Category Archives: grief

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Unconditional

You can love the whole person
all the angel bits the joy the laughter silliness hugs
all the devil bits the anger the grumpiness sulking whines

all the bits you have too

you do not always have to like their behavior

you do not have to tolerate abuse

you can say do not be mean, tease, gossip, steal, lie

trust yourself
and don’t give in to lies

you can love the whole person
you are wholly lovable

and you do not have to stay
for a moment even

if they abuse
if they won’t stop
walk away

and maybe they will change

 

another photograph that I took solstice morning

 

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Frail

I wrote this two years before my father died. I did find him…..

Frail
We are going sailing
My partner says to me
“Invite him if you want.”

Then I am busy for a while

I think of calling, then forget

He was not at chorus on Monday

At last I say,
“I haven’t called. We’ll just sail.
Just us today.”

I haven’t called
because he was not at chorus on Monday

He is frail
55 years of camels
two packs a day
as if each cigarette
destroyed one alveolus
in his lungs
one tiny air/blood interface
built to exchange oxygen
and carbon dioxide
the loss is cumulative
He is frail
he is proud that the choral director
says, “I need you.”
He can’t sustain
but his entrances and time
are the best
among the basses.
They need him.

Chorus
is our winter link
two introverts
we hug at the start of chorus
sing for two hours
and talk for a few minutes at the end

Occasionally we go for a beer
I invite him for dinner
but he comes less and less
he often does not feel well at night

He looks smaller at chorus
this season
this is normal in emphysema
the body sheds weight
too much tissue to oxygenate
too hard for the lungs
and the heart, working overtime
to make up the difference
he is blessed with low blood pressure
genetic, from his father,
tough English stock,
otherwise I think he’d be dead

I didn’t call
before we went sailing
because I am afraid

I’ve driven out before
when he has not answered the phone
for a day or two
wondering if I would find him dead

I didn’t call
before we went sailing
because he was not at chorus on Monday
because if he didn’t answer today
I would not go

 
I took the photograph in 2009

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Flowers

I want a love who loves me

bring me roses
write me notes

my mother-in-law’s husband
leaves a note on her pillow
with a kiss for each day
he’ll be gone

give me kisses
hold my hand
walk in the rain
in the sun
in the moonlight
on the beach
in the forest
under the stars

I want to love you

more than the rain
the sun
the moonlight
the beach
the forest
the stars

I want a love who loves me

I want a love who loves me
and I love

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label

Quick: label

It is because he was (label)
but he really was (label)
and hated himself
so he killed  (label)

the labels
create a safe distance

we think
we are not in those (label)s

drop the labels

a person
was sad and lonely and grieving and enraged

he took a gun
he shot many other people

bow our heads

and grieve

 

I took the photograph with my phone last night on the beach.

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Advice to young people

My biggest piece of advice to young singles and young couples is: put half of each take home salary away. Married or not married, and I don’t care how committed you are.

I know people who lose their house when one half of a couple is sick, and the other can’t pay all the bills on one salary. We don’t want to think about illness or cancer, but it happens. Young parents, with one very ill and the other with a job, children and a sick spouse. Having a reserve is way more important than keeping up with the Joneses, unless you happen to inherit like Mr. Trump.

If you each put half of your take home salary away, then when life throws surprises at you, you will have a reserve. A big reserve if the surprises hold off for a while. Divide that half into retirement and half into money that you have access to in emergencies.

I listed the top ten causes of death in the US in 2012 here, but lets look by age: http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_death_by_age_group_2012-a.pdf.

From age 1 to 44 the top cause of death is accidents, unintentional injuries.

Suicide is second from age 15 to 44.

Cancer takes over as number one, malignant neoplasms, at age 45 to 65.

After 65, the number one cause of death is the heart, and that is where the biggest numbers are. But if a younger cause of death affects your family, it feels unfair, wrong, as if we all expect to like to age 78 or beyond.

Untintentional injury, that is, accidents, are broken down here: http://www.cdc.gov/injury. When I do physicals on teens, I ask them what the number one cause of death is for teens. They all know the answer, even if they have to think for a moment: motor vehicle accidents.

But lets look at accidents in the age 25-65 age group: poisonings. What? Poisoning? And NOT intentional…. what is going on there? It is drugs, legal and illegal, but more legal. Sedating drugs in combination are effective at sedating people enough to stop breathing and die. Alcohol with benzodiazepines (valium, ativan, etc.), opiates and opioids, sleep medicines such as ambien and sonata, withdrawal from methamphetamines, cocaine, crack….people die. And supplements may be contributing as well.

