Written in 1974 by my 3rd grade teacher that was about to retire
Dear boys and girls,
I feel that I have been blessed by having had you this past year.
As we go forward into the next year, learning to work together and play together and live in this beautiful world, we will have many happy days. Let’s strive for the happy days in a happy world.
I will be thinking of you and praying for you “Dear God, bless those dear ones. Always keep them pure, sweet and happy.”
Adios amigos
Farewell my friends.
Lovingly,
Mrs. Flenker
I know you all will grow up to be great!
I found this letter today, 50 years later! Living the blessing ❤️ thank you Mrs. Flenker. I remember you like it was yesterday.
Fill yourself with good thought! We train our brains with our thoughts. Sharing some thoughts from my ‘daily planner’ which is basically my morning meditations as I listen to and write down how I’d like myself to be for the day 🙏😅
Cheerfulness MUST be the rule.
Be active in doing good, tender it all around you.
Do all work heartily as to the Lord.
When you struggle against disturbance , or defend yourself against outer or inner threat, you know you are conditioned. Without freedom from conditioning, Humanity will always remain a prisoner and life will remain a battlefield.
J Krishnamurti
And….
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
The last week has been obviously tough for a lot of people. People old enough to have lived through a lot of presidential elections! I remember being in high school and having worry about an election and ‘what if’ on outcomes and my dad was always the steady ‘it’ll be ok’. I will forever love him for teaching me a stable ‘it’s ok’ for any outcome. Never a doomsayer.
There’s a lot of goodness to spread when you stay steady on being ok no matter what’s happening to you in life and my dad had been through a lot. Losing a child that just was old enough to have a restricted license being one of those things.
Why do you see hate? Why look for things that truly may not be there? What if everything will be ok? Why the doom and gloom? could you potentially sit and get into a place of ‘nothing’ and experience true freedom and true peace by being absolutely free of the conditioned mind?
I really want to know the answers to these questions.
Feel free to tell me of these fears because I have seen nothing that warrants the sorrow and unrest and hate some feel.
I read some peoples positions and fear commenting to the contrary because I see more hate come to those that just have no hate in themselves but just differing opinion in the area of politics.
I’ve been a republican all my voting life. Am I conditioned? Oh definitely 😅 I’m conditioned also to be kind, to give to those who are in need, to spread a loving heart to anyone in my vicinity that can feel and accept it. It’s a daily struggle for me to not judge others so everyday I write down ‘do not judge’ and at the end of the day I grade my ability. Some days are not so great 🙃
Back to the question and sitting with being nothing (losing opinions, beliefs and the like). It’s ok to be nothing.
My dad no matter what was going on in life would always say his concern, for example after my mom died he said ‘I am a nothing, but it’s ok’. He left me with that sentence, the picture in my mind of him saying it as we were driving down the dirt road his house was on, ‘I am a nothing, but it’s ok’. There that fantastic ‘It’s Ok’. So comforting.
I dove into reading a lot of different books on spirituality after my parents passed away. I was 11 when my brother passed away which really made me think about death and dying on a daily basis for the next 45 plus years 😅🙏
Jiddu Krishnamurti’s talks are priceless.
Always be a beginner-so refreshing to not carry the baggage of all our life’s learning and opinions everywhere we go. If you can accomplish that, even for a moment, the light (in weight and brightness) you will feel is not something describable. I tell myself and my opinions to F off often 🥹
‘The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence. ‘
Freedom starts with losing the conditioned mind. we are one spirit whether we like that or not.
Be kind, be helpful, be the action of Gods hand, with fire spread the goodness ❤️
Always in prayer for all to feel the joy of true love and the awe of this planet and all that encompasses it.
Sadly, I have been unable to find a picture of Geoffrey Holmes.
Delphine C (the plane grandpop flew)
I inherited (?) two large ‘scrapbooks’ of my great grandmother (Gagoo) of which she adhered every envelope containing every letter that my grandfather wrote to her when he joined the army in the 1940’s. Letters from basic training to his time he spent during WW2.
I found a letter Gagoo must have typed to make copies of for Mrs. Wakeman, the mother of one of my grandfathers close friends Andy. Then I found one from grandpop after he heard about him passing away.
In honor of Geoff and Andy , I share these two letters and now I carry the weight of their loss as well.
Andy Wakeman (in the middle)
June 26th, 1944
Dear Mrs. Wakeman,
I hope the cablegram I sent you relieved your mind somewhat, as I know how anxious and uneasy you will have been since you heard about Andy’s death, our son, Geoffrey, was Andy’s navigator and he was killed at the same time as Andy. It came as a terrible shock to use as they had both spent a most enjoyable few days with us only about four days before the accident.
