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 |  Just play: don't look at your hands! |
What a dumb title for a person who never got a single star  on her piano lessons!Daily practice is the thing though: the practice of noticing as well as of writing.  However, I'd much rather play duets than solos, so hop right in! You can do the melody or the base part, I don't care.  Just play along--we'll make up the tune as we go. I'll try to write regularly and deliberately. Sometimes I will do it poorly, tritely, stiltedly, obscurely. I will try to persevere regardless. It seems to be where my heart wants to go, and that means to me that God wants me there too. See you tomorrow. ![Merit Badge in Journaling
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| That's about all I have time for before the WDC witching hour, 9 P.M. Pacific. ***There, now that I've clocked in, so to speak, I'll have time to actually write something. Fantastic music at church today, as always on the Sunday of Martin Luther King Day, but this time over the top. It was a combination of Southern Gospel and jazz, beginning with Swing Low, Sweet Chariot as a processional hymn, Wayfaring Stranger as a gospel hymn, and Robert Ray's Gospel Mass. Our choir was augmented by music students from two local Universities as soloists, our terrific director at the piano, plus a trumpet and percussion group. When the service was over, nobody moved, and they kept playing. How amazing is that to have heard good jazz two days in a row in church? (Two different groups in two different churches, both in this small but talent-filled town.) It has snowed lightly all day, and we sat by the fire and watched movies-- a dynamic morning and a pleasant afternoon/evening. Sometime this year I want to find a good biography of Martin Luther King Jr. When I moved to Atlanta as a young teenager in 1959, he wasn't an impressive figure to me. In fact, after he was assassinated, it seemed as if his stature was elevated greatly. He became bigger than life. I don't know what is really true about him, and I need to read and learn. |
| Funeral number one today was for Flora, the lady I wrote about yesterday. Let me begin by describing her sons more fully. Al, the mild-mannered one, is an engineer. He has a pretty wife, two children and four grandchildren. Yesterday he was distressed because he wanted to bury his mother in the dress she wore to his son's wedding, but Bob, the other brother, who had been visiting from the East Coast for months to be with his dying mother, had put her things in a storage locker. Al had searched through box after box and had not been able to find it, or any other dress, for that matter. And, he couldn't find a single dress for sale in town that would be satisfactory. In fact, the only dresses he found at all were cocktail dresses, he said. (I guess that must be why I shop from catalogs any more.) Al has short hair, an easy smile, blue eyes, a gentle voice. He made most of the arrangements for the funeral, like a caterer for a lunch afterwards, etc. They shared the business of picking flowers, and found it very difficult and unsatisfying. They wanted a particular flower that was her favorite, but is seldom found in commercial floral arrangements, just in home gardens in the summer. Bob is taller, has dark eyes and hair which he is constantly brushing back from his forehead. It is about ear length with a touch of gray. He carries a shoulder bag and wears a leather jacket and jeans. Today he had on a charcoal suit and shirt, but didn't keep the jacket on for long. He speaks louder, faster, with more emphasis. He is an extrovert, like his mother was. His wife is back east, couldn't afford to come right now. Yesterday he had had so much caffeine he was bouncing off the walls. I asked the funeral director how he was today, and she said he seemed pretty well controlled, but that he was often a little manic. Brother Al is the rock of the family. These are both very bright men, and the comments Bob made on the scriptures really impressed me. He caught onto the real meaning, in sort of an aha, although, as he said, the passage was very familiar. He paralleled Jesus's statement to Philip in John 14:9 with the inability of all of us to see God's kingdom all around us. Anyway, the service went well. Bob talked at length, which he'd said he might but hoped he wouldn't. It was fine though, gave me a real picture of what his mother was like. A child of the depression, she didn't like anything to be wasted. The sons recounted a time when she saw a truck load of onions headed for the dump and rerouted it to her backyard. She called everyone around to come share the onions she had salvaged, and then only gave out two or three per person as if she might run out. +++The second funeral was entirely different. Two of the sons were jazz musicians, and they played four pieces on piano and sax, with a grandson on the bass. Then several people shared stories about the wonderful, charming man who had died. I won't go any farther with this because we just got a call that Bill's son and daughter-in-law are on the way to the hospital for Zachary to be born! So we need to get some supper, get to a Mikado practice, and get the bubbly cold for later. Praise God for a varied and full day, and the love of so many people shining so brightly. |
