A River of Tears

[image from flickr.com]

Her eyes well up.

"The doctor says

there will be

no improvement.

His systems

are failing."

He opens his eyes

at noon

and asks me

"where have I been

this whole damned day?"

I say,

"you've been

snoozing."

He is practicing

for a very long sleep.

But Faiza

cannot possibly

prepare

for this parting.

It is too big.

All of her will

has been focussed

on keeping him alive,

and now it's

not working.

I tell her,

"We'll take it

one day at a time.

Bill is happy

at home, you love

and care for him

so well.

We'll do all

that we can

for as long

as we can,

while he is here."

I am grateful

God is taking

Bill first.

He would have

been lost

without Faiza.

Meanwhile

she is facing

losing the man

who is

the centre

of her world,

her reason for being.

A gaping void

yawns

just behind

his right shoulder,

ready to

swallow him up,

leaving behind only

his empty brown chair.

He looks up at me

helplessly.

"I'm cold, Sherry.

Always so cold."

I take him

a fuzzy blanket.

Everything can

be made better,

this particular moment,

with a fuzzy blanket.

He says,

"Thanks, sweetie.

I always love

to see you."

"I always love

to see you, too, Bill."

And I wonder

if I will

still see

this sweet, sweet man,

when I come back

next week.

Sorrow

[image from google]

To understand a swan,

my son said,

you have to learn

how to cry.

Today

I understood

what that means.

She looks

like a swan,

with her slim,

graceful neck,

and her long

silver hair.

And swans

mate for life,

it is said.

She and her husband

were just kids

when they married

in India,

an arranged

marriage,

as was the custom,

mated for life,

as was the way.

Children

did not come,

and her heart

was born to

take care,

so he received

all her caring.

They came to Canada

as young marrieds,

made a new life,

bought a big house,

shared all the days.

When he grew old,

and ill,

she cared for him

as tenderly

as a babe,

though she

could

barely hobble

on her walker,

and each movement

brought pain.

And now

he has died.

The house feels

too big,

so silent

and empty,

the tap, tap,

tapping

of her walker

down the hall

the only sound,

a lonely sound,

the gong of the

wall clock

at intervals

marking the hours.

Bravely,

because she must,

she prepares

an early supper,

as she has

every afternoon

for all these years:

but one potato, not two,

two chapatis, not four,

her fingers flying

swiftly as a girl's

through the familiar

motions,

flipping the chapatis,

while tears roll

silently

down her cheeks.

I've done

what I could do,

and leave her there,

to her

solitary supper,

her too-silent house,

as she waits

for the

hours and days

to pass,

for it to be

her turn

to follow him

Home.

Insh'Allah

[image from google]

"I dont want to
go to the hospital"
he says.
He is 90,
white as a sheet,
but with
a jaundiced tint.
When he moves
from the chair
that he lives in
to the commode,
his blood pressure
drops
and he faints.
It takes some time
for him to
return to himself.

He is weakening.
By the week,
he is failing.
But his brave wife,
who does not sleep
for worrying
he might need her
in the night,
and who is
exhausted enough
to topple over
where she stands,
encourages him.

"Billy,
you are dehydrated,
and your body
is not supporting you.
Can I let you
go down like this?
Can I let you leave
our life together?
Let them help you.
I will be
right there
with you.
And then we will
come home,
well and safe."

"Okay,"
he says.

And she goes
into the kitchen
and bursts into tears.
She is afraid,
very afraid.
She wants
to believe
that they still
have more
time together.
But they are on
a conveyor belt
that is moving
inexorably forward
towards a
final destination.

Maybe not now,
but sometime soon,
the time will come.
And she simply
cannot bear it.

He has not got
the energy
required
to get into
the wheelchair,
then be transferred
to the ambulance.
But somehow,
all of us
holding our breath
and willing no falls,
it is accomplished,
after which
he looks paler
than ever.

His wife,
strong-hearted with love,
yet so weak
from exhaustion,
she can barely
stumble,
whispers "Insh'Allah"
to herself
with every step.
"Whatever God wants,
that is what we must do,"
she tells me.

She has me load her walker
into the SUV,
hand her her purse.
I give her a hug,
caution her
to drive slowly.

I watch her drive away
into what will happen
this weekend,
this week,
this month,
this year,
this future
unfolding before her,
which she
does not want
and which
cannot
be stopped.

The Old Pupster

Here's my boy, Pup, looking a little rough around the edges - he seems to be molting, like a budgie, brown tufts loosening from within his wolfish black coat, snout white with old age, eyes dimmed, but still looking faithfully at me.

