A Hard Call

Leo at work, way back.

There were several messages from his family. 

Leo is in hospital, he'd going into palliative care today, please call him, he's talking about you and loves you and wants to hear your voice.

Leo worked for me for many, many years when I had the house around the bay.

I wrote about him a few times.

You can read the pieces here

So I braced myself and after many attempts reached him.

And he sounded frightened and sad and mixed up. But knew me right away. He knew I would call, he told his siblings. 

He doesn't know he's dying. The lad (as we call the Big C in Ireland) is everywhere. His whole body. He knows he'll be in hospital until after Christmas. He says I've never been sick a day in my life. I never take an aspirin even. But you said the smoking would get me. Has it got me?

Remember Leo, I say, how you did such a fine job on my wood? How you took care of my wood stove? How you made me turkey soup? Remember how you took care of Ansa when I was away? Remember how we played cards? 

We were very good to each other, Leo. You were a very good friend and worker.

When I get out of here we'll see each other, won't we?

Of course, I say.

For there is nothing left to say.

I wrote this many years ago.

For Leo and all the Leos of the World

Sometimes my heart breaks, just a little bit.
And I don’t know why that is or where that comes from.
I see him mowing and chopping and planting
And stacking and reaping, picking up sticks from my lawn
Gathering the golden brown leaves of the tired summer trees
Making straight lines along the wondrous green of the grass
Like himself, for he walks so straight, like a military man.
He makes me giggle sometimes over silly stuff.
He gathers up things from the shore that I might like.
Old keys, glass bottles, multi-coloured feathers, odd bits of driftwood,
And presents them to me like the priceless gifts that they are.
He’s very clear and direct. He knows his likes and dislikes.
And announces them without apology or humility.
He knows he had a bad accident when just a lad.
That affected his brain forever and ever.
A wondrous twelve year old in the body of a fifty-eight year old.
He tells me he likes me very much
And that he loves working for me
As I treat him fair and don’t torment him like others do.
He treats my welfare like his own, fixing things,
Working things out patiently as I watch, learning his patience.
I treat his welfare like my own, feeling his hurts,
Watching out for others’ thoughtless cruelties.

I can't stop crying.

Miasma

Gosh people, it is time to face my reality. Some things I don't write about. Some things I don't share.

And why not?

Because of labeling. Because of fear. Because of the old admonition "be careful who you share with."

But change I must. For today in meditation?

It struck me that I am always sad. Have been for a long time now. Maybe 18 months or longer with a brief respite for about six months. Until Ansa died. I observe life at a distance and often through a veil of tears. Pardon the pun but I'm actually in a vale of tears while behind this veil. Constantly it seems.

Overly dramatic? You're not living where I am.

I can pretend for a while, an hour or so. I can even laugh or plumb my innate Irish wit to make others laugh. But then.

I'm stopped, sliding around in one deep muddy spot, avoiding the swamp that will suck me down.

So the meditation?

I wrote first to my friend Ross who is dying, doing the "next right thing" which is my philosophy of life in a nutshell.

I wrote to my friend Pad who has kicked cancer twice and is a mutual friend of Ross's.

And then finally, I reached out for help myself and wrote to Dr. Patrick my grief counselor who was so helpful in the past, two years ago now and for about 6 months of sessions. I need a current assessment of my mental and emotional and spiritual condition.

For I can't go on like this.

Sadness

I'm sharing bits of the books I've read in the last while, little phrases that had me sitting back and taking stock, so to speak.

Take this: "How do you get old without letting sadness become everything."

Page 62. Lost and Found. By Brooke Davis.

I've wrestled with that, tried to block it, let it seep through me, let the tears flow freely, tried to stop the tears, talk to myself, overcome it, become overcome.

I feel guilty for living with so many dear ones dead. I constantly feel a part of me is missing without my dog by my side, in the car, on my bed, sitting on my feet when strangers came so she could keep a close eye on them, the breakfast routine, the morning and evening walks on the shore, talking to her, hiding from each other in an elaborate game of hide and seek - god, she was clever.

Yes, there's joy in playing with a friend's young grandchildren, having a laugh with Daughter, the whales, the whales. The flowers and herbs in my community garden, the way the water is right now, denim blue with underwear of white lace, the clarity of the houses and trees across the bay in this blinding afternoon rage of sunlight.

But this feeling of underlying sadness doesn't leave me for any great length of time.

I'm putting it out there to others, is this normal for old age?

