Between Knowing And Not Knowing

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

On Saturday John had bone scan at Florida Hospital Altamonte Springs. He left at a quarter to nine but came back soon while I was doing laundry. They gave him the shot and told him he could go home and come back at 12:15. We went back together this time.
        I love the new lobby of this hospital. It is not exactly new, about four years now? The new building was not even under construction when I stayed at the hospital in 2005 for my pneumonia. At that time, I could look out from my window only to the barren and barbajuric parking lot and traffic on 436. The new lobby looks like a fancy hotel, with 2-story windows all around, comfortable chairs, and a automatic piano playing soft music. I sat by the window facing the lovely inner courtyard with trees, flower beds, fountain and a reflective pool.
        But it is not a hotel. No cocktails served by the piano. People walked about in a big hush, their faces frozen- except the workers of the hospital. People in blue and green scrubs, pushing patients in wheelchairs or carts with whatever equipments. They were young and healthy and lively and ready to show it.
       John came out in about 30 minutes. From his descriptions, this scan seemed to be the same as the PET done in May.
        We received the report on Monday:  increased activity in the bone; it could be a deep-rooted dental issue or severe damage from previous radiation to cancer. 
        We got the X-ray and report from Dr. M (dentist) from May 18 of last year. Will they offer any help in "reading" the scan results? I sure don't know. 
        We will meet with Dr. R (nephrologist) tomorrow, and Dr. M (surgical oncologist at MD Anderson) on Friday. Will they know? Will any of us ever know?

One Day At A Time

Thursday, June 14, 2012


I went to Walgreen's to pick up his prescriptions. The pharmacy clerk already knew his name before I spoke. I have been there often lately.
       We went to Walmart to pick up other medicine. We went to the library to pick up two books by Ira Byock. Traffic on 436 was horrible. Be patient, I reminded myself, and be thankful that we are still together.
       Last Friday he walked only one floor at the mall. Saturday he walked both floors. Sunday he walked only one floor and had to sit down a couple of times to rest. Monday two floors. Tuesday only one.
       Tuesday we went to see Dr. Z at Florida Hospital. Wednesday we went to see Dr. T at MD Anderson downtown. Both are medical oncologists. Both recommended some form of palliative chemo treatments with (possible) terrible side effects.
       Today Florida Hospital Cancer Institute, MD Anderson, and the hospice called. Drumming up business, I suppose, by asking if they can offer help. MDA set up two appointments in the next two weeks.
       Today Pam sent her cleaning lady over to clean our house. Her treat.
       At three in the afternoon heavy thunderstorms knocked out electricity. We went to grocery shopping. After coming home we sat in the newly cleaned sun room with windows open. John read a bit and took a nap. Later he lit candles and I played music from iPad. Power came back on around 6:30. We made dinner (chicken salad for me and paper-thin sliced ham and cottage cheese for him) and watched an episode of the rerun of In The Heat Of The Night.
       This could go on forever, a day like this with its ups and downs (they are not that bad), for the two of us. It should, really.

Eucharist As Touchstone

Fr. Richard Rohr

The mystery of Eucharist clarifies and delineates Christianity from the other religions of the world. We have many things in common, but Christianity is the only religion that says that God became a human body; God became flesh, as John's Gospel puts it (1:14). 

Incarnation is scandalous, shocking—cannibalistic, intimate, sexual! He did not say, “Think about this,” “Fight about this,” “Stare at this;” but He said “Eat this!” A dynamic, interactive event that makes one out of two.

It is marvelous, that God would enter our lives not just in the form of sermons or bibles, but in food. God comes to feed us more than just teach us. Lovers understand that.

• • • • • • •

The hiding place of God, the revelation place of God, is the material world.

You don’t have to put spirit and matter together; they have been together ever since the Big Bang, 14.6 billion years ago (see Genesis 1:1-2 andJohn 1:1-5). You have to get on your knees and recognize this momentous truth as already and always so.

The Eucharist offers microcosmic moments of belief, and love of what is cosmically true. It will surely take a lifetime of kneeling and surrendering, trusting and letting go, believing and saying, “How could this be true?” Gandhi also said, "If I really believed what you believe, I wouldn't get up from my knees."

The only trouble is that many fervent Christians kneel before the Eucharistic Body of Christ but not the Human Body of Christ that Paul brilliantly describes (1 Corinthians 12:12-26). Remember, it is much easier for God to transform bread than to transform people, and the bread is for the sake of the people.