Andy had been up before to stay with us whilst they were both on leave and how we enjoyed those visits. Andy was a son to be proud of and I would like you to know how happy he and Geoffrey were together. They had the utmost confidence in each other. They were really a fine couple. As the adjutant told us when Mr. Holmes and I went down to the aerodrome __Andy couldn’t have had a better navigator and Geoff couldn’t have had a better pilot.
We told Andy to regard this as his English home as we were always so delighted to have him with us. We have the happiest memories of those two happy, apparently care free boys__They seemed to have no fear, no apprehensions__they loved their job, dangerous tho it was and were just happy because they had started to be busy. They had made about twenty trips over enemy territory and it was on their twenty-first when the disaster occurred.
On June 11th, Sunday evening when we returned home about 10 O’ clock we found the telegram, saying Geoff had lost his life on air operations and if we wished we could have him buried in the R.A.F. cemetery down near where the accident occurred, or if we wished to have a private funeral, they would send him home. We were so overwhelmed at the suddenness of it , after their recent lovely weekend with us that we couldn’t realize it. We wondered about Andy too, as the telegram didn’t give us any details. So my husband and I decided to go down to the aerodrome in the south of England to try to ascertain what had happened.
We arrived at our destination after many hours traveling and this is what we were told by the adjutant.
On Sunday morning, June 11th, very early, Andy and Geoff set off in their plane for their target in enemy lines and were gradually rising over the river Thames, when suddenly the plane broke apart_Andy fell out into the river, but according to the medical officer__he was immediately killed before he entered the water. This death was instantaneous and so sudden that they would not have time to see it coming. There would just be one crack__both were immediately killed, and in all this tragic business , we must clutch a grain of comfort in this fact, as in war-time, some of the boys suffer terrible agony and torture before they are released.
As for Geoff-he had gone down with the greater portion of the plane and it was not until a full week afterwards that he was found. We received another telegram on Sunday June 18 to say his body had been found—so we immediately had him brought back to Bradford and last Thursday he was cremated here amongst all his sorrowing friends and relatives. We understand that you would be given the same option too, either having Andy buried near the aerodrome, or having him sent home to the U.S.A. We shall be very pleased if you will let us know if you had him taken home.
There was to be an official enquiry into the cause of the plane breaking up, But whether we shall hear about it or not, I don’t know-only it seems such a tragedy that two such eager, competent young men should be let down by a faulty plane. Mr. Holmes and I find this the bitterest part of the whole calamity. Anyhow I had better not say anything more on that subject until we hear the result of the enquiry (if we ever do).
There’s one thing, Mrs. Wakeman, you have a little consolation in having other sons and daughter who will, I’m sure, try to compensate you as much as possible for the loss of Andy, but we have no one to take Geoff’s place-he was an only child-and we feel as if there was nothing left for us to strive for—all our hopes and ambitions have suddenly been snatched from us.
We have a newspaper, tobacco and sweets business here in Bradford and by concentrating all our energies in this, is the only way we can for a moment forget the tragedy. Both Andy and Geoff will always be in our hearts and we shall never forget they lost their young lives, helping to restore this world of ours to peace and security.
The day before they left here on their last leave, we took the photo of the two of them together, but unfortunately Geoff took the film back to be developed at the camp. We have made enquires about this and we are told that if the film is still in the camera—we shall receive it back with Geoff’s things but if he had taken it to develop the wing commander will try to trace it for us.
I said to Andy “come along let’s take you two together and then you can send your mother one” so if we receive them I will certainly let you have one. If I don’t get these photographs I would very much like one of Andy if you have one you could spare and I will send you one of Geoff.
I don’t think I can tell you anything else about this sad affair at present but I shall be pleased to hear from you to learn whether you had Andy taken home or not, and then if you have any questions to ask we will do our best to answer them.
I am including this card which we had printed because we thought the verses so applicable both to Geoff and Andy. I hope you will be able to glean a little comfort from them. The newspaper cutting was in our local newspaper so I thought you might like to see one.
And now, I must say Au Revoir, I know we shall be hearing from you when you have received this letter and believe me, we all, our relatives and many of your friends who met Andy, join in sending you our deepest sympathy and sorrow at the loss of such a fine son—we are proud he was a friend of our son and we are proud he was our friend, too. They were two gallant boys and I shall always remember them leaving here four days before their death. Chasing each other to catch the bus, as happy and eager as two sandboys—I feel confident that whatever happens after death, those two will be together and happy. So we must try to conquer our grief and think of them thus.