I remember my dad telling me, he was then in his healthy early eighties, that with all his friends dead he knew loneliness in a brand new way (he was a long time widower). I remember suggesting to him he should make new friends. The ridiculousness of that remark appals me now. For the shared memories are what one misses.

It's difficult to keep one's head out of the past.

And I feel like such a bore.

Dear Diary

I find myself some mornings, early, lying in bed thinking of death. I mean, that's natural at my age, right? I checked with others of similar elderhood. Yeah, normal they tell me. But, warning, no prolonged inhabiting of that space.

I find it hard to slice the time correctly as it can get into morose territory. The "why bothers", the Black Dog scenario.

I was in a terrible state of sadness for the past week. Overwhelmed so much I had to call and cancel an appearance to give an after dinner talk on How Wonderful My life Is in Spite of Challenges.

I couldn't catch a glimpse of any wonderfuls anywhere and the challenges were resonating non-stop tied up with unrelenting awful memories.

A medication I'm on impacts my movements terribly which adds to my misery. And my doctors are dismissive. And out here on the Edge? Shopping doctors is not a possibility. I'm on this med as a result of my accident and additional family stressors. Walking and race preparation could alleviate this physical handicap to a huge degree but this is insurmountable at the moment. My podiatrist recommended a holistic doctor he knows who may be able to get me off this pharma-treadmill. I've been warned I can have a stroke if I wean myself.

Lately, returning phone calls and emails was the equivalent of climbing a tough mountain. But today? I started and the sadness still shrouds me but I am sharing it with loved ones.

In the midst of writing this, a dear friend dropped by as he was concerned about my invisibility, he had a "feeling." I love that. When a friend senses you are not up to snuff.

I filled him in.

What was clear, suddenly, is that when I am down and sad and don't want to inflict myself on anyone is that those are the exact times I should.

I must write that on my wall.

Catapult

"Swimming in the sea of me". Now where did I hear that phrase. Sometimes it's inevitable though, pain climbs up the backside and throws its hands around my eyes, blocking out the light, the love and yes, hope.

And then I get catapulted into the lives of others. And that happened yesterday with the floods in Toronto and worry about Daughter and Grandgirl and their well-being which expanded into a discussion about climate change and Daughter's activism which involves death threats. Yes. And no more can I say about that without imperilling her. She is very brave, is Daughter. So she was on the one landline in her house that worked, in a corner of her dining room plugged into the old fashioned jack on the wall with all the power out in the city, the vast immobilized city. Note to others: always make sure you have a real honest to goodness landline somewhere in your home. And yes, like her, a windup radio or one with batteries.

So my sadness about my particular roadblock rolled off me and afterwards, I was able to package it up and file it under "unsolvable mysteries of life" and move on. I slept last night, all night, for the first time in maybe weeks. And yes, I feel good today, not dragging the old butterama around, muttering darkly to the dog about misunderstandings and casual cruelties and raw rejection by loved ones.

And a new friend called and asked me about East Coast Trailing. We found each other! I had always wanted to hike with a companion on the East Coast Trail. Another item on the bucket list. It's not something one does alone as parts of it are dangerous and visions of lying helpless, broken-legged, at the bottom of a cliff for a couple of weeks stopped my solitary explorations right in their tracks. I may be foolhardy but I can be surprisingly mature when it comes to personal risk-taking - much to my own astonishment.

Another catapult. Bring them on.

A Candle and a Coffee and a Journal.

I took these three things in hand tonight and headed up to the Tigeen at the crest of the hill behind my house. I was feeling terribly sad. Loss does this.

We have smog from the awful Labrador and Quebec wildfires which has drifted downward from there, many kilometres. It makes of the bay a magical place. Headlands disappear and the sun does strange things, peeking outwards from the smog and hiding again. A golden glow washes the water followed by a pink bath. Nothing is clear. If I were a painter I would set up an easel right there on the wee deck of the Tigeen and get cracking. As it was, I lit the candle and wrote in my journal. Of grief and loss and what it does to the insides, how it bathes everything in uncertainty, much like the drifting smoke that travelled so far south with the winds and the breezes and the currents of the ocean. Who is to peek inside another's heart?

I came back down to the main house and shared a few bits on Facebook, about the awful fiery explosions in Quebec from the train wreck, loaded with fracked oil. So many dead or missing. Perspective.

And then an old friend from Ontario called. Late-ish. And in the way of dear old friends, soothed my spirit, patted me down, reassured me of my value to her. I so needed that. And I told her so.

Solitude can sometimes be a fearsome thing.