Some of you asked why this will be his last Christmas. He is fourteen now, an advanced age for a large dog of his breed. For years his legs have been collapsing, and in the last several months his hind end has been giving out, causing him to collapse to the floor just crossing a room. He is partly blind and deaf now. His front leg is very lame and has been for years, he has been  riddled with arthritis most of his life and truly, it is a wonder he is still padding faithfully, though limping badly,  along beside me.

This dog has been so much more than a dog to me. He was a rescue, found nearly dead and abandoned in the woods. He came back to life with a bang, and gamboled joyously beside me through his puppyhood along all the sandy beaches and forest trails of Tofino. He shares my wild wilderness heart, lived with me the best years of my life - in Tofino - and some of the hardest years - since I was forced to leave there by illness and finances - since. His spirit finds itself fettered, as does mine, away from the wilderness we love. But he traded it to be with me, and I know he would not have chosen differently.

He has been the companion of my heart I waited my whole life for. Turns out the love of my life was a dog - and so much more than a dog. He is part wolf, highly intelligent, funny, vocal, very Alpha, and totally attuned to me. He has given me the unconditional loyal unswerving devotion humans seem to have such a hard time giving.

I have been trying to prepare myself as much as one can for his passing. It has brought me to tears every time I thought of it for years, and does now. But the other side of that coin is, I dont want to wait so long that he will suffer a distressing death. I owe him better than that.

The vet gave me some medicine for him to get him through Christmas, and in the new year we will consult again. I just know the time is short. I know he knows it too. I need to view it as setting his spirit, now housed in a faltering painful body, free, so he can run the wild beaches in his dreams once more.

Loving a dog always ends in the pain of having to let them go. I wont ever say goodbye to Pup. He will stay with me in my heart forever. He will never be replaced.

The Best Christmas Gift

[this is my daughter's window, down in Victoria~Stephanie took this photo. She looks out on a forest. Sigh.]

This morning the fog lifted to reveal a bright sunny sky, which perked up our spirits after so many gray days. First thing, after coffee with my sister, I went over to clean for Faiza, the sweet little elderly woman I wrote about a little while back.

Faiza is going through a hard time right now, as her beloved Bill is in the hospital. At home, Bill was happy; his face lit up when one walked in the door, he teetered around on his walker many times a day, he ate his meals and watched his movies with his devoted Doberman, Lara, at his side. He was happy. He was home.

Two weeks back, Faiza arrived home to find him on the floor. He had felt a little dizzy and had fallen and couldn't get up. The ambulance was called, he was taken to hospital and filed in a bed, where they left him lying for two weeks. They did realize he had been dehydrated and that he needed more oxygen.  Those things were fixed. But staff are too busy to do much more than maintain him. Faiza has been a warrior woman, trying to explain to the staff that he cannot be left lying down, he must be gotten up or he will lose his mobility. She keeps saying she wants to take him home, because he does better at home. But they keep replying he can't go home because of his mobility. "He is old. He can't get around."

But he was getting around before he went in hospital and was left lying in bed for two weeks. He should not even be lying down. At home he sleeps in a tilted recliner, with oxygen to help him breathe.

He has not been eating. Faiza finally found out they had been wheeling him down to a table where extended care patients were spoon-fed. He took one look, and figured he must be in really bad shape to be taken there. He refused all further meals because he did not want to go to that table. At home, he eats heartily, with his own two hands.

She went in the other day to find him lying with his eyes closed as if he was already dead.
"Bill, what is this? What is going on?"
"I'm dying, Faiza," he said.
"No, you are not dying. You cannot give up. You must try."

Faiza said she went home that night very upset, and she talked to God. "God, I have my pen and paper in front of me. I need you to put in my head what I am supposed to do. You tell me, and I will write it down."

What got written down on the paper was:
1. Call the private physiotherapist about treating Bill at home.
2. Call the masseuse about coming to the house.
3. Go and see Dr. G. in person.

Here is where my blood starts to boil. Faiza has serious mobility issues herself. She very recently had back surgery. She has had no chance to recover. She gets around on a walker and a scooter, but none of that is easy, when one is elderly and weak and exhausted. Her legs and feet are numb and give her a lot of pain and trouble. She had asked for the Handydart to pick her up from the hospital and drop her off at home, then come back  to take her to the doctor's appointment. But they were late getting her at the hospital - there was no time to go home in between. Faiza asked if she could be taken instead directly to the doctor's office. The driver said no, her instructions were to take her home so that is where they were going.