Yours most sincerely,
Mrs. Holmes
Grandpop holding the camera
8/18/44
Dear Mother, Pop + Dell,
I read about Andy today in the Fairfield news and just can’t believe it’s true. I really was terribly shocked.
I suppose the war department must have pretty good confirmation but somehow or other can’t help but think that maybe he is still alive. It just doesn’t seem possible that he isn’t.
I was surprised at the date of the news, June 23rd, and that you never wrote me about it. I suppose you didn’t want to upset me. Is that right?
I sure do feel sorry for Mrs. Wakeman. Poor Mrs. Wakeman has been worrying about Andy ever since he joined the R.C.A.F. Well if it is true I’m sure Andy is happy wherever he is. He’s probably with Bob Morin. I really think so.
In a way it makes me feel good to think that maybe those two guys are fooling around together someplace.
I’m sure they wouldn’t want us feeling awfully bad about it. I know that’s awfully easy to say but even if it was one of my family, even little Delly I’d try and feel that way about it.
Well I guess there’s not much more I can say about it except that.
I think I’ll try and write Mr. And Mrs. Wakeman a letter. I hope I can write them a decent one.
Well there’s no news here other than what’s on the radio.
I meant to ask before but what kind of plane was Andy flying and do you know what outfit he was in?
‘The purpose of life is to be beautiful, to be bountiful, to be blissful, to be graceful and grateful.’
I read that quote somewhere on the internet and saved it in my phone. When I reread it recently, it made me think of Hank. The one thing about having a relationship with a dog is that if you can be mindful and open in your heart to feeling it, you can actually see and feel this definition of purpose in action in a way that is undeniably the way we should strive to be living in experiencing the here and now. They are that way without knowing they are being that way. They just are. The hardest task for people is to just ‘be’ and we are constantly exposed to these beautiful beings as our guides that seem to be demonstrating it for us on a daily basis and we miss the teachings all the time! Who needs to look to the heavens for purpose when you have heaven right there in front of you (for dog people only I guess!).
There is his halo!
We had to euthanize Hank on the day that cancer gained complete control of his body and he could no longer get up. Two days earlier he was running around the pool in joyous chomping of his favorite big red rubber ball, dropping it to be thrown in the pool, jumping in and swimming as fast as he can, which was undoubtedly slower with cancer in charge, jumping out and taking red ball to the grass, dropping it, shaking off, running a lap around the pool to jump on his lounge chair, chomp chomp chomping and then returning to drop it at Dennis feet again to have another go at it. The morning he died, he got in the pool, looking for that energy to come back, but just laid down on the top step and couldn’t get back up to get out on his own. It was obviously time. When Dennis came home, he ran out of the house as usual and collapsed in the grass by his truck. We put him on a quilt and dragged him into the shade of the carport and said our goodbyes. Dennis weeping unconsolably, Hank giving his paw while I was thinking about the last 8 months of trying to give him the best end of life possible and how it all filtered down to this moment. Three beings in that loving moment of horror, of horrible goodbye of reality of death being the forever gone.
A few days later, Dennis sent me the following list so we don’t forget Hank.
I will miss Hank playing red ball I will miss Hank running and growling and then leaping into the pool I will miss him throwing himself to the ground and showing his tummy. I will miss our rides to the dump and Hank sitting in my seat drooling down window. I will miss Hank disappearing in the yard I will even miss Hank not coming when called, even as a pup I miss our rides to el Indio I will miss yelling his name I will miss that he is great on a leash I miss his face in the door and window waiting for me I can’t stand that I can’t help him I miss his handsome face I love it that so many tried to help I miss him staring at me in the dark I will see him again with Mel, Cola, Katie, Angie, Christy, Sarge, Ernie, Travis, Angus, Acie, Zelda, Max and Gretchen and Tista, and Spock. And Mom and Dad. And Ron M, Tim C, Rusty P, and Greg H.
There is no doubt in my mind that animals are spiritual beings, just as we are. When they drop their body, they are moving on just as we would. One day we will connect again and in the meantime, we can remember them in the spirit that they lived. We were so fortunate to have such a gift as Hank to share those 4.5 years with. We miss him!
A phone call close to the end of a full moon feel, crazy hectic day. ‘Dr. Bo, there is a person on the phone whose dog has been sick since Saturday night. They are not clients but the dog is having seizures and bloody diarrhea, what do I tell them?’.
‘Tell them we can see her but we are only here an hour with no overnight care, I’d recommend they take to ER clinic asap if at all possible’.
