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The photo itself is gorgeous; somber, misty setting; majestic wildlife. It really is quite the shot by amateur photographer Frank Glick.
When a friend sent it to me in email, I called it “beautiful and haunting”, but a few hours have passed, and I have been thinking…
Before passing along the photo to some other folks whom I thought would be interested, I googled the story, fearing that I would find that the photo was staged or ,worse, photoshop’d.
It wasn’t.
Reading the article attached to the photo, it occurred to me that it also wasn’t just a great photo.
The photo became the jumping off point for a whole different story. The story did not end with a “Photo of the Week” caption, but with a life revisited. It provided a chance for a life-long friend to reminisce and a widow to once again be assured that the man that she loved for so many years, although gone, was not forgotten.
The scene captured within the camera frame is not just symbolically patriotic, but a reminder to those who cared about the man buried there that this man was special. Truthfully, it is hoped, that each and every one of those headstones mark the final resting place of someone who was special to someone.
The story’s headline declares “The Eagle Could Not Have Picked a Better Person”. Would there still be a story; maybe similar, maybe not; had the eagle alit two stones over? Or three? Or ten? I’d like to think so.
In reading the story behind the photo, I found myself wondering how many other folks would benefit from a chance to break out their own photo albums and share those whom they have loved and lost with someone who finds themselves suddenly interested. How many folks have I crossed paths with who need a chance to talk? Who needs to be called upon to reminisce? Who else needs to be chosen?
Growing up I remember owning a poster that definitively declared:
“Salesmanship Begins When the Customers Says ‘No’ “
I have no idea why I had the poster. Unless you count my minimum wage job slinging fish at the local market, I’ve never been in sales. Never want to be in sales either. Not only would I hate it, I would also be bad at it.
Very bad.
The premise of the poster doesn’t quite sound right to me either. Disrespecting someone’s stated wishes for your own personal gain falls pretty far from the values I was raised with. For a product with some real value, maybe I can see pushing the boundaries a bit, but, in general, when I am being pushed into a sale, something within me innately pushes back.
I duck and run through retail outlets that staff their stores with pit bulls on commission. After a two-hour search for a new outfit one afternoon, I left the whole ensemble on the counter and walked out of the store when the saleswoman tried to push one more “accessory” on me. When someone is really pushing hard for a sale, my mind wonders, sometimes aloud, what is so wrong with a product that needs that amount of pressure applied to a sale.
Ridiculously, I spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to get myself off of mailing lists and email campaigns. I squint through the fine print on the junk email I get in order to unsubscribe to their incessant barrage. I don’t even want to just send the stuff to my spam folder. I want it to stop.
It doesn’t.
More discouraging is the knowledge that it never will.
When I retired from the Navy and came back to my hometown, I moved into the family home. When mom went into assisted living and I moved to my condo, I forwarded all the mail from the family address to my new residence. Two years later I moved again. Again I forwarded the mail. As a consequence, I still get mail for all of the previous residents of the house I grew up in.
Occasionally, I get mail for my brother. More commonly, I get mail for my sister.
Yesterday, I got an invitation to an open house at a new elder care facility. It was addressed to my mother. I am quite certain we won’t be going to that open house. I am also pretty sure that I would never recommend an elder care facility that doesn’t screen death notices.
In today’s mail came tickets to a seminar on estate planning, inviting my dad to enjoy an informative afternoon with a financial planning firm offering personalized service.
Just exactly how does a company that offers “personalized” service overlook that their potential client has been dead for nearly 14 years?
For the “salesmanship begins when the customer says ‘no’ ” crowd, I am sure there is no appropriate time to quit selling.
I for one, though, would like to see it end at least by the time the customer has died.
But maybe that is just me…
Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. On a smaller scale, I try to do that with blog posts as well, although in this medium, the writing seems to continue.
In many of my posts, I have told the story of coping with an aging parent. My mother’s health has taken a turn for the worse, and now, in muddling through the end of the story, I find I have neither the words nor the interest in sitting at a keyboard.
I will no doubt find words and write more, but not tonight.
I started my search for joy this week in the kitchen. Cooking is, indeed, one of the things that brings me joy; whether whatever is in the oven turns out or not. Simply turning up the heat in the kitchen raises my spirits.
Yesterday, though, wasn’t simply badly cooked. It was raw. The events of the week piling up on me.