| I wish I could agree whole-heartedly that, as a hospice chaplain, I provide a valuable service. Maybe I could go so far as to say I offer one, but there aren't as many opportunities as you might think. It sure feels good though when I know I have. Today I sat with two brothers preparing their mother's funeral service for tomorrow. The one brother, Al, I had talked to previously was a shy, mild-mannered, loving man who told me he and his brother had no idea what their mother believed. She had been a convert to Catholicism and had raised them in the church and attended faithfully, but not in recent years. They don't know of anything that happened, but she was silent about it. I told him on the phone right after meeting her, that since she was not responding, I wanted some guidance about what she might like to hear. I had prayed the Lord's Prayer, and then talked quietly, reassuring her of her family's love for her. Would she want that? Would she like to hear scripture being read? They said no, probably not, but they thought she would like the companionship and soothing words and touch. When she died, Al left me a message asking me to do the funeral. He showed up at the door moments after I arrived and found the note. He said he really liked my voice on the phone. (I was afraid, after he saw me and heard that I would use a liturgy for the service, that he might have changed his mind, but evidently not.) He and his brother met with me this morning to go over what I proposed and to pick some Scripture readings. Brother Bob, who I hadn't met before, was very different, very outgoing, but not the take-charge person I'd expected from the nurse's description. He was very broken up, and he talked at length. By the time we had the service laid out, Al thanked me for being there and listening. That is the real ministry, the listening and affirming, the invitation for them to tell certain parts of their lives and be assured that their mother had done a good job. I was glad to have been there, and I hope it will go like they envision tomorrow. |
| Seamus is spending the morning standing either inside the back door or outside, with a little whine to tell me he wants to try the other place again. Now, what he really wants is for me to come out too, to take him out the front door for a walk, but I'm waiting on the repairman who is supposed to be here any time now. Ever since Seamus lost his bark, however that happened, he has attracted our attention by loud breathing. My granddaughter calls him Dog Vader. His panting, actually louder than the under-his-breath whine, sounds as if he's saying "Grampa, Grampa, Grampa." Do you suppose dogs become senile? Seamus goes racing into the kitchen a couple times each night with all the enthusiasm of a puppy, hunting for some delicious tidbits. Or, minutes after eating a can of food, he'll look at his dog dish and whine. ***Hey, hey, hey! My washer runneth! And it wasn't very difficult to cancel my service agreement and appointment with Sears. When I tried it last week, just to cancel the agreement, they wouldn't let me do it without canceling the appointment first, at a different number of course. Interestingly enough, the repair scheduler tried to make me cancel the contract first today, but recanted when I refused. Mighty suspicious, if you ask me! I suppose it's based on the theory that, if there's another hoop in the way, maybe you'll give up and won't jump through it. Cheers, Tides, Bravos, and all those other detergents to you! (Can you tell I'm feeling an eentsy bit better?) |
| “Do not stop to get the consent of your mind, Betty.” I can picture my mother clearly, muttering to herself for encouragement what her mother had often said to her. Maybe she was feeling the same way I am today. I’m bogged down in the ‘don’t-want-to’s’ and the ‘yes, but’s.’ I’d vacuum the carpet, but I don’t have any rug shampoo to get at the mud the weekend loggers tracked in. Well, look at that: there’s a penny on the floor beneath the end table across the room. Anyea told me to drop one in the wishing well, but that I’d have to find my own. Okay, imagine I’m holding it. I’m wishing…I’m wishing… I’m wishing I could find a place to start, but that’s another method of procrastination. Anywhere will do, almost. First, I’m going to silence that damn indoor-outdoor thermometer that has brought a new alerting chirp to our overly ring-tone filled house. It’s telling me that the temperature outside is below freezing. It starts telling me at 37 degrees, and today it’s only 21, so I’ll have to find a way to shut it up or turn up loud music. *** turned it off. Picked up ‘penny’, and discovered it was a dime. Worth ten wishes, right? Making lists, making stacks, that’s energizing. I’m dividing the magazine piles into writing magazines, airplane magazines, travel magazines, home magazines and New Yorkers. Anything else goes in the give-away box, and some of those too. Find recipe in magazine to send to friend I haven’t talked to for a long, long time. Begin a list of books I want to read this year on a separate sheet. Boil water to flush drains. ***Boiled and flushed, showered and dressed, called the repair people who still don’t have the part. I never cancelled Sears Friday appointment, just in case I can’t get the washer fixed otherwise, so the race is on. “I’m sorry but I’m waiting for a new part.” Doesn’t that sound like a good excuse? I can’t run the vacuum right now. I’m waiting for a new part. What part might that be? The part that gets up, gets out the little sucker, plugs it in and turns it on. Oh. That part. ***Found recipe from Hallmark magazine for turkey lentil soup. I tried it and really liked it. Mailed it off to friend. Checked on my blogspot blog from yesterday and saw it was still in draft form. Worked for a while to figure out how to publish it, and still the font is too small, but it’s done and I’m done for now. Can’t get a haircut appointment—darn. Will go vacuum now, then maybe go to work for awhile. Ho-hum. Vacuumed half the house, but got the tops of the walls, up in the corner where spiders like to leave their wispy trails. That’s work. This hose isn’t quite long enough to do the job comfortably. ***Update. I have three funerals Saturday, one to officiate and two I need to attend for hospice. And two new patients, one a seven-year old boy with a brain tumor. That breaks my heart. On the upside, the repairman has my washer part and will be here tomorrow morning! |
| I don't know why, but I feel a whine coming on. However, I'm going to try to reframe it, because I don't like myself when I feel like a victim. If I'm in any way a victim, it's a victim of my own making, helplessness that I ought to be able to fight my way out of like a paper bag. The phrase, "See how you are?" has popped into my head several times this week. I need a new vision of how I am, how I could be. An epiphany would be just fine, and it's the right season for it. I keep thinking that when the repair man comes and I have a workable laundry again, things will be better. But will they? Last week I thought that when I'd given my talk on hospice, I'd feel better and be able to tackle some other things. Then the windstorm came up and left me some very other things to tackle, but still I didn't feel good about it. Today I helped lead a grief group for children, the first we've tried. I like the co-leader, the leader, really. He has lots of experience with children's groups, and my experience, other than with teens or family, goes back to Cub Scouts and Brownies-- a very long time ago. I haven't been dreading it, not anything like that, so it's not quite like the hurdles I often find in my weeks. Like, oh, when I can finally get appointments to see the folks in the town sixty miles away, I can breathe easier. Or the woman who wants to tube feed her husband and tells me, for no reason as far as I know, that I ought to buy a copy of the Catholic catechism and listen to Catholic radio if I want to help her. I don't know how she'll let me help her then, and suspect she won't ever, but it's another mental bump in my road. Sometimes those bumps in the road have a salvific effect, that is, I find the dreaded task to be a source of joy and accomplishment when I've gotten into it. Not this time. It went okay, was sort of fun, sort of frustrating. What I need is something to feel good about. Not just passable, but good. Enthusiastic. Spirited. Challenged. And appreciated for it would be good too. A counselor came to hospice yesterday to talk to the group about compassion fatigue. I didn't think I had it, because I don't feel very compassionate, at least not that hooked kind of teary identification with people going through their difficulties. I don't get very attached. Then, as I thought about it, I thought about how that may be a symptom in itself. I have a couple of patients now that I will miss and will feel real grief about, but, in a way, I haven't gotten close to them emotionally. Self-protection, or a symptom of burn-out, or both? One of the things that came out in our discussion was expectations. I have very low expectations of myself at this time, and that isn't good. It isn't good to have them too high to reach either, but so low they won't trip you up isn't high enough to feel like you've accomplished anything. I'm just babbling. Now, to work on some goals, that's what I need to be doing. I'll give it a try. Wish me well. |