The Turtle’s Funeral

"Werner Erhard: The Transformation Of A Man"

A biography by W. W. Bartley, III, published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. / page 35

In June 1953 Werner graduated from high school. Almost immediately afterward, he went to New York City for a holiday. Then he returned home, where for several weeks he lay brooding about the house, temporizing, marking time. What was he to do now?

For a while, he escaped from his thoughts by playing with the children.

“One of the things that they used to sell in Times Square is turtles,” Werner said. “They have the Empire State Building painted on the back of them, or the print your name, or whatever. I got my sister Joan one of these. I had the man write Joan on the back of the turtle and had it mailed back to the house in Plymouth Meeting.

“A few weeks later I went home. I was sitting in the living room and my sister came in crying. With those great big racking sobs that only a five-year-old is capable of, giant alligator tears rolling down her cheeks. I put my arms around her and pulled her up onto my lap and held her. After a while she calmed down a bit and I asked her what was the matter. And she said, ‘The turtle dies,’ and started to cry all over again. If you’re five years old you can make a best friend out of a turtle.

“My little three-year-old brother, Harry, was standing in front of the chair like a bird dog honoring the point. It wasn’t his turtle, so the tragedy didn’t really touch him. But he was solemn for the occasion. Then I said, ‘Well, I guess we’ll have to bury the turtle.’ Joan stopped crying a little, so I knew I was on the right track. I kept going. I said, ‘Yeah, we’ll get a matchbox, and we’ll line the matchbox and we’ll make a gravestone, and we’ll have a whole funeral.’ By this time there was no more crying. There were matches spilled from the matchbox all over the kitchen floor, and Harry brought the spade. I led everybody outside. We lined the casket with tinfoil and dug the grave and made a headstone. We were ready. I said, ‘Well, Joan, we have to get the turtle. Where is it?’ She said, ‘It’s in the den.’ So we went back in the house and into the den, and no turtle was there. I got down on my hands and knees and was looking around under the furniture for the turtle. Sure enough, under one of the sofas, there was the turtle, walking along.

“So I said, ‘Joan, Joan, we don’t have to have the funeral, the turtle’s alive.’ She looked outraged, and said,‘Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!’”

Rain

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

It was raining heavily and the wind was blowing hard this afternoon. At four p.m. we decided to go to the mall for a walk. It was one of those stupid things that only made sense if you were "in the moment".
       And that was what we did this afternoon, the same way as we washed our car on January 21, 1994 on the way home after dinner. Chicago, January, late evening. Snow flurries whirling around, soapy foam flying, fingers freezing.
       That night, at the car wash, we were happy. We celebrated our togetherness.
       We went to the mall today after the visit of the hospice nurse. She left me with a copy of Caregiver Handbook.   
       When we came out of the mall, the rain had eased a little. A young woman with a girl about four holding a shopping bag over her head and a boy in the stroller were going out in the rain. I offered her my umbrella. She said, "Oh no. But thank you." I walked with her holding the umbrella over her. I was getting wet. She settled the kids in the car seats and put the stroller in the trunk. John brought our car over. I got in our car. Cold air on my wet shirt gave me a shiver. Great! All I need now is pneumonia.

Night Time

Saturday, June 2, 2012 

Nights are difficult. I woke up from a dream at 3:58.

In the dream, we were driving through a small town of just a few streets. John started fixing something. There were two wires hanging out of the car. He was driving at walking pace and I was outside the car.

A police on motorcycle drove by. I asked John to stop but he didn't. I tried to remove the wires but couldn't. The police was trapped by the wires. He got angry. He asked John for his name. I said, "He's John Wileman." The police ordered me to stay back. He turned back to John and said, "I'm looking for a missing young girl. You go find her and I'll let you go". John walked away.

The police started punishing an old man for reasons unannounced. He held up a big spray can and sprayed at the old man's groin area. Old man bent down in pain. Thick fog from the spray spread everywhere. The police and the crowd didn't seem to be bothered by that or the old man's pain at all.

I turned away and walked down the street looking for John. Fog from the spray was in the air. Nobody was in sight except a man standing at the open door of an empty warehouse. He stood there motionlessly, staring blankly into the space behind me. I became fearful and worried. I called out, "John! John Wileman!"

I walked up and down the streets, calling: "JOHN WILEMAN! JOHN WILEMAN!"

I went back to where our car was. The car and the crowd were gone, just my small bag left on the street covered with dirt. I picked it up and kept walking and calling again, "JOHN WILEMAN!"

I woke up, frightened.