Faiza got dropped off at home and this four foot something little woman had to go up in the lift, back down in the lift, teeter over to the shed, unlock the door, wheel out her scooter, drive it up to the back of her car, lower the car ramp, get the scooter in, raise the ramp, close the heavy door. Then she  drove herself to the doctor's appointment, asking God to help her, because someone had to.

My good God.

Once there, she thanked the doctor very much for all he had done for Bill, and told him she was concerned because he was going downhill, lying in the bed, staff being too busy to exercise him, that he did better at home where she had home support four times a day for him, where he walked back and forth between his chair and the table, his chair and the bathroom,  and out to the porch to smoke the one cigar a day that he enjoyed. She told him  the private physiotherapist and masseuse both had agreed to come to the house to treat him. She asked could he please come home, because he was going to die in that hospital, he had given up.

The doctor was convinced. "All right, Faiza,  Bill can come home on Tuesday."  However, the physiotherapist in the hospital, who has so far done little for him, is disputing this, so it remains to be seen if he will be home Tuesday or not.

This little woman has a warrior heart, and she pushes herself, with legs that barely support her, but a will of steel that keeps the body moving forward beyond its capabilities. She says, "Bill is my number one priority. I ask for God's help and I will do whatever I have to do to take care of him."

I have been very worried about her, because the physical exhaustion of going back and forth to the hospital twice a day, and to her own medical appointments and physiotherapy, means she is getting no chance to rest, or take care of herself. She has been looking completely exhausted, peering out of raccoon eyes ringed with huge purple circles, just barely managing to  shuffle one foot in front of the other. She is one of those women who takes care of everyone else, and she comes last, one of the most unselfish people I have ever met. But I worry. If anything happens to her, Bill is sunk indeed.

Today she had called me to come and do some cleaning for her. I decided I could wait no longer to give her her Chistmas gift, a soft fluffy purple  fleecy blanket that I knew she would enjoy so much. She had no real blanket, I had noticed, and was using a utilitarian coverlet the ambulance service provides for its passengers. Not cozy, not soft and fluffy.

I handed her the gift bag and before she even looked in, she grabbed me in the tightest hug, just overwhelmed at being given a gift. She, who never stops giving.  When she pulled out the soft blanket, and when I put it on her bed, she was thrilled. "In the color that we love," she said, stroking it.

I said, "When you get home, Doctor Sherry recommends you get under it and have a nap!"

As I went about my cleaning, she kept telling me, "I just love you to bits, you know, habibi. I love you to bits," and she just kept murmuring endearments while I  cleaned and clattered about. It was definitely the most satisfying gift I gave this Christmas. It made me SO happy to give it!

She is the sweetest little woman ever. I pray Bill makes it, and comes home for Christmas. He is the light of her life. She has a heart full of love and she never was able to have children. He is all in all to her. I hope they have this Christmas together. And I dread the day when the inevitable occurs, and they are parted. That day is coming. But she says, "While we are alive, we live! We don't give up."

I brought home a couple of wonderful movies, I have a new poem on the go, and on the stereo is the most wonderful music. My Christmas gift to me was the k.d.lang Restrospective, a gathering of her best tunes. First, she stopped my heart with Skylark and then she just DID ME IN with Helpless. Oh my goodness, does life get any better? The new fresh light sage green paint has lightened up my living space, the new light laminate floors, make it feel like I have moved into a new place. My sister did all that for me. It transformed my living space and lifted my heart a hundredfold, to get those drab dark brown walls and that terribly worn 45 year old linoleum covered with new clean surfaces. Great music on the stereo, dinner at my sister's tonight, a good movie to watch after, a comfy soft purple bed to climb into later with a really good book...........nope, it just doesn't get any better than this!

I Have Observed Much Sadness

[My friend, Marcel, and his beloved Paprikas, two weeks before he took his own life.]

(Today I tried out a new form I have noticed a couple of the poets using, where you alternate prose with a few lines of poetry. I quite liked it. Let me know what you think.)

I Have Observed Much Sadness.......



I wheeled my cleaning cart along the hospital corridor, stopped it just outside his room. There was a Warning: Bio Hazard/Restricted sign on his door. Peeking in, I saw that he was weeping. “Can I help you?” I asked him, entering, no gloves, no mask, no gown. Just my wish to help a suffering human being. “I’m cold,” he said, “and the nurse refuses to enter my room because I have AIDS.” “I’ll get you a blanket right away,” I tell him. “Will one be enough, or should I bring two?” “Two, please.” I bring the blankets, I put them on top of him. “There you go,” I smile. I empty his wastebasket, clean his sink. I quietly leave. He is still weeping. He has just been diagnosed, and the prognosis is grim. His entire world has blown apart. I am angry that a professional has added insult to his injury, out of her own fear and prejudice. Neither of us will get AIDS from handing him a blanket, giving him a smile, a word of human kindness, some comfort. Next day, when I come by to clean, I am relieved and happy to see that the other nurse is on. She is sitting beside his bed, talking and smiling and helping him to feel like a human being a person can relate to, about whom one can care. I leave the cleaning for later, not to interrupt them.


