Much That Is Hidden

.

Labels: death, friends, religion, tragedy

.
Sadness with a touch of sweetness. My dad was released from the prison of infirm old age last night. Too soon but still just too damn slow. His decline was more stark than my mom’s, whose prognosis can only be brought to the fuzzy outlook for all Alzheimer’s patients – “We just don’t know.”


At least we knew something of what was in store for mom, and the hope that dad could enjoy his twilight years despite her condition went gradually from bright to dim. He was so happy after they sold the house and moved to the assisted care apartment. It wasn’t his dream of independent living in Tennessee, but considering mom’s condition it was a pretty good deal. He could still drive, still go to a game or get her out to family gatherings on his own (the photo, from Christmas ’05, was the last time I saw them out together).

There are possibly several reasons for his decline. The obvious physical ones of type II diabetes, two falls that fractured a hip and then an arm, and a small stroke each took a toll for certain. But what of the emotional stress from seeing his life partner descend into a mental fog which necessitated them living separate lives while still married? She was the proverbial mother hen over their seven offspring, he the tried and true breadwinner who was comfortable not having much to say about the raising.

The staff at their facility said that a spot was available for mom in the Alzheimer’s care ward, which is for advanced cases. While she was not considered to be in the advanced stage, they recommended the move based mostly on what they said were rare openings. I’m not sure how the rest of my family feels about this, and I don’t recall the entire situation to a ‘T’, but in retrospect this strikes me as convenient for the staff and not very beneficial for my folks. There were other situations that held a similar stink (I’ll spare the details here), but this may have been the watershed event of my parents golden years, putting a tarnish to them from which my dad, as the only one who might have successfully pressed on, ultimately wasn’t able to.

In my highly subjective and inexpert opinion, my mom’s existence, basically unchanged in any positive way for more than a year now, seems cruel and pointless. My first visit after she moved to the ward left me nearly as shocked as I’ve ever been by anything. Seeing her condition and that of the other residents there was heartbreaking – small wonder that mom had declined so rapidly (again, inexpert opinion). So do I hope against hope that Alzheimer's sufferers, if not physically in pain, are given a weirdly blissful way to go with their inability to acknowledge what is going on? It's got to beat terminal cancer or ALS, where the sound mind wrestles the emotions that must come with seeing and feeling the hourglass empty.

I might say I'm at the end of my rope with the societal mores of end-of-life care, but the metaphor seems grossly unfair to my parents and, more importantly, my two sisters aka The Troopers. Not that they disagree, and not that they wouldn't have risen to the challenge as admirably and with as much fortitude as they have. I know that the “caregiver by geographic default” factor has exasperated them at times. I say this because I know it has left this apple feeling a bit helpless in his settling spot so far from the tree.

Such irony there is in a convicted murderer being executed and at last getting released from prison. Out of love we afford the mercy killing of our pets when they have reached the point where misery trumps living another day. But with our own species, society doesn’t take kindly to enacting the suffix “–icide” in any way shape or form when it comes to mercy. Send young people off to pointless death in combat (wrap it up in the flag and call it the cost of freedom), but By God Don’t Allow A Fellow Human To Pass From This Plane With Any Push Outside His Divine Hand.

I stand disgusted, dispirited and disappointed, and if I stand in small company, looked upon askance by “civilized” and “spiritual” beings, then so be it. I’m here to call BULLSHIT on the whole affair of “natural death” and say let this essay serve at least as a temporary living will that if I ever get to such a condition of inviability, my closest kin are hereby directed to procure the most efficient legal means (or not legal if they must and can without retribution) to expedite my demise.

Sadness with a touch of sweetness, and a good measure of bitter it turns out.

Labels: death, family, me, rants

.
Through the years I’ve held enough sweaty jobs and taken up enough interests to be considered a man’s man. From being paid for delivering mail and welding steel to acquiring basic knowledge of auto and home maintenance and taking four-night backpacking treks, you could say I’m comfortable in my masculinity. But I’m not averse to busting through the male “I am a rock” stereotype - there are at least a few things that can get me feeling a little fahrklempt.

The sure bets are probably quite common to most people, yea even the most grizzled boilermaker. Things for which I can regularly lose it include kids with cancer or a flag-draped casket, especially at the point when the honor guard hands the impeccably folded flag to the widow or mother. Lower on the emotional intensity list might be an animal in pain (dogs are a personal hook) or perhaps a homeless person walking into a howling January wind. The feeling of senselessness slams against the impulse to avoid tears, and whether I’ll end up drying an eye or not is a toss-up.

