Category Archives: loss

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All of my patients are smart 3

Human behavior doesn’t surprise me, really. Sometimes it disappoints, depresses, demeans, dispirits and demoralizes. And it’s not the patients. It is the corporate workplace and how it abuses people. And circles the wagons against a threat. Including against employees that it views as threats.

I think all of my patients are smart. “You got this,” I say. I explain what carbohydrates are and that they are in everything, practically, except meat and oil. And some meats have carbohydrates too: shrimp, for example. But my patients can figure this out! My patients rise to the occasion! I am not saying that they do smart things all the time. No one does, including me. Even the smartest ones can do things that are not a good idea or are a really bad idea. Growing up in an addiction household, I think I escaped addiction mostly because I had decided that no adults could be trusted by the time I was three. I thought they loved me but I couldn’t trust them not to give me to someone else. Ironic, that the distrust saved me from taking the same path. My sister took it and is gone. My patients are smart and all I have to do is share my education and experience! They take the ball and run with it! Not all. Sometimes it’s too late and everyone dies eventually.

Corporations, on the other hand, are infuriatingly stupid.

The photograph is me in 2015, sailing my father’s boat with my daughter, in Port Townsend Bay.

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Beading memory

Both I and my sister have done some beading.

She gave me this necklace one of the last three times I saw her. She was at home with breast cancer and referred to hospice. I flew down to visit three times in the last three months. I was expecting it before then but she was very very strong and fought it all the way to the end.

We were both born in March, so this has amethysts. She liked silver more than gold and we both liked the irregularly shaped pearls. I am not sure what the dark round beads are. They could be bloodstones, which were the March birthstone before amethyst took over. I like the clasp in the front and that it is not symmetric. My sister died in 2012 and of course I still miss her.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: beading.

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leaves

I am working in Grand Junction, Colorado. There are not as many leaves here as at home, but the leaves are still hiding my cat! I am mad at the leaves and sad. Elwha is still missing and it’s been a week. I have had food and the carrier out for him, put up posters on Facebook, contacted the shelters and vets, and searched and searched.

The carrier failed and the door popped off when I put it down. Elwha ran. Sol Duc was still in it, so I put the door back on as fast as I could! Then I left the carrier and went after Elwha, but could not find him. I kept going out and searching, including at 2 am.

Maybe he will show up at home. It’s only 1215 miles by car.

We had another cat who disappeared and we thought was gone. The hardware store called us a month later and said, “We have your cat.” She was thinner and scared to go outside. Elwha only goes out in carrier or with leash and harness. There are prairie dogs and a canal with low trees and bushes behind the building here. I don’t think he’s there, but I am still putting food out. There is another stray tiger who now comes out to study me from a distance.

Anyhow, I wish the leaves would send him back.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: leaves.

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Threat

I am practicing the soprano part of the Brahms Requiem to sing in early May.

The second movement is amazing. It is in 3/4 time, waltz time, but slowed to a dirge, a march, a crawl. And by adding movement on the last 16th note in a three beat sequence, so the 11/12 beat, it sounds threatening and frightening. It builds and builds and then quiets, only to build again. It is terrifying. What an amazing piece of music!

And the words, too. “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.”

At last it opens into a fugue and glory, but still with intensity. “But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” There is still the undertow of grief and confusion and fear.

The building is at Fort Worden and is certainly falling away.

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See

Elkill
I am filled with joy!
It is still dark out, early
I remember lighting a candle for you
and putting it on the porch
when we were friends
and you would come over early

I loved those times
you were a wonderful friend

but now I know what I want
wanted from you
and from others
in the past

I want to be seen and loved

I want to be seen and loved
deeply
all of me
the dark parts too
all on me

and that is why
I could love you
and my patients
and even people who hurt me
because

most people are afraid
to be seen
seen and loved
deeply
the flaws, the sad parts, the broken bits
all of it

Elkill
I am filled with joy
I know what I want
I want to be seen and loved
deeply

I do not think it will happen
on this earth with a human
though I am open, open

But the Beloved sees me
the Beloved sees me
deeply
and loves all of me
the flaws, the sad parts, the broken bits
all of me

Thank you
for helping me see you
for helping me see
what I want

I am filled with joy!

_________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bedazzle.

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Delicate

I think of what is delicate in all our wide wild world
Our world itself? Yes, but more. Peace among people? No, peace
is strong as war, peace lifts my heart and roars, hoping others hear.
Most delicate is the human heart, all humans. Covid has damaged
the human hearts, we fear, we grieve, we stress and lash out
and so we go to war and wars and argue with each other.
Human hearts turn outward, we cannot see the virus and feel helpless
as the subtle battle is fought and doctors and nurses and scientists
research and die. Human hearts want an enemy they can see, they can fight
and what is better than another human? Every human is different
so there are many choices, to fight over the differences. Let us stop.
Gather our wounded, clear the rubble, find the dead and bury them.
Let us stop and cry and weep and tear our hair.
Let us mourn as a world our dead and the damage to the human heart.

___________________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: delicate.

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Fun in hell

Even when I go through hell on earth
mother dies, marriage crumbles
sister cancer, father cries
divorce, sister dies
pneumonia, pneumonia, pneumonia
can’t breathe and still have to defend myself
when accused of crazy and reported
Bitch is not a psychiatric disorder
hypoxia is not a psychiatric disorder
my cousin helps my niece to sue me
I never thought my family would have lawsuits
never
yet my sister sets them to explode
after she dies

I don’t quite die
though it is pretty rough
and grief tears at my throat
like a wolf, like a lion
like a hyena,
piranhas
I have two children and I stay
because they do not deserve this mess
I guard and fight and stay present

And there is laughter
even in hell
I time a comment and my daughter
snorts milk out her nose
I tell my children I shouldn’t handle knives
because of a meeting at work
“Five against one?” says my son
“Yes,” I say
“Well, they didn’t have enough people, did they?”
And I laugh and we go out to dinner.

Is this my fault?
Is it something I did?
The marriage was me, yes,
I do two years of counseling
trying to understand
I can’t change it
but maybe I can understand

A sort of a friend
ok
a false friend
a liar
says he never changes.
I say I always try to learn
I want to know
I want to grow
how can he not grow?
how can he refuse to learn?

he doesn’t talk to me any more
he stops speaking to people forever
but
there is no forever
there is now and the Beloved
and the dark and the light are united
after death
will you be a proton
or an electron
or gravity?

There are hells on earth
worse than mine
prayers
I send prayers
for the innocents
everyone was newborn
and innocent
once