I went about my work seeing the next patient and then the next…wondering what decision was made about the little dog.
It’s been a year since our veterinary clinic has been seeing clients via ‘curbside’ service. COVID fear creating a new way of working to hopefully minimize potential exposure to our team of employees in our small building. The odd thing about this new way of life is the fact that we are about ten times busier now then we use to be and we’ve always been busy. We are turning away more people due to lack of time and often have non clients try other practices in the area or recommend the University or the emergency clinic for cases that we just simply don’t have time to fit in.
When it’s close to closing and we are still swamped with client to see, the first gut reaction is to send the caller somewhere else. The ‘We can’t take anymore!’ feel being overwhelming when we’ve been going going going all day.
I’m not sure what more I wanted to write back then (that was April of last year) and I never went back to finish my thoughts. I think it had to do with switching the ‘no more!’ Mind to go ahead and try and help since we had such a great outcome here.
But now, with 9 months having passed by, I recall the dog with seizures and bloody diarrhea did come in. The dog was on the edge of death and had significant changes in its bloodwork we took care of her and she got better and went home!
The reason I am even finishing this random writing is because just yesterday we were looking at the list of clients that have been sent to collections. And this one client who owned this little dog was on that list 😞 I understand not having finances for an immediate emergency but this is 9 months later, one could just pay a little each month on their bill and never get turned over. Now that they are turned over, if they do pay, the collection company gets almost 50 percent of the bill (this was not a large bill, less the $400.00).
The part that is so destructive is losing faith in anyone who ‘promises’ to pay. I see teary red eyes and please please please and yes I stay late and yes I let you BS me but it’s not for you, it’s for your pet. And this my friends is why veterinarians end up with such hard hearts when it comes to people.
Look at those kidney values! The far one on the right is all back to normal!
So now it is 2024 and I still didn’t post this. I can’t even remember who this was or if they even paid 😅
I’m still so excited this dog got better!
At least I did something right ☺️🙏
I read spiritual books every morning and love getting up at 4 am to do so ❤️.
Freedom comes when we don’t think.
‘Be a channel of love from God to others , hear his faintest whisper. Love doesn’t chatter.
It does not matter what happens to a man on the outside, bear them cheerfully, remain joyous and serene.’ JKM
I am so grateful for life’s challenges to stay soft and open in my heart. I love my job, love people, love the animals. I get tired of the unhappy people, unhappy employees and the long days, this is true but what better fodder for listening and connecting to the moment. Listening for the whispers, letting go of the old to face everything new.
This is a reminder to anyone that wants to hear, we don’t have to carry the weight of every moment into the next. Joy is truly found by letting go and letting God in.
I found this quote by Lincoln Chafee when I was searching for how to organize my thoughts on the recent horsemanship clinic I attended. Then I researched Lincoln Chafee, having never heard his name. Turns out he is a politician and was a farrier.
‘When you are around horses, you tend to be a quieter person’ was something he said when asked about his time as a farrier. I can’t help but think this quote ‘Trust is built with consistency’ came from his time as a farrier, or perhaps he once attended one of Mark Rashid clinics 🙂
I think if you can become quieter and gain understanding of the value of being consistent, you’ll have it made with horses. This is something that has been steadily told to me and all attendees of Mark’s clinics since I have been going to them for the last 10 years. Finally it seems like it’s setting in (I’m sure I said this after last year too). I am still on that path of creating a groove in my self to become consistent, and more importantly finding out what I want to be consistent about.
What do you want to do today? Is usually the first words out of our teachers mouth as we start…That sentence always makes me anxious because I often don’t have an answer which makes me feel a little stupid…I am use to people telling me what to do when I take a riding lesson.
The very first clinic I attended I knew exactly what I wanted. Repay was an off the track thoroughbred that did not know how to stand still. I walked her out into the arena and there we were, pawing the ground, pacing around Mark on his quietly standing horse. Never once did she stop. What do you want to do today? My response was that I wanted her to be just like his horse…standing there calm and quiet with her head down and at peace. Not counting to 100 with her right front foot and then another 100 with her left front foot, in between moving around every which way. It was amazing that by the end of that hour, I was taught exactly how to accomplish that and her completely understanding what I wanted. It wasn’t perfect of course as the standing may have only lasted 5 to 30 seconds to start but fast forward 10 years, she stands as quiet as his horse, with her head down until I ask her to do something different.
Something has happened as I have aged that I don’t know what I want or if I am in need of anything as I have turned on some road at an intersection of life where I don’t know what matters. You reach an age or time where the end is visible and you find all the precious moments of being alive are flying by like the lunch hour does at work and choosing something to focus on seems so trivial.