My good friend has moved across the country. I wish her joy on her new adventure, but I am sad to see her leave. My mother has been extremely remote, unreachable, but physically unchanged. She would hate this if she were aware of her current reality. In her mental absence, I am hating it for her.
It was in that state of mind that I started the day in obedience class. A class that now has the distinction of being our worst ever; not exactly the “refresher” I had envisioned. The beast and I were in conflict from the very beginning. I needed a “win”, a confidence booster, a worry-free hour. The beast, apparently, needed something else.
I went right. The beast went left. I asked for a “sit”. She bounded away. I headed for the door to get her out of the room to calm her down. She hit the floor and stayed there. One of the instructors offered a body wrap to curb her anxiety. The beast nearly tied herself in knots trying to get it off. We left the class to work on heeling. All I got was raw hands. Literally… raw.
So I started the class with high hopes. I mean, why go if you don’t think there is at least the chance of improvement? I ended the class with two of the instructors holding my dog and me holding my face in my hands attempting to stop the tears.
Raw hands.
Raw nerves.
Clearly now is the time to get cooking.
As the government health care discussions took center stage, so did the rhetoric about medicine. This should not be confused with actual medicine. This was the politics of medicine. There was much sturm und drang about the concept of hospice care, palliative care and end-of-life decision.
For those of us who would prefer a little more reasoned discussion, this is what researchers found when examining whether or not a discussion of death (heaven forbid we talk about that in a medical discussion) and end-of-life decisions has any effect on patients and their families.
Contrary to fears that such discussions cause emotional harm to patients, the researchers reported that there was no increase in serious depression or worry and that the worst psychological distress occurred in patients and family members when end-of-life talks had not taken place. The poorest quality of life and worst bereavement adjustment resulted when patients received aggressive care during the last week of life, the researchers found.
There is much more in the NYTimes article, Frank Talk About Care at Life’s End, by Jane E. Brody.
In my current pattern of life, I see a number of folks every day who are well past the primes of their lives; some only a mere shadow of their former selves. My own mother is included in that category. If I only knew her life as it exists today, I would know very little indeed.
I have written previously, and fondly, of my many conversations with visiting family members and of the conversations any number of the staff have had with me; piecing together the lives of the residents at the nursing home; filling in the pieces from their history.
I wrote of J’s passing on Saturday. Years past her church-going days; no longer in the thick of professional or social circles, it was her wish not to have a memorial service or graveside ceremony. The nursing home had a brief bedside remembrance for staff who had been close and the few family members in town.
The family held a dinner this evening at J’s favorite restaurant; IHOP.
I was honored (and tickled) to have been invited along with those who had once been close to the dearly departed. As we were finishing our meals, there was a little time for sharing memories. I learned much more about this lovely woman – as expected. I had only known her in her very last months; as she had been fading. A number of the women in attendance had been her compadres at the assisted living facility where she had lived for the years before things started to go south rapidly.
What was clear from all who spoke was that J. was loved.
The most telling thing of all, though, was not a shared memory, but collective behavior.
When the time came to get organized to leave, the family member who had organized the event assured the assisted living contingent that she would call a cab. Eleven voices rang out with the phone number and instructions to ask for Dan.
Mind you, this is a group I wouldn’t expect to ace a memory test. They are not of a generation likely to have the local cab company programmed into their cell phones. They wouldn’t know how to use a handheld device equipped with GPS and a 4G network, but they know one thing. They know how to get home safely from whatever adventure they happen to be on.
They know Dan’s number off the top of their heads.
This was the crowd who got themselves out and about.
These are J’s people.
I like that about her.
I have fears; some rational, some irrational.
- Although I am a strong swimmer, I have this fear of the water – or more specifically fish and, egad, mutant, ninja, killer seaweed. I know. It makes no sense.
- I hate working with electricity.
- I get a little queasy at the sight of blood…and ooze.
- And I really hate to look stupid.
There. I have said it.
Even admitting to those fears, I feel like I do a pretty good job of managing them, rather than letting them manage me.
To confront some of those fears, I have gone so far as to swim in open ocean races and volunteer to play a Search and Rescue victim (including jumping from a moving helicopter into a bay reputed to be a Hammerhead breeding ground). I change lightbulbs, jumpstart cars and rewire outlets in my home. I spent a week playing with cadavers.
We won’t even count the number of times I have looked stupid. (Coincidentally, before spell-checking, “stupid” was spelled wrong, proving my point…).