75 years of US mortality data: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db88.pdf#x2013;2010%20

At birth now in the US the life expectancy averages 78, but not everyone reaches that….some people still die younger and some live longer.

The age of death is rising, world wide. In the US, many of us have a world envied standard of living and yet we have a significant number of people who are anxious and depressed and way too high a rate of substance abuse, alcohol, opiates and opioids, benzodiazepines and yes, marijuana is addictive. How do I reconcile this? How do you reconcile this?

Keep your reserve, young singles and young couples…..

http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/usa-cause-of-death-by-age-and-gender
As of the day I am writing this on 5/2/16:

POPULATION
318,857,056

Numbers to be corrected, first set was wrong, wrong, wrong.

I took the photograph yesterday evening: there were the most amazing Maxfield Parish clouds…. life and death are a mystery.

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W is for wrath

W is for wrath, the seventh sin.

From Webster 1913:

Wrath

1. Violent anger; vehement exasperation; indignation; rage; fury; ire.
Wrath is a fire, and jealousy a weed. Spenser.
When the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased. Esther ii. 1.
Now smoking and frothing Its tumult and wrath in. Southey.

2. The effects of anger or indignation; the just punishment of an offense or a crime.
“A revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” Rom. xiii. 4.
Syn. — Anger; fury; rage; ire; vengeance; indignation; resentment; passion. See Anger.

 

Wrath is a sin, yet is it ever justified?

I am wrathful about this: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/23/471595323/drug-company-jacks-up-cost-of-aid-in-dying-medication

In my state a terminally ill patient may choose Death with Dignity: http://www.doh.wa.gov/YouandYourFamily/IllnessandDisease/DeathwithDignityAct

The person must be terminally ill, must not be suicidal and must go through a process. But one of the tablets prescribed, which only the person may administer to themselves, has had a price increase from $200.00 to over $3000.00.

I heard this from another physician, who has a patient who is going through the process.

I feel wrath and anger and hurt and rage that a corporation is choosing to make an enormous profit from terminally ill patients.

And so wrath may be a sin, but it is also an appropriate feeling at times.

In a sermon about forgiveness, hate is also discussed:

“Let me also say a word here about hatred, since I am speaking of forgiveness as being the release of hatred. Many  of us,  I suppose, like myself, have been taught not to hate.  We have been taught that hatred is always a bad thing and there is no place for it.  Thus, we feel uncomfortable in the face of this intense emotion and attitude.  Many times I have stumbled on the line from the biblical book of Ecclesiastes which reads, “There’s a time to love and a time to hate.”

Can there be  a time to hate?  Ironically, when  reflecting on the subject of forgiveness, I see that there is a place for hatred.
 
First,  your  hatred  lets  you  know  that  you  are  feeling  diminished  and  perhaps  being stepped on and treated as no human being ought to be treated.

Secondly,  your  hatred  lets  you  know  that  you’re  fighting  back  and  that  you  have something  to  fight  back  with.    It  lets  you  know  that  the  situation  is  intolerable  and  you will not put up with it.

And  so  hatred  can  be  a  natural  and  even  necessary  response  to  situations  that  threaten human dignity.  Says one author, “Not to feel resentment when resentment is called for is a sign of servility,… a lack of self-respect.”  (Forgiveness, Haber)”

From: November 15, 2009, here: http://www.quuf.org/index.php?page=2009—2010-sermons

p7
http://www.quuf.org/uploads/Sermons/Is%20Forgiveness%20Always%20Called%20For%20Part%20II%20Nov%2015%2009%20print.pdf

I took the picture in 2007. No wrath here, but three different expressions, and all complex….

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T is for tender

T for tender, in this alphabet of feelings.

Look at the Webster 1913: such a rich variety of meanings. Dictionary.com seems to have toned them down and we have lost the quotations: from the bible, from L’Estrange, from Shak: I realized, oh, Shakespeare…..

Ten”der, a. [Compar. Tenderer (?); superl. Tenderest.] [F. tendre, L. tener; probably akin to tenuis thin. See Thin.]

