10.28.08
Posted in Life as it is, Spiritual Journey, family
at 11:52 pm
The phone rang just a little over an hour ago. It was my step-mom calling to tell me that my father had passed away and was now in a better place.
A photo from Dad’s 80th birthday party earlier this year
I had visited earlier in the evening, and the visit began with security stopping me from rounding to corner to my dad’s room as they were moving one of the residents out of the hospice after they had died. The guard commented that it was four of them that day, but wouldn’t tell me who it was or what room number they were from. I was scared it was my dad - he had already stayed with us much longer than the doctors suggested a couple of weeks ago when this journey began.
When I could finally move on, I found my dad asleep in his room. I felt relief to see him still there. Unbidden, I remembered Dylan Thomas’s poem, Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I had the strongest desire to both cheer for him and to weep. I felt the impact of the thought behind the line of “Curse, Bless me now…” as I didn’t want him to stay and suffer but I was still blessed by his continued fight. Right or wrong, I needed to see him wanting to stay here a bit longer, no matter how prepared I knew him to be to go through that door. There should be some sort of barrier there, some sort of guardrail - or at least speedbump - between life and death. I know we all will cross that line, but I needed to see the resistance there.
He couldn’t speak tonight, and I realized on my drive home, I had already heard him say my name for the last time yesterday. While there, I visited with my step-mom and got her something to eat. I held my dad’s hand and left a long and lingering kiss on his warm forehead before leaving - promising to be back again at the same time tomorrow as I had been doing. I told him I loved him.
Last week he had all of his children by his bedside at the hospice, and we all discussed his plans for his funeral. He requested his friends’ bluegrass band to play, and said he wanted them to play, I’ll Fly away. My dad turned 80 years old earlier this year and the band played for that occasion as well. When they were finished, my dad raised his hand and asked them to sing that song then as well. I think we all felt some foreshadowing at the time, but he was having fun and the party was a joy, and really, it’s a very happy song.
I’ll Fly Away
Some bright morning when this life is over
I’ll fly away
To that home on God’s celestial shore
I’ll fly away
I’ll fly away oh glory
I’ll fly away (in the morning)
When I die hallelujah by and by
I’ll fly away
When the shadows of this life have gone
I’ll fly away
Like a bird from these prison walls I’ll fly
I’ll fly away
Oh how glad and happy when we meet
I’ll fly away
No more cold iron shackles on my feet
I’ll fly away
Just a few more weary days and then
I’ll fly away
To a land where joys will never end
I’ll fly away
My dad has now flown away. I am grateful for all that he taught me. Even tonight, no longer able to speak, he was teaching me about how precious life is. And he teaches me still as I listen to the song now on my MP3 player. I feel sorrow and loss, but I also feel gratitude and joy as well. It’s a strange mix, and I m grateful to have the chance to share this with y’all.
I love you, dad. Fly high and free to that land where joys will never end.
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07.17.08
Posted in Spiritual Journey
at 12:15 am
Normally I try to focus on mistakes I have made and the lessons I learn from them. Tonight, though, I almost made a mistake, realized it, and made a different choice. That was such an unexpected wisdom, I had to mention it. Also, I fear that it is not the first time I have tried to make a mistake like this.
I went to the gym tonight to hire a personal trainer. It’s been a to-do item for a long time and today seemed like a good day since I am starting a weight-loss competition at the office today. The salesman and I sit across from one another and we haggle the price on a solution that I could not afford this month or next month or any of the months for the one year term to which I was agreeing. I kept thinking how foolish this was. I am trying to save money - not pay more than my car payment for someone to make sure I show up and work out.
So I finally stepped back while he tried to get his manager to accept my offer and asked myself why I was going to do this. And I screamed my answer back to myself, “Because I am Furious!”
I already was aware that I was angry. I noticed it on the drive and there were a number of reasons for it - not the least of which was the need for joining this weight-loss competition. But what made me stop and think was the fact that there was such a sense of entitlement attached to that answer. Like doing something that will cause me a year of financial stress and potentially damage me and my family is a reasonable thing to do just because I am angry.
It was just so matter-of-fact. I am angry, therefore I will go do something stupid and risk harming myself because that is a good and right solution. And it felt like an argument that had worked many times before….
I did not buy anything. I took a price sheet and a card and left. And I thought about healthier solutions. Better alternatives. And so instead, I went to the local massage place (where I had a credit for a massage) and found I was early enough to get a one-hour massage. I even had enough time to sit in their “relaxation room” and just feel my feelings and breathe and start to let it all go before the massage.
This was a victory for me. I don’t always see my way out of my anger - usually I just get lost in it. But tonight I chose a healthier path. And so in following the wisdom of “Celebrate every Victory” I share this with you all….