The more refined and subtle our minds, the more vulnerable they are. Paul Tournier.
I think of vulnerable meaning allowing for the mind to change and grow and be open and raw. The brain actually likes to be a certain way. If a person or animal has seizures (idiopathic like epilepsy), the brain itself actually likes to seizure and will choose to seizure often if it gets into a rhythm to do so.
Our brains may like to hold onto a certain way of thinking in a similar way.
Don’t fall for the fallacy of because you ‘believe’ or ‘think’ a certain way that that is the only way or the end all truth. I notice sometimes people (myself included) love to cling to their own thoughts and the way those thoughts are ‘theirs’ and I think the way those thoughts make them feel.
Take it and take those thoughts, put them aside and think about what someone else is saying, use your vulnerability, open your mind to all things. It’s not saying you can’t still have your own thoughts or ideas or follow what you desire, but if a closed door is a sign of security and not letting anything in, and an open door is being vulnerable to truth and learning, I hope I can always choose the open door.
One of my favorite movie lines of all time is from a Quentin Tarantino movie ‘I don’t have to trust her, I know her’. That line delivers to me such a solid statement of acceptance and it’s all based on the experience of consistency. My horse doesn’t ‘trust’ me, she knows me based on my actions. Nothing personal about it.
‘Acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, a subtle energy vibration, is consciousness.’
Eckhart Tolle
Acceptance of our own thoughts, preconceived notions, our lack of knowledge opens us to the simpleness of the lesson. Being able to accept new vibrations. Acceptance simply stops that chatter that goes on mindlessly that wants to be heard when we are really there to hear. Accept you have your own ideas but can set them aside to allow your brain to be a blank slate for a teacher to write on. Getting rid of yourself isn’t easy, but don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be back.
It is so true that consistency results in predictability.
We can be consistent in an action and cause the teaching to be exactly what we don’t want it to be and the horse will trust that because this is what we do all the time.
The horse will predictably respond because it learns how to trust our consistent way. I consistently step back and reward the behavior I don’t want because I don’t realize I am even being consistent in making the thing I don’t want to happen happen. It’s altogether mind-blowing and so simple at the same time.
Having taken a break from ‘consistently’ doing much with the horses, I am feeling the desire to get back to it. This time with a mind that’s empty, for my teacher, the horse, to write on.
This Thanksgiving dinner will be different. Not really in any bad or good type of way, but in a way that I will be thankful to have memories, to have thought that is functional, to have the ability to say what I want to say with words that roll off my tongue without a hitch. Unless I drink that whole bottle of champagne while trying to clean that poor little turkey.
Here I was so many years ago, helping my mom cut flowers in the back yard. My mom showing me how to use the scissors, telling me to smile and taking my picture. Teaching me what to do, how to talk, how to listen and how to learn.
My mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease a couple of weeks ago. A confirmation of what we already knew. The Shakespeare line, ‘A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet’, makes me think of my mom. Having named a diagnosis doesn’t change anything. And I mean that in every possible way it could be taken.
Here is my mom the other day, after she found this hat in my car and I asked her to smile so I could take her picture. Instead of smiling she started acting out a scene like she was a character in a movie and had us both hysterical with laugher. That’s basically how my life has been with my mom…tons of laughter. One of her favorite stories to tell me was how I made her laugh uncontrollably in a check out line at a store because I started laughing at a peacock feather. I guess some things never change. Even more important, laughter is all about the moment, not the memory.
This photo is so ‘Dell’… There was some fluid in her ear which was making her normal hard of hearing even worse…so she’d try bending down and shaking the water out of her ear…seeing if she’d be able to hear any better, and then held the pose so I could take her picture…It reminded me of ‘I’m a little Tea cup short and stout’ song that she always would act out for me when I was little. My mom is quick to do anything anyone asks of her 🙂 not afraid of looking foolish.
It’s truly amazing how the brain has such ability to remember and it can all be taken away and then you just wonder how must it be to be empty of memories. The good thing is, it seems if you can’t remember, you don’t actually worry about not remembering (in her case). I know some people have trouble with forgetting and maybe it bothers them, but with my mom, she really seems to just be kind of in awe that she can’t remember but not discouraged or depressed and takes it all in stride. I am sure that living with her may be a different story, but from my perspective, I am ok if she is ok with it. There are times she gets angry but it’s not lasting and she can’t remember she was mad, so again, there is another gift in forgetting.
A pretty wonderful song ‘I’m not going to miss you’ by Glenn Campbell who had Alzheimers.