I recognize that none of these times, when I take a deep breath and remind myself that I am being an idiot, will qualify me for the Congressional Medal of Honor. It is also the case that I have not truly conquered most of these fears; only learned to face them; just as I am sure many of you have learned to do with things outside your own comfort zones.
It takes energy to do that, though. It takes a little bit of commitment, and it takes the emotional toll of letting yourself be scared.
It’s not fun; confidence building, perhaps, but not fun…
The question I have to ask now is, “What if it is all for naught?”
What if, no matter how hard you try to face your fears throughout a lifetime, you land back in a world of constant anxiety?
I joined my mother with her new tablemates at lunch yesterday. After greeting my mother, I introduced myself to the new couple. The gentleman across the table looked up and gave me his name and looked to his wife, who looked at me and then looked down at her hands. The gentleman then introduced his wife, as well. It was only then that she spoke to me.
She said, “I’m so afraid”.
Several minutes later, I watched a cloud of anxiety descend over one of the other residents. One moment, this woman was smiling and carrying on a conversation. The next she was overwhelmed with panic; gasping for breath and fighting off tears. All of this was over the fear of falling, anticipating the brief moment that, while supported by a mechanical lift and two aides, she would not be firmly planted in her chair. The simple knowledge that finishing lunch meant having to make the transition back to her room unraveled her completely.
I never knew either of these women in their primes. I cannot say whether this is a new behavior, yet another horrifying part of aging, or simply how they lived their whole lives. I look into these women’s eyes, now, though, and begin to feel a rising panic of my own.
One more fear to add to my list…
I was only gone five days, yet the household where my mother lives has undergone some dramatic changes. There were several new faces and a few of the regulars were missing; never a good sign when I arrived yesterday.
I should be prepared for these things, but in a place that strives for consistency for the sake of its residents, change is unusual, and it is usually the result of a death on the household. Knowing that, I am both wary and disoriented when I arrive to find even small changes.
It is to be expected though.
Mrs. D. was taken to the hospital Sunday. I understand that her hoped for recovery was not in the cards, and she remains in the hospital in hospice care. While the household seems off-kilter without her, it seems unlikely that she will be coming back. Given her state before she was transported it may be unkind to wish for her return, so I will hope instead that she can be made comfortable.
One of the other women in the household passed away late last week. Although she had been in residence for more than a year, she had kept to her bed most days, so I barely knew her. Still, I hope that she passed quietly.
With the vacancy in a double room there was some shuffling of residents to allow a married couple to take-over the double room. The couple now occupy the room next to my mother’s room and her place at the table. My mother now sits at the next table over; at the geriatric equivalent of the cool kids table…or so it seems.
Amidst the shuffling, Miss M. was moved to a different household, so the life of the party is gone. It seems a logical choice, though, as Miss M. was never really “here”; blessed with the ability to travel through time and space with ease, and convinced that each person she saw was related to her somehow. I am certain she will be just as “at home” down the hall a bit as she was on my mother’s household.
I missed her yesterday at lunch, but knowing Miss M. am certain she will come wandering by sometime soon.
While I suppose this could be an advertisement for Oka B’s shoes, there is, for today, more to the story…
Last year I found a great pair of slides at, of all places, a garden shop. They were approaching perfection in shoes. This particular pair managed to be comfy and casual, yet stylish and cool looking. I am on my second pair.
When I bought them, they looked like this, except that the first pair was pink with a pink and brown and white striped ribbon and the second pair had a solid pink ribbon:
The ones with the solid pink ribbon were replacements for what I thought was a one-time disaster…
I love these shoes.
Apparently the beast does too.
There will be, at least temporarily, an empty place at my mother’s table. It is unlikely that my mother will notice, but I will… every time I take my place.
Miss V. passed away this morning, shortly before noon. I got the news from the floor nurse who was taking a short break out at the picnic tables, near visitor parking, when I arrived today. Happy to know before bopping blithely onto the floor, it still makes walking in a little bit harder; uncertain what to expect, certain that the right words would, once again, fail me.
Are there even right words?
Miss V.’s daughter and granddaughter were at her side when she passed away. Both appeared red-eyed, but calm. I think there is some comfort in knowing that, for the first time in a very long while, this woman that they loved was no longer in distress; not in pain, no longer consumed with worry, but, finally, at peace.
She was 98.
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