Being subject to these feelings that make for a welling up or a full sob does not usually trouble me, though I admit to suppressing it in public like most men do. This may not be so much to save face as it is to prevent embarrassing others. The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti aptly described this in one of his poems, where bystanders viewed the victim of an auto accident with “throats as tight as tourniquets.”

These things put our emotional strength to the test, often transcending us from sorrow into anger when considerations about the possible circumstances are put in the mix. For those of spiritual inclination the question “why?” can crop up, with reactions and rationalizations as varied as the people who ask. A serious pursuit of any of those whys goes beyond the scope I’ve intended here.

So now consider the purpose of sorrow as a cleansing agent. I have to admit that a good cry really feels “good” in the sense that letting it all out is often a very necessary release to maintain sanity. I think of it along the lines of “I can see clearly now the rain is gone.”

Crying can also provide a preparation of sorts. In the loss of my sister to cancer the tears came but twice – at news of her diagnosis and again at her death. The six weeks from one to the other, while obviously not “enough,” still afforded a mental preparation that expedited me through the familiar seven stages of grief, ending with acceptance.

And while some may find it odd or inappropriate, the grief was even more intense at the passing of my dog of 17 years. I’m certain this was because I saw him frequently every single day leading up to the (long procrastinated) appointed time. Each of those days I would take time to lie next to him, and invariably I would sob.

With the likelihood that there are not many years left until my aging parents pass on, I wonder what the experience will bring. At this point I suppose if my folks pass peacefully I might feel emotionally unencumbered by sorrow, knowing they lived a full life. But there’s no guarantee of the absence of waterworks. And even in the simplicity of one’s final day, evoked by the words of one of my favorite blues songs, I can find reason to both smile and sob:

Labels: death, me

.
My sister e-mailed me the other day to inform me that one of our uncles had died. He passed away peacefully in his sleep. He was my dad’s sister’s husband. They lived in a nearby suburb and I remember many holidays spent visiting them or vice-versa. Although we were not very close, I remember him well as a very kind man with a good humor about him. He was 84, just a couple of years older than my dad, and so his death is yet another signal that I should be prepared for my parents to go at anytime. That will be sad but I don’t expect it will be very hard, especially in the case of my Alzheimer’s-ravaged mom.

Relationships with my extended family have been fairly tepid if not totally non-existent. Some aunts, uncles and cousins I have not seen since I was a child and would not recognize them on the street, while some others I may get to visit on trips back to the stomping grounds if time permits, though it usually does not.

Since I have lived in the south I have had occasion to witness some contrasts in family dynamics, particularly with regard to death. The ancestry of my midwestern clan is Scandinavian, hence rather stoic and often bland, whereas much of the native southerners (which includes my wife) are descended from the more jovial Scots-Irish. And boy can you tell it from the funerals. In both regions the grief of the immediate family of the deceased is kept fairly private, but a brave face is soon put on amongst southerners because, well, there’s some celebrating to do.

Out of financial and scheduling necessity, I won’t be returning for my uncle’s funeral this week. I imagine it will be a tame affair with baleful hymns and rice pudding. By contrast, when my wife’s father died recently, and also when a family matriarch of her mom’s side of the family passed away last week, relatives from all over the lower 48 poured in. And when all the funereal business was complete, it was family reunion time. Barbeque, beer, bourbon - we’re not talking frat party here, though alcohol consumption is generally robust. But the fellowship is one of happiness and remembrance, and I for one think it ought to be so.

When my time comes, hopefully from natural causes at a ridiculously advanced age, I will expect my survivors, descendants and friends to gather one last time in happy memory of me. Drink some and laugh a lot. The only tears I want at my after party are ones of laughter from stories like how grampa got arrested those few times or lost all bladder control during a particular concert experience. Hopefully there won’t be too many sour glares from the lutefisk crowd at the other end of the room.

.

Labels: death, family, life, me

.
After being skunked in last year's competition, I was happy to hear of my being bestowed with two Georgia Press Association Awards this year. For our division (like 'Q' or something way down the alphabet for tiny twice-weeklies) I received third place for feature writing, which I consider my strong suit, and first place for investigative reporting, by which I was pleasantly surprised but also feel a bit awkward - more on that in a minute.