This Thanksgiving will be the first year my mom won’t make that Pineapple goo. As my friend Holly calls. Pineapple goo…I asked my mom for the recipe this morning and she can’t remember she ever made it, something she has made every year since I’ve known her. I thought I would try my hand at the pineapple goo since I really love it and butter and sugar make me happy. And maybe my mom will remember it after she tastes it…it’s a very hard dish to forget, it really is that delicious.
So Thanksgiving may be different this year, without my moms cooking, but it will certainly be filled with lots of thanks and lots of laughter.
What is life about. When you start a sentence with ‘what’, the expectation is to have a question mark at the end of the sentence. In this case there is no answer so the question mark would be a trick.
What what. Is is. Life life. About about. Echoing in my mind…
Animals don’t ask this question. If we look to other things for answers we find that the questions don’t even exist.
A lot of people aren’t even plagued with this question.
So maybe all that is true is unquestionable
Here is my dad releasing a butterfly that was trapped in his screened porch. One thing he still does regularly is catch and release all sorts of insects, birds, toads, lizards. (Thanks to Vincent for recording this video)
The other day a dragon fly was hanging by a wing from a spider web. It looked dead to me. I put my finger under his legs to make sure and the dragon fly grabbed onto my finger with his sticky little feet. So We pulled the web from it’s wing and there he sat on my finger, wiping his eyes (probably not his ‘eyes’ exactly but they look like eyes!) with his little front feet and to my dad and my delight, he took off and flew really healthily away. Great joy in that small moment for all 3 of us 🙂
What is life.
My mom passed away in May, the earlier signs of her brain damage from Alzheimer’s was to feed the cats all the time…The bowl empty, she must not have fed them so she’d feed them again. One day my dad says ‘she’s really feeding the cats too much, I have cat food hidden in my dresser drawer so she won’t use it all up’.
My mom passed away and then we sold her car to one of my employees children. Yesterday my employee came in my office with a can of cat food and said ‘here, I found this under the car seat’. My heart. Flooded with such sadness. And then more sadness as my dad has started doing the EXACT same thing with the cats and the dog just a few months after she passed away. The caretaker buying 15 cans of cat food twice a week! My dad gets upset when there is no cat food in the drawer so we try and keep it full to keep him from making someone drive him to the grocery store to get more cat food or worse have the repeated and stressful discussions of why he shouldn’t and can’t drive anymore.
The similarities in their behaviors, chipping away at my heart.
What is life about?
Here is my dad next to my moms ashes that are in a granite urn under one of her favorite trees in their yard . I had to move the urn closer to the house because my dad would get up in the middle of the night and go outside claiming there were six people in a taxi coming at night to see the urn. Since moving it on the back porch, he’s only gone outside one time.
On our last trip to his doctor, I asked the doctor about these hallucinations. The doctor said yes, delusions and hallucinations are common with dementia. Your father has no idea of time anymore. The past doesn’t exist separate from the present, they are all blending together. When my dad looks at photos from when my mom was in her 20’s he says ‘there you are’ as he is looking at me. Daddy that’s not me, that is mom, my mom, your wife. ‘Who is that?’ Like he doesn’t remember having a wife or that I have a mom that was his wife. Then he’ll look at a picture of her in her 50’s and say ‘where is she?’ She passed away dad, ‘she did? I hate that’ he says. Then the photos closer to her time of death I’ll say there is mom, she passed away and he will say ‘I know’.
What a bizarre scene. You lose your wife of over 50 years, you experience it. You lose your mind, you forget it. You see pictures, you think she’s still alive somewhere. You completely believe she is out by the gate, that she exists and that you must find her (with a flashlight in the yard at 2 am…). You forget again that she died. I can see the complete multi-level confusion exhausting him. One day before my mom went in the hospital she told my dad she was going to Maine to go to college with a group of young people. My mom, with advanced Alzheimers who would always try to wander and had to be brought back to the house by neighbors when my dad lost track of her. After my mom passed away my dad says she wanted to go to Maine with a bunch of young people (this was all supposed to happen out by their gate). Little did I know my dad was teetering on the edge of dementia at this point and was actually believing what she had said. So now that she is gone, he thinks she is in Maine going to college with a bunch of young people. His heart broken from the betrayal. Dang! What is life about when in the end your heart gets broken from things that aren’t even real. I would remind him of her illness and that she didn’t go anywhere but to heaven and he would seem comforted that maybe he was just losing his own mind.