1. Easily impressed, broken, bruised, or injured; not firm or hard; delicate; as, tender plants; tender flesh; tender fruit.
2. Sensible to impression and pain; easily pained.
    Our bodies are not naturally more tender than our faces. L’Estrange.
3. Physically weak; not hardly or able to endure hardship; immature; effeminate.
    The tender and delicate woman among you. Deut. xxviii. 56.
4. Susceptible of the softer passions, as love, compassion, kindness; compassionate; pitiful; anxious for another’s good; easily excited to pity, forgiveness, or favor; sympathetic.
    The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. James v. 11.
    I am choleric by my nature, and tender by my temper. Fuller.

When my daughter was two, my cousin visited with his wife and one year old. My daughter was delighted with this younger child and she was very tender and kind to him. On the third day I realized that she had interpreted “family” as they were now part of the family.

“Camille,” I said, “They are leaving tomorrow. They are visiting us and they have a home.”

She gave me a look of horror and then terrible disappointment. She revised the meaning of family: family doesn’t mean live together. That is how she interpreted family, which is completely understandable. I was sorry to make her so sad, but I didn’t want her to be shocked and sad the next day. She was still loving to the younger cousin and sad when they left. I apologized to her for the misunderstanding.

5. Exciting kind concern; dear; precious.
    I love Valentine, Whose life’s as tender to me as my soul! Shak.
6. Careful to save inviolate, or not to injure; — with of.
    “Tender of property.”Burke.
    The civil authority should be tender of the honor of God and religion. Tillotson.
7. Unwilling to cause pain; gentle; mild.
    You, that are thus so tender o’er his follies, Will never do him good. Shak.

What makes us feel tender? A sleeping child, a lullaby, a new baby, a very young animal, new plants or flowers…

8. Adapted to excite feeling or sympathy; expressive of the softer passions; pathetic; as, tender expressions; tender expostulations; a tender strain.
9. Apt to give pain; causing grief or pain; delicate; as, a tender subject.
“Things that are tender and unpleasing.” Bacon.
10. Naut. Heeling over too easily when under sail; — said of a vessel.

⇒ Tender is sometimes used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, tender-footed, tender-looking, tender-minded, tender-mouthed, and the like.

I bruised my daughter’s tender heart when I told her that they were leaving, but I did not want to lie to her or take her by surprise…..

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sing for the girls

Sing for the girls who grow up in war zones.
Sing for the girls who grow up scared.
Sing for the girls who grow up abused.
Sing for the girls unprepared.

Sing for the girls who grow up with alcohol.
Sing for the girls who grow in broken homes.
Sing for the girls who don’t tell anyone.
Sing for the girls alone.

Sing for the girls who grow up beaten.
Sing for the girls who grow up raped.
Sing for the girls who care for siblings.
Sing for the girls who learn to hate.

Sing for the women who now look frozen.
Sing for the women who now look old.
Sing for the women who survived it anyway.
Sing for the women who told.

Sing for the girls who grow up broken.
Sing for the girls who break everything.
Sing for the girls who break the silence.
We are broken and breaking: sing.

I took the photograph at the US Synchronized Swimming Nationals in 2012.

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M is for mourn

M is for mourn. We mourn for losses. Mourning is part of being human and we have to give grief room and space. How can we love and feel intimacy without also feeling grief and mourning?

M

I wrote a poem the day my sister died. I had flown home four days before, after seeing her in hospice, 7 years of cancer. I flew home the day before her birthday. My birthday is three days after hers. She died the day after my birthday. It has now been four years.

An apology, a love note and a remembrance

I step outside into a fine mist rain.

I am enfolded in cloud.

The dog still wants to be walked.
The cats want their treats.
The bunny rattles her cage.
The fish will want feeding at the usual time.

My heart lies stunned in my chest.
The dog does not pull.
I walk measured.
He waits.

The rain comes harder.

I hope that where you are, is joy.

The crows harsh caws comfort me.
I answer.
They watch from the tree tops as we circle.

I am enshrouded in cloud.

We are back to the house.

I try to remember.
I have the birds.
I have the trees.

We go in.

first published on everything2.com with other poems for her here: http://everything2.com/title/An+apology%252C+a+love+note+and+a+remembrance

I don’t know who took the photograph. Probably my grandparents.

 

 

 

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Costume 8

This is the last in this costume series and now it’s revealed. My sister was not wearing a costume but she contributed to the festivities by showing off her ballet skills. Her daughter was more interested in dinner than ballet at that particular moment, even though they performed together. My sister loved to dance and loved the costumes there too.

Taken in 2009, Lake Matinenda, Ontario, Canada. My sister died of breast cancer in 2012.