and cold outside, it's gotta be warm and peachy inside. I'm dreaming of a sweet, sticky, peachy summer... In the meantime, I know where some of last year's peaches are sitting, all frozen and waiting to be thawed and tasted. Oh, drool....

How To Be Alone

I love being alone in my house.  I love being alone on retreat.  I love to take walks alone.  But I don't do as well being alone in social situations.  I have rarely eaten alone in a restaurant.  I have gone to one movie alone.  And I made a dumb decision on which movie to watch that one time.  I don't like scary movies.  At all.  But the one time I went to the movie alone, I watched Fatal Attraction. Scary movies are even scarier when watched alone - with no one beside us who can distract us, laugh at fear with us, or comfort us.  After the movie, I went home where I was alone.  Alone and scared.  I checked every room in the house to make sure that no one was hiding and waiting to attack me.  Alone is sweet, especially if potential company could be a whacked out, possessive "other woman" who may kill your pet rabbit!