First, a small paper doesn't usually have the kind of budget to pay its reporters for long hours on a deep story, but I had the responsibility for covering one subject that was major news in our area for months (and still has a way to go toward resolution and possible closure, if at all). The story, and I hate using that term for someone's real life tragedy, is about a local 911 dispatcher who disappeared and how her cop husband (soon to be ex) became the prime suspect. He was indeed recently charged with her murder despite authorities not having found her body. Lots of intrigue, including another cop buddy charged with lying to authorities and hacking into the woman's computer, and the hubby losing his job after they found C-4 explosive in his work locker. I wrote several articles throughout the months following her disappearance on search efforts, family and friends holding community vigils, and a renowned forensic psychologist who analyzed a very unsettling television interview that the husband gave. The case drew national attention for a while and I appeared (or my voice did) on both CNN's Nancy Grace Show and Fox's On The Record with Greta Van Susteren. Heady times for an ex-welder who had tossed his hat into the journalism game a mere two years prior.

But the accolade comes bittersweetly, and even more so with the fact that I was informed of my achievement one year to the day that the missing and likely murdered woman was last seen by her family. It has been the most difficult assignment in my short career to talk, on several occasions, with members of that grieving family, and frankly it's been impossible to remain neutral in the face of such grief coupled with much strong circumstantial evidence against the husband. I do not aspire to be an investigative reporter - I only submitted the three articles required for the competition because they were eligible and I had worked hard on them. Congratulations seem a bit off-kilter in the light of what the woman's family is going through. It was especially poignant that my own sister passed away rather suddenly during the peak of all this, because I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go see her one last time. This family that I came to know, and the community she lived and worked in, didn't get that chance. And by all accounts their daughter, sister, aunt and friend was a wonderful, kind and caring person that certainly deserved better than being rubbed out and discarded in some unorthodox, anonymous grave. I will hang the plaque on my wall like it is designed to be - a recognition. But it will also act as another reminder of just how fleeting life can be in this all-too-often mean and cold world, one that I cannot say as a reporter that I am glad to be a part of.
.

Labels: death, journalism, me, writing

.
Lots of good remembrances on the blogs today. The theme I am relating to best is not so much remembering what we've lost but rather what we've given away. Former U.S. Senator Gary Hart wrote one of the best essays, copied here from HuffPo:

Six years ago three thousand Americans lost their lives. They need not have. Their deaths could have been prevented. Their lives could have been saved.

The Bush administration was warned months before 9/11 that terrorists were going to attack America. They did nothing. They have yet to be held accountable for the preventable loss of American lives. Yet the administration blames its critics for not understanding the terrorist threat.

The perpetrator of those American deaths is still at large and the war to eliminate those who harbored him threatens to drag on inconclusively for many years. Instead, administration operatives, with the approval of their masters, find it convenient to use him to create fear, and therefore justify their positions of power.

The United States has suffered more than 30,000 casualties in another war that had nothing to do with those attacks. This folly is producing more haters of America than it can ever possibly eliminate.

The backbone of domestic security, the National Guard, is deployed in that war and is thus not at home being trained, equipped, and deployed to protect America.

The consolidation of federal border protection and attack response in a single agency did not begin until at least 18 months after it was proposed and, six years later, it has proved to be woefully inadequate, in large part because those responsible for its administration possess a political philosophy that does not believe government can or should be effective. And they use every occasion to prove it.

The U.S. is currently pursuing a foreign policy in the Middle East and throughout the Arab world that is dementedly designed to promote a clash of civilizations. When this policy produces further attacks, our current policy makers will respond that this is what to expect from those who hate America and only tough-minded conservatives know how to deal with them.

Those who claim to understand terrorism and the use of force, meanwhile, have so exhausted our combat forces that our true national security is greatly at risk and our nation is weakened.

This administration stands indicted for incompetence and mendacity. That it still commands the loyalty of even a quarter of our fellow citizens is testament to the persistence of willful ignorance. Against all the facts assembled in this indictment, that the administration's operatives can still make claims on strength, security, and determination is chutzpah on stilts.

That the media still treat these operatives and spokespersons, and indeed the president himself, seriously is witness to their desire for "access" and "sources" rather than their commitment to the truth.

America is today under the steady gaze of billions of the world's citizens and even more under the examining lens of history. Nothing is more difficult than to admit that we made a tragic mistake in selecting our leaders. But that is the first step toward redemption. Absolute rejection of those who lay claim to ownership of security is the next.