| Sweets did a free write last night, and since I discarded the only topic that had come to mind, I thought I'd do the same. Maybe something will come to me. (dkjjffsppslidfujentur... drums fingers hopefully on keys, makes no words) Maybe that isn't the way to free write. Hmmm. Maybe you have to have a topic at least. Okay, how's this? (a vast nothingness has spread across the city, and it's headed to Chicago, so watch out!) Okay, hospitality, that's my topic. Last week I did a program for my P.E.O. group (a women's sorority that promotes education for women) about hospice. I remember passing a hospice in England that dated back several hundred years, and went looking it up. I'd have to look it up again to give you the exact name and date, and that wouldn't be free writing at all. I think it was St. Christophers, but maybe some other saint or maybe none at all. Anyway, it struck me thast the word hospice comes from the word hospitality. So does hospital for that matter, but they have become much less hospitable than ever. The criteria to get admitted are stricter, as are the criteria to stay in. Just because you've had surgery and still have drains in you doesn't mean you get to spend the night. How's that for inhospitable? So much for free writing. I had to stop and answer the phone, then thought I'd better call my daughter to check on her husband's condition. He had major surgery Friday, and yesterday something looked wrong on the x-ray. No answer though, so I poured some white wine. Maybe that will free me up? Hospice is, of course, for the dying, but that wasn't always the case. In the middle ages, a hospice was a place of rest for travelers, or poor folks, or people who were on a pilgrimage or homeless or ill. I suppose they couldn't offer much in the way of medical care anyway, so what they did was try to make people comfortable. I don't know anything about how the places were financed, other than I read a petition from the people of London to Henry VIII asking for a hospice. Since the 1970's, due to the work of Dr. Kubler-Ross and Dr. Ceciley Saunders, death and dying were brought to the public consciousness. Too often people were isolated in hospitals, visited only during visiting hours (no longer true), and, according to surveys, frequently avoided by staff. Hospice is as much a philosophy as anything. Some teams are volunteers; some are small, like ours, and serve people in their homes; some are massive, for-profit, inpatient buildings. What they all have in common is the desire to help people live out the end of their lives with as much intention, meaning and comfort as possible. And now, because the wind is roaring and the power keeps flickering, I think I'll end for tonight. |
| Yesterday was cold and wet, 32 degrees and raining, a terrible day for hard work outside, but Hap and Bill did it. They cut and cleared away the broken, knocked over trees; loaded the branches into the truck and hauled them to the fire department training area, the designated place for this town. City crews will get out a chipper and make lots of sawdust to use in the parks. The parks themselves suffered the loss of many, many trees. They used their chainsaws to cut the trunks of three trees into 18" logs that will fit into Hap's wood stove next year, when they've dried out a little. The wood was very sappy. Hap split it with a maul, actually two mauls because he didn't have a wedge with him. He has a flattened head maul at home, but Bill's was still pretty round and caused lots of extra swings that bounced off the head. It's amazing to watch the power and energy it takes to split logs. I'm glad I didn't see all the mis-hits. Sounds like they'd be jarring. It sounded like they worked well together, and that's a good experience for Hap. He does well with his in-laws too, father and brother, but not his own father. Anyway, we rented a nice truck for him to drive over, which he enjoyed, and he went home with some extra bucks in his pocket. He'll be starting a new job with the power company in a week, and he's excited about it. He's worked for his wife's family in their vending machine business forever, and he needs to get out on his own and get some benefits, like insurance and retirement, etc. It's time. Today was clear and beautiful by noon, and Bill thought we'd fly somewhere. He had choir practice after church though, and was admitting to being pretty worn out from yesterday by the time it was over. The fog had come up, and it made a perfect excuse to come straight home. |