Since I wrote this, my dad has passed away, almost six months to the day since his wife passed away. It’s been a rough six months for him. My dad was always the man that would insist everyone else go through a door before him. The ultimate gentleman with regards to treating others. I believe he let my mom go first in this instance too. The last year of her life, stepping it up to be her caretaker despite his own health problems and doing a good enough job that no one really knew how bad he was too until after she was gone.
What is life about?
Such a relevant fortune cookie message…
I think I have come to a personal conclusion that life is not about the brain, but it’s all about the heart. Dragonfly moments. We did everything from the heart for the last few years. Brain irrelevant. My own brain was discouraged at times with the amount of time and energy it took to care for my parents (not to mention the guilt from worrying about not doing enough) but my heart never quit, never complained and was ever present with what was important.
Life may be about opportunities to grow the heart. I have always been able to feel my heart strongest around horses. Especially my own horse. I can feel the pull from my chest when I am near her. A giant desire to hug that that does not necessarily want to be hugged, it’s pure gold. I have practiced having that same feeling when in situations with people. Strangers or not and especially with people that are being difficult. It’s always better to go with your heart places. The amazing thing to me was feeling that same feeling about my dad as I do with my horse. He grew my heart 🙂
I have no doubt that everyone has different ways of working out their hearts and probably for most people it’s with their children. I know a lot of people that are natural at giving everything from their heart, this is nothing really new for them. Some people may be able to do it with music or art or writing. The experience with my mom and dad has just given my heart the best workout ever and grown it in ways that I could never have imagined. At least for this moment in time I will not put a question mark or even ask the question about life and purpose. I will just remember that the brain is not to be trusted…the heart is where it’s at 🙂
Yes, she had beer in that cup…If you think about it the next time you raise a glass, give a toast to the best two people I have ever known! Hopefully at peace now that their hearts are together again.
‘Life is the greatest experiment. Each of us is an experiment of one-observer and subject-making choices, living with them, recording the effect.’ George Sheehan
I ran 8 miles. 2 miles short of my goal. Which is ok since my goal may have killed me (or at least made me pass out).
I left you after you gave me a hug and said you loved me. Love you too mommy. Mommy, always makes me laugh that in our 50’s Billy and I still call you mommy.
Running through the neighborhood behind the hospital I see all the pretty plants and flowers blooming. Things you love. I get out on the main road and run on the side walk. I look down and see someone has spray painted ‘you suck’ and I wonder if that’s meant for me since I selfishly went running instead of sitting by your side.
Then the next sidewalk message. Deeply engraved to last a long, long time. ‘God is Joy’. Worthy of a picture. You suck in pink won’t leave my head so no need for a picture of it.
I keep running. Past The ear doctor I took you to trying to get your hearing straight. The day he put the tubes in, I’ll never forget. The scene of you highfiving the big giant guy in the elevator because you can hear him say hi. ‘I can hear you ‘ you say, With tears in your eyes. The countless discussions about how cute and how nice Dr. Phillips was, with the perfectly ironed shirt and pants.
I keep running. Past Gainesville health and fitness where I bought you and dad a membership for a year. Remembering all the stories you told me about your times there and the shock you had that women walk around naked in the dressing room.
I keep running. Past your dentist office and then I cross the 4 lane road. Remembering when we lived in Miami you forbade us from crossing any road with more then two lanes. So much so that the first time I ever did it as an adult, I was certain I was going to be hit by a car and flattened like a pancake by all the traffic. I laugh because you really instilled some solid fear of pedestrian vs car in me. Multi-lane roads still freak me out to this day.
I keep running. Right past the shopping center where we’d frequently been together shopping long ago. I remember it like yesterday.
I keep running. This time turning on 34 th Ave. (no I didn’t cross that street, it’s 6 lanes 😳).
I was trying to run to the bus stop that the man with few teeth and a casted arm cheered Dennis and me on during a marathon. ‘Only Five More to Go!!’ He chants over and over with his arm in the air and all 5 fingers spread out high above his head. ‘Five more to go!!’
I needed that man now to cheer me on. Tell me how much farther to the finish line. ‘Five more to go’ I’m sure he has no idea the impact of how that moment and his cheers has stuck with me. The last 6.2 miles of a marathon always supposed to be the most grueling. ‘Five more to go’ man kindly helped us through. Never miss out on a chance to cheer someone on I think to myself.
I turn around at the five mile mark, afraid of the way I was starting to feel that I may not make it all the way back to the hospital.
The five mile mark being where ‘the graffiti’ wall is. The one message on The wall ever present is the memorial for the college students killed by a serial killer in the early 90’s. I lived at home with you in Miami back then. I remember being in your living room watching the news and the reports of students frantic and packing up to go home out of fear . Never knowing at that time we’d all be moving to Gainesville and that I’d be running by the wall while you were dying in the hospital. It seems so long ago.