We are too old to behave as adolescents any longer. That includes particularly our president. America must grow up. We must redeem ourselves in the name of those who lost their lives unnecessarily six years ago. We must reclaim our dignity and our honor from those who have neither.

And here is my annual perspective check from that watershed time (cut me some slack on my over-the-top newscaster tone).
.
.

Labels: death, facts, histoire, justice, life, madness, martyrdom, milestones, politix, religion, remembrance, terms of enragement, tragedy, turrists, war, weaponry, words

.
I haven't posted lately for the simple fact that, as happens to everybody, life got in the way. This time it was by way of that common irony in life - dealing with someone’s death. I learned last week that my eldest sister, all of 57 years old, is stricken with terminal cancer. Her condition was reported to be quite grave, a perfect storm of symptoms that prompted me to travel to my hometown where she and a majority of my immediate family still live, fearfully holding a hope that I could be with her one last time.

The night before I left I was lying in bed with my wife and my newborn son when the fear and grief took hold, and I sobbed harder than I can ever remember, taxing the nearest pillow so as not to frighten the baby. After I calmed, my wife said something that struck me at first as a bit insensitive. “It’s tough being a grown-up, isn’t it?”

What do you expect? I thought in a classic kneejerk that was more from embarrassment than from anger. Quickly I came to know that what she said was no insult. I didn’t immediately reconsider that I’ve made it 41.5 years on this earth without the loss of anything more painful than a favorite pet. I say reconsider because that fact was made apparent a few weeks back when I read a moving post about sibling death that Don wrote. A fellow commentor mentioned that after her older brother died, there was a strange passage, “a particularly odd time,” that she and each of the younger siblings went through when they reached the age of his death. I considered that as the sixth of seven children I was likely to have to go through similar odd times, quite possibly several. I also thought that the first of those would be closer to 20 years from now.

Another commentor, who has lost three siblings, said that losing them "also meant losing my witnesses,” which is particularly poignant in the case of my sister since, in another revelation I had over the weekend, she and my eldest brother (turning 54 next week) were “the family” for 10 years before the baby boom of five latter day siblings that arrived every other year beginning in 1959. As adulthood caught up with each of us and we scattered about the country, phone calls and visits home usually revolved around the here-and-now and the “great to see you,” with only occasional discussion of family history. Thankfully my mother was somewhat diligent and proficient in the media of family journalism, photography and 8mm silent film. Still, that archive leaves much to be related, pardon the pun, given that my rather taciturn father requires Mike Wallace-caliber probing to recall anything and my mother’s spiral into the darkness of Alzheimer’s now sadly precludes her further contribution (visiting her this past trip sped up the emotional see-saw that was already cranking). My sister’s condition has stabilized to the point that she is fully lucid, if quite beleaguered. So with a greater hope of having her with us a while longer, I am committed to my part of chronicling the family reserve.

Beyond that simple task is the decidedly more complicated one of dealing with her imminent passing and the support she and her husband and daughters and granddaughter will need from here on. And then of course that her father, four brothers and two sisters (we’ve decided that it serves no purpose to inform mom) will need to cope with a loved one lost far too soon. But there are myriad others who have dealt with this, and I will as sure as anything be seeking out them and/or their writings in order to bring myself and my family a little comfort and wisdom.

Nora Ephron recently wrote a commentary on John and Elizabeth Edwards’ situation regarding her cancer and Elizabeth’s proclamation that she had two choices: to go on living, or begin dying. Ephron respectfully disagreed with the simplicity of that, offering this jewel that for me settles the mud in the puddle of meaning just a bit more:

“I believe instead that at a certain point in life, whether or not you've been diagnosed with illness, you enter into a conscious, ongoing, unending, eternal, puzzling, confusing negotiation between the two (choices). Some days one of them wins, and some days the other. This negotiation often includes decisions as trivial as whether to eat a second piece of pie, and as important as whether to have medical treatment that may or may not prolong your life.”

And I was reminded recently of the grace, dignity and humor with which musician Warren Zevon faced his terminal diagnosis. His chief nugget of wisdom (the simplicity of which just about brings me to tears every time I think of it)?

“Enjoy every sandwich.”

So the deli of my soul is now open 24/7

.

Labels: death, family, life, sandwiches