We are all born beautiful, innocent and whole,
and then life happens.
All our lives, during this earthly incarnation,
we are returning
to the radiance of our innate perfection.


He was a gentle soul, effeminate and tortured by his mood swings, by the utterly unsatisfactory life he had lived, having had a loving partner only once, in college days, followed by decades of loneliness. He was a good man, whose career got interrupted by chronic illness. While he was fighting the insurance company, who continued to decline his claim, he was gay-bashed. The police expressed no interest in laying charges, though he identified his attacker. His attacker continued to stalk and terrorize him in his own neighbourhood. When the insurance company made a final rejection of his claim, he gave up. He said “I cannot work, and I will not beg.” He said his spirit was simply not up to crawling to welfare to gain the pittance they would give him, not enough to even pay his rent. He gave himself one last month, made his plans and one night, with finality, left this world. He was my friend since high school days. He had a sad life, but he was witty, brilliant, with a radiance that just got beaten down. He just could not hang on.


We are all born beautiful, innocent and whole,
and then life happens.
All our lives, during this earthly incarnation,
we are returning
to the radiance of our innate perfection.


I was driving the main road one morning, when a young First Nations man, son of one of my co-workers, staggered across the road in front of me. He was drunk – beyond drunk, deep in his addictions – and his expression was a mask of the purest agony I have ever seen on a human face. No hiding, no defences, the torture he felt just being alive stunned me with the impossibility of surviving it, for a human mortal. And, before too long, this young man, with all of the future before him, a tomorrow where life might have taken him to a place of peace and even joy, hung himself from the pole in his closet, where his mother, my friend, found him next morning. I will never forget her keening wail, from the innermost depths of her being, as she processed that in workshop with the staff. “I miss him,” she said, and those words said it all.


We are all born beautiful, innocent and whole,
and then life happens.
All our lives, during this earthly incarnation,
we are returning
to the radiance of our innate perfection.


A young woman who has suffered years of the stigma of mental illness, and who has achieved dignity and self-worth despite the professionals who have labelled and thus disposed of her in the “appropriate” slot, (from which there can never be Progress), is concerned about her teenage son, who appears depressed, possibly anorexic. Though reaching out has never brought her any help, still she reaches out to Child/Teen Mental Health. She states her concerns. She says “I am asking for your help.” The person on the other end of the phone tells her, “You take him to emergency right now. If you don’t take him, I will charge you with child abuse.” “But wait,” the young woman says, “Of course I will take him. I called you – for help – remember?” The woman calls back every fifteen minutes until she gets to emergency. At emergency, they tell her “Nothing can be done about this here. Go home.” She decides, for not the first time, or the fifteenth, she is on her own and there is no help at the other end of the phone. One cannot trust the “helpers”.


We are all born beautiful, innocent and whole,
and then life happens.
All our lives, during this earthly incarnation,
we are returning
to the radiance of our innate perfection.


I am cleaning (it seems I am always cleaning) at the house of two  elderly people, very kind and lovely, their conversation full of “thank you”’s and “sweetie”’s. The man is barely getting around on his walker. The woman has just had back surgery. Three times a day, or oftener, “Home Support” arrives to “help” the man. This seems to basically equate to bringing lunch from the fridge to the table. The woman, who also can barely hobble around, seems to spend far too much time upright for someone after surgery, because “things have to get done” and the Home “Support” people apparently have a limited job description. She has bought a new bed and I have prepared the room for its delivery. “Will the home support people make the bed up for you when it arrives?” I ask, before I depart. Because otherwise I will drive back across town to make it for her. “I hope so,” she responds – hopefully. When I come the following week, I ask her how is the bed. “The bed is great!” “Did they make it up for you when it arrived?” I ask – hopefully. “No,” she says. “It isn’t in their job description because they come for him, not me.” I ask myself: but could one not, as a human being, make the bed out of compassion for a frail little lady who has just had back surgery??????????


We are all born beautiful, innocent and whole,
and then life happens.
All our lives, during this earthly incarnation,
we are returning
to the radiance of our innate perfection.

At least, I have to believe this. But some days it gets harder.