5 more to go. I pass the same dead crow on the sidewalk. This time noticing the smell of death. You mom, always loved the crows. Throwing them old bread to eat and watching them walk around the yard with giant pieces of bread in their beaks.
The teacher teacher bird. The butterflies on your plants, the fruit on the trees. Always in the moment when sharing your yard.
Loving and fun, always positive right to the very end. Trying to make jokes with the nurses despite the pain and confusion you felt.
I wonder if at that time the five more to go guy would have said seven more to go! Seven days later you were gone. No more terrible suffering. Seven day ultra-marathon. I am confident I can endure anything now after watching you suffer like that for over a week.
Hospice was a godsend to provide you relief from the pain. It took a lot to make you comfortable.
I’m so glad you were in such a place of kindness and care. Seven days later
Your defiant, stubborn heart finally let you go.
Miss you mom, you left one terribly lonely man behind !
My mom can barely create a full sentence that means anything that she means it to mean and she has been like this for months. Somehow she pulled out her longest, sharpest knife of a sentence and used it on me, stabbing me right in the heart. ‘I just don’t understand why we can’t live there with you, I just think it would be so much easier’. Twenty words put together with perfect sound, thought and skill. Able to make their way between my ribs and straight into my heart. Why can’t you tell me in a sentence if you are hungry? What you want to eat? or how your day was? Or if you ate lunch, dinner or took your medicine?
Hugging trees always feels good!
Mom, I am gone 12 hours a day when I’m at work. We have 3 big dogs that are guaranteed to make you fall down. Old people fall, break their bones, have to go into the hospital, get pneumonia/constipation/more confused then ever and sometimes die. All because of a simple fall. It’s completely selfish on my part because I don’t want to have to worry about that all the time so it’s easier to keep the distance where I know you will be safer.
The internal struggle of guilt and worry battling in my brain like knights jousting in my head. Who will win? When I visited the assisted living place, the man says ‘you won’t have to worry about anything, it’s all taken care of’. As I look around at the elderly people sitting in various places seeming dejected. The other assisted living place I went to seemed full of happy people that wanted to be there?! Oh but that was more of the independent living section of the facility. Smartly keeping me out of the ‘memory care’ areas while getting a tour…And it just seemed like the people that needed mid-level care (somewhere between assisted living and memory care) that were mixed in with the independent living people,my mind chose to see all the happy people and not look at the details of the ones that may not be so happy.
The worry is losing as the guilt of leaving them in a place that seems so hollow takes the lead.
Going home I try and figure out all the ways I can to balance the guilt and worry so they cancel each other out. We can pay someone to live with them in their home for as long as possible, feed them, drive them, do the daily chores. That could work. For a while. Then as the confusion and mental decline progress to incontinence, there will be a hill race where worry will be stronger and start passing guilt. Oh but we can hire a home health aid to come in and take care of the messiness of incontinence and care of cleanliness. Not sure how long this will work either? But for now I have it balanced well. The tide will come in and wash away my perfect foundation (that I have built in the sand, knowing it will fail) holding it all together and at some point worry will win and away we go to the horror of ‘memory care’, guilt having no say anymore. Although it is always possible my current plan will last till the end?
The truth is, life is pretty much at a standstill for the full experience as long at there is worry present. Guilt is livable. Worry is an ass. Some people (me included) find things to worry about, where the mind gets distracted doing something else but wants to find that worry spot to obsess over again and again. I find myself listing all the worries I have in my head so when I get to the one that is greatest I’m like ‘there it is’ and let it roll over in my head to where it is sufficiently still alive. I have work worries and people worries and personal worries. Yesterday Dennis asked me what I was thinking about (as we were eating ice creme…) and I said, all I am thinking about right now is eating this ice creme :0
That’s where my worry is going, causing me to actually develop a third emotional energy called ‘The chopper’…The chopper is a very sharp samurai sword that slashes worry and guilt into tiny little bits. Destroying those emotions to leave behind a sense of peace no matter what the moments bring. I am a professional worrier, if I didn’t worry about my patients and their outcomes, I probably shouldn’t do the job anymore. I will still worry (just like the grass will still grow…) but I won’t let it get out of hand and hopefully the chopper can keep up.
I don’t like not being present with the moment and that’s what worry does, takes away the present.
Here is to living in the moment (raising my coffee cup) and all the lessons we have to experience along the way to actually achieve that goal!
A doodle I did at work one day…which is completely what it feels like from time to time.
simple 