Eternity
in a day, infinity in a moment, I left hospice last Thursday per
custom exiting past the chapel after doing my wind-shield-wiper walk
left-right-center; next room.
She
had been there from day one, three years ago, my first day. Before
that, maybe five years total. Parkinson’s. What a horror -- a
wasting death. Am I unkind? No. Simply candidly honest about death;
ours.
It
is not that I am a voyeur, too familiar with death, I was a
journalist and being human nothing surprises me. My daily walks and
talks with patients is what I do beside answer the telephone --
personal calls go though the nurses station in case the patient is
asleep, bathing or not wanting calls from certain people. The thing I
do 'my wind-shield-wiper walk left-right-center; next room' also
provides an extra set of eyes for the medical staff. The maintenance
folks do the same.
We
are not allowed, nor is it ethical or moral, to use restrains on
patients: not chemical/drug or physical. However some escape the bed
alarms attached to their attire or via a pressure plate under them.
When you are demented, or newly arrived and alarmed/fearful of a
strange environment, or merely have and are dying from Alzheimer’s
it takes awhile to settle down to the last days of your life. . . .At
times falling on their heads and other parts causing significant
injury to a considerably disabled person who is about to die. More
problems.
Latino
families tend to keep their beloved at home until the last day or
hours and then hospice provides comfort and respite for the dying and
the soon to be bereaved. There are chaplains on call but, at times,
things happen rapidly and as a volunteer I never say no to anyone in
need.
If
you enter the sanctuary of your heart, where part of God resides, you
will be able to do what I do all the time. Today was harder than most
since my loses were many and extremely personal; personal, patient,
administrative and nursing staff moving on.
I’ll
probably spend what’s left of my life attempting to make available
your Self and Life experienced in a different way.
Stop
for a moment, if alone go look in a mirror and say to yourself, no
body escapes life alive 100% die. Then say, 'I am going to die,' and
it’s Okay! Because if you are alive you will die maybe today. Get
used to it, it happens to everyone sooner or later. If you are as
afraid as I’ve been then get over it, I did.
Alternatively,
and better, next time in a group or crowd think: everyone I see
including myself is going to die. This is my reality of choice.
Unconscious from the beginning until I volunteered at hospice when my
sense of the meaning, value and purpose of life changed and became
"BE HERE NOW!" Essentially: that all preceding and
following time had no relevance to my current experience . . . not
who I want to be in the future or what I was yesterday.
120911
05:55
Epiphany
is not a one-time experience but for some – or a few – especially
me: continual. Embryonic as in gestation; an old man reborn
internally yet overtly not externally/changed.
Gestation
is the transformation from egg to human . . . dear God! . . . is this
Virgin Birth in me?
Each
time I experience this event starting, at or near the death of my
second child, it was astonishing. What some call “Conversion, Being
Born Again, or Washed in the Blood of The Lamb.” I'm not speaking
of a “Religions Experience” since I like many distrust
institutions which are born, live-a-time and die a death of attrition
– something like how we lost the War in Vietnam – A death by many
small cuts; after winning many battles.
We
as a species have so little knowledge of ourselves in terms of our
intrinsic power. Various prophets like Jesus, Shakespeare or Lincoln
have advocated that we “KNOW” ourselves and/or that the
unexamined life is worthless—mere existence.
Life
is demanding in and of itself; we eat, need shelter, want to relate
to one another in meaningful ways. All of which I did and continue to
do; what I call the “mechanics” of life. Yet given the tragedies
experienced I have prevailed. Each event, any one could/would call a
trauma, has proven to be educational not punishment for something I
did wrong.
Like
maybe being born? These final days of my life are the most joyful
chock full of life I've ever known.
Let
it be so in you . . . be well.
120910
21:53 excellent lust
©
2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved
