“We're all just walking each other home.” --Ram Dass
“When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion. --Abraham Lincoln
“Life is God’s novel. Let him write it.” --Isaac Bashevis Singer
When I first applied for hospice service I filled in a form defining the kind and degree of willingness to participate. I articulated a willingness to do whatever was required. Given my experience from yesterday I wonder now at my prior innocence. I am displaced from comfortable acceptance of myself--violently so.
Curiousity about what we call “God” has come to define my willingness to consider my own death, birth and all that resides in between--up close and person--without limits. Unaccountably, I’ve become aware of a phrase found in the Episcopal Prayer Book: “All sorts and conditions” and/or “sins of omission or commission.” Similar phrases occur in other branches of Christianity also using prayer books. The intention being to formulate a cycle of prayer 24/7/365 girdling the world.
Volunteers are required to “sit with” the people in distress, loneliness or anxious and about to do harm to themselves. I have been required to sit with Alzheimer patients, more men then women, not a definitive observation but experiential. Not many but enough.
The man I have in mind is someone’s father, brother, uncle, grandfather, and once was a child as I was. He had a life now swiftly nearing its end. In the abstract a we both are “children of God.” Equally worthy of respect explicit in all life. Yet when he became violent towards me I began to lose it. I was shattered and ashamed. I wanted to run away possibly never to return.
Courage is knowing you’re going to lose but moving forward, in essence giving the situation your best effort. Not verbatim nor original to me but close enough for this purpose. It is too easy to kill or do violence to another or oneself. Love is the greater part of courage.
Restraint of any kind is impermissible. Had I responded violently to his I would have been dismissed as I should have been. Shaken I walked away seeking help. Then returned to witness the women who work daily with this sort of condition and watched them deal with him in astonishment. I recall asking the youngest one to shoot me if I ever got that way. Even going so far to say that I would prefer to be burned alive than to be like, or go through, what he was.
In gratitude and empathy I write this for those who give care to their children, parents or spouses without relief 24/7/365. Think of it as prayer for them, for me and for us. I am grateful for the intimacy I have with the women and men who serve at hospice in any capacity. They are able to walk, not just the next but last mile, barefoot over broken glass. Small wonder the women I associate with are cinders regarding marriage or sexual intimacy. This seems a near universal conclusion whether by divorce or death.
I now consider consciousness as being like a needle or stylus upon infinity. We sew ourselves together with gold or hemp for better or worse; we are wed to life.
My esteem for those whose courage I wish I could emulate is limitless. I recall a man with whom I had developed a friendship. A stroke had paralyzed one side of his body. At the request of a nurse that he take his medication he replied; “You take it!”
She, “It’s not my turn yet.”
Morbid humor?
I don’t think so because each moment is precious to me. At each parting, in the ordinary of life, we never know if we’ll ever see one another again. With this kind of consciousness it is impossible to dismiss anyone as unworthy of love or life.
Might is not right--it is only power & force.