| Okay, all that title means is that I have the pot roast in the oven and I'm grabbing a minute or two before Bill comes home and Hap arrives with his chain saw for a weekend's hard work. I think of my mother frequently, and especially today, for no particular reason. I dreamed about her last night, that she and I were headed to the airport, which was a long way away, like Seattle. We passed some sensational homes along the road, ones with great views of mountains and rivers, and she wanted to stop and see them. Next minute, we're standing inside one which we've walked right into without even knocking. The woman of the house comes into the living room, and I explained how much Mother wanted to see her house. She does not seem surprised by the request or annoyed by our entry, but goes about showing us around with a small frown on her face, as if she's trying really hard to do what we've asked. The house has many, many wonderful features besides the view. It has a silver mobile that is twenty feet wide and at least half that tall. Best of all are the water features, pools and fountains and hot springs inside and out. Then this morning I was talking to a woman whose mother briefly lived in the same group home with mine. I was saying nice things about the house, and the woman took great exception to that and told me all the things that were wrong with the care her mother received. I realized I had forgotten about the bad points, which didn't affect my mother in the same way they did hers anyway. I felt sad though, to remember those days of her increasing confusion, as if I could once again see her slipping through my fingers. Tonight when I took the roast out of the meat tray and turned it over to wash and season it, I saw how much fatter the under side was, and I remembered my mother again. She had several habits that I, as a teenager, was embarrassed about. (I'm sure I did too by that age, but my daughter was kinder than I was.) One was to walk up stairs one-legged, instead of alternating feet, to save her knee that bothered her. I do the same thing. Bad knees must run in the family. But she never had to have hers replaced, and I hope to fare as well. The other particularly irritating habit was her careful scrutiny of both sides of any piece of meat before she'd buy it. She'd ring the bell for the butcher to come out and unwrap it for her so she could see the under side. I will say I don't remember her rejecting more than two before deciding, but maybe I'd slunk away by then. It was teaching time though, and a little lecture from her went with it, about what to look for in a cut of meat. Changing subjects, I didn't get to the laundry yesterday, but did today. Alas, it was 3 pm and, in the Adventist town where the nicer laundromat is, everything closes at 1 because it's Sabbath eve. I realized the grocery next door closed on Fridays, but didn't know it was that early; and I thought maybe the laundry would stay open anyway, cleanliness supposedly being next to godliness and all. (Did you know there is nothing Biblical about that? Some people don't.) So, while the roast burns, maybe I'll go downstairs and put a load of wash in manually. It's annoyingly time consuming, and cold down there, but better than nothing. |
| The saga of the washer repair: My first call to Sears was before Christmas, and they could not get someone out here till the morning of Jan 3. They talked me into buying a service warranty for $200, saying that the replacement of a timer would cost more than that with labor. On the 2nd, Sears left me a message that he would appear between 8 and 5. Okay, so I would lose the whole day. When no on showed, I called the same 800 number and was told he'd be here Tuesday. Tuesday morning they called again and said it would be another week, so I called a local repair place who got me in right away. Whee. Today their repairman showed up promptly between 8 and 8:30, investigated, and said yes, it was a problem with the timer, as I'd told them. He'd have to order the part, and it would maybe be in by next Tuesday and will cost me $250. So, I am no farther ahead either money or time-wise than I was before. Plus I'm very discouraged. I was really looking forward to spending this morning washing clothes in the comfort of my own basement. If I still own a laundry bag from college days, I don't know where to look for it, but it would be a lot handier than laundry baskets. As I remember, they hold an infinite amount of dirty clothes. Funny, the mental picture I just had was of a college dormitory practical joke I heard about. Someone took a condom, lay it at the head of a bed, and, using a hose, filled it with water. When it had inflated to almost the length of the bed, he tied it closed and left it. Needless to say, there was no way to empty or remove it without getting very wet. I don't suppose the laundry bag expanded quite that much.  Anyway, looks like I'll have to go to a laundromat after all. Maybe the weekend rush following the electrical outage has dissipated. I'd wait and go Saturday to the one in the Adventist town (if it's even open!) but my son will be here with his chain saw to help Bill with the trees. Hmmm. I guess I'd better get at it. |
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