• • • • •
Nights are difficult. For a few years now I often woke up at night. I considered it a good night if I could go back to sleep in an hour or so. Sometimes I stayed awake for 2, 3 hours. At least I was comfortably resting.

In the last two weeks I stayed awake quite a lot. Frightened, fearful, anxious. There is a rock sitting in my stomach.

• • • • •
Sunday, June 3, 2012  
By comparison, afternoons and evenings are nice. John is in the delicate balance of having enough pain medicine to curb the pain, and not so dopey as wanting to keep staying in bed. We'd usually (meaning in the last few days since our whole world changed) have a bite to eat for lunch and go out for a walk or vise versa.

We usually go to the mall and walk the two floors. Today we decided to go to Azalea Park by Lake Maitland. We had gone there a few times in the past and loved it. So we walked and sat at our bench, watching the lake, boats, water skiers. Two people sitting on those boards and not doing much besides enjoying the beautiful weather and the lake, and (obviously) each other. Usually people stand on those boards and paddle. I never knew how they could keep their balance.

White herons in the trees kept making disgusting and repetitive loud noises. Not the mating call, I hoped. Who would want to answer to that. We walked carefully when passing under the trees where they occupied. One could see the white marks of bird droppings in the grass.

We went to All Saints Church for the Sunday evening service. It was so beautiful. It was particularly meaningful and comforting for me tonight.

We came home, had a drink and made dinner: reheated meatloaf (John prepared it for me last week before he went to the hospital for the big surgery that eventually did not happen), mashed potato and gravy, and spinach. I helped in the kitchen, feeling somewhat confident doing my choirs.

Earlier in the afternoon after leaving Azalea Park we went to Publix in Winter Park Village to pick up a few grocery items. John felt sick as we walked in. He sat in the chair by the pharmacy for a few minutes. His face was so pale. He kept his hand on his heart. Then he got up and we did our shopping. He rested every few minutes. I drove us home.

I thought we might lose him in the supermarket. He was so weak. After coming home I made him a protein shake and he rested for about an hour and a half, and decided he could go to the church. And so we did. On the way home he asked me to drive, and we talked about funeral home choices and whether to have a memorial service. We made dinner and watched MacLaughlin Group and Pierce Morgan on DVR. He took a pain pill at 8. He's taking them every 4 hours now as it is instructed on the bottle. He used to stretch it to six hours and only taking half a pill. It doesn't look like good behavior (that is, taking less drug) will save him. A good night's sleep might help. 

Breaking Through Resistance

   
Tricycle Daily Dharma, May 30, 2012

Thinking and talking about practice are easy substitutes for the real effort that a practice life requires. We resist facing life as it is because that would mean abandoning our views of how we think it should be. The most basic form of resistance is wanting life to be other than it is.

Martha's Tea Party

March 7, 2012


Yesterday afternoon Martha came knocking at our door. She handed out an invitation. "Join us for a SPUR-OF-THE-MOMENT SPRINGTIME TEA!" at her front yard on Wednesday late afternoon.

Martha is sweet, smart, and practical. Not really the "Martha Stewart" type. We wondered how this spur of the moment thing would turn out.

Well, twenty-some neighbors showed up. Her azalea bushes were in full bloom. She served green and black tea and lots of not-too-sweet sweets. She used her good china. Everything was absolutely lovely. "Inspired by Downton Abbey", she says. And we all had such a wonderful time!

She Turned 90

Our neighbor Marian turned 90 on Wednesday. She loves telling people her birthday, "It's two- two two- two two". She was born on February 22, 1922. She still drives and still does light yard work. In winter time she throws on a sweater over her silk gown. We'll see if she comes out in bathing suit when it warms up further.

John and I brought flowers and a card to visit her at about 11 o'clock. She was in the middle of fixing her hair. She had already put on make-up and eyelashes. She was very pleased with our visit. Batting her long and dark false eyelashes, she said, "I wish I were 16 again".

Snow Geese

~ Mary Oliver ~

Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!

What a task

to ask

of anything, or anyone,

yet it is ours,

and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.

One fall day I heard

above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound

I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was

a flock of snow geese, winging it

faster than the ones we usually see,

and, being the color of snow, catching the sun

so they were, in part at least, golden.  I

held my breath

as we do

sometimes

to stop time

when something wonderful

has touched us

as with a match,

which is lit, and bright,

but does not hurt

in the common way,

but delightfully,

as if delight

were the most serious thing

you ever felt.

The geese

flew on,

I have never seen them again.

Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.

Maybe I won't.

It doesn't matter.

What matters

is that, when I saw them,

I saw them

as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.