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05.07.08
Posted in Life as it is, Spiritual Journey, family
at 12:15 am
Quite a few weekends ago, I assembled what I thought were all of the right elements to get some work done and to have some fun with friends in the process. The fun didn’t really happen like I thought it would, so I reviewed the day with another friend. She listened and then saw immediately the problem.
“You were being rigid and inflexible.”
I didn’t like how that was going, so I changed subjects and discussed an issue about my daughter, and what might have caused things to blow up like the did. Again she saw an answer.
“You were being Rigid and Inflexible.”
Damn it, I think she might be right. And that isn’t a good thing. It used to be how I lived - this rigid inflexibility about what I planned, what I expected or what I wanted. But I also know of times where instead of being so rigid, i was flexible and able to adapt to circumstances. So what was putting me back into a rigid shell?
As i wandered, I looked on the ‘Net and found this quote in an essay by John Cleese (of Monty Python fame):
We all operate in two contrasting modes, which we call open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned mode that we find ourselves in so much of the time. When is this closed, tight, solemn mode helpful?
Only when action is urgently required, it seems. If you want a decision in two minutes, don’t open up the discussion. If you’re leaping a ravine, the moment of takeoff is a bad time for considering alternative strategies. When you charge the enemy machine-gun post, don’t waste energy trying to see the funny side of it. Act, narrow-mindedly.
But the moment the action is over, we need to return to the open mode; to open our minds again to all the feedback from our action that enables us to tell whether the action has been successful, or whether further action is needed to improve on what we’ve done. In other words, we must return to the open mode, because in that mode we are most aware, most receptive, most creative, and therefore at our most intelligent.
And this fit my situation well. I was, metaphorically speaking, charging multiple machine gun posts in the internal urgency and importance of the work to be done. “It had to be done,” I remembered saying again and again when people wanted to quit.
I was armored in a rigid suit like Iron Man and doing battle.
Sometimes I really like the suit, and I like the narrow-minded approach of, “there is only the next mission, and the mission after that.” But the suit also isolates me from others I care about.
So how then to live outside the armor? I started doing two things. I started just taking the time to meditate and be still and remind myself there is no battle needing to be fought at that moment. I also sought laughter - to see the humor in my own actions, and also to rent some comedies to watch with my son.
How did I take off the armor?
I started playing again.
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04.10.08
Posted in Life as it is, Spiritual Journey, photography
at 11:59 pm
I love to learn. Sometimes, though, I forget how little I know, and in so doing I lose my chance to learn something. This is a character defect of mine, this arrogant pride of my intelligence, and it can lead me into being an arrogant know-it-all if I let it get away from me.
But how to do so? That’s a real question….
I’ve worked against this a long time - and not always with success. If the opposite of being proud is to be humble, then I needed to work on being humble, i thought. I tried this and it never worked for me. CS Lewis had it right when he wrote as Screwtape, a senior demon in hell, to Wormwood, Screwtape’s nephew - an apprentice demon on his first assignment in the field. Screwtape warned that humility was fatal to demon-kind, but easily defeated as his advice went.
“Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to this fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By jove! I’m being humble,’ and almost immediately pride - pride at his own humility - will appear”
So how to defeat this, when to try by will alone is to create some sort of proud false-modesty? Yuck! That’s even worse than being a know-it-all in my book. It’s true that the only thing worse than false pride is false modesty.
The answer is in something simple - it is in not trying to be humble. It is in trying to simply stay teachable. In fact, if i can stay teachable in all situations, and with all people then i am coming closer to something good - something close enough to being humble that the difference doesn’t matter.
“Every man you meet is your superior in some way. In that you should learn from him”
Abraham Lincoln
Tonight was the classroom discussion for a wildflower photography class I decided to take. I took it because I recognize the instructor as a master at nature photography, and every time I have gone to one of his workshops, I am amazed at how little I know and how much he can teach me.
So once again tonight, I arrived and since it was a lecture, I found myself skeptical as to what I could learn and couldn’t i skip this lecture - after all, I have already heard several of his lectures. But I could be teachable, so I took out my notebook, and started writing notes on his ideas and the structure of his lecture and anything else I could learn and be taught. And as I opened myself up to being teachable, I found myself learning about topics of which I knew nothing, and seeing the results of ideas I had read about but never seen attempted. This being teachable stuff works!
May we all become teachable a little more today than we were yesterday.
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04.09.08
Posted in Life as it is, Mistakes, Spiritual Journey, family
at 10:01 pm
I found a note in some old writing of mine that says, “If I ever figure out how to celebrate my imperfections, why, I could have a life of constant celebration.”
My inner critic has really been kicking up a storm lately. I was complaining to someone about how I broke a promise to my son to run an errand for him tonight, and that my teen aged daughter was having an emotional meltdown concerning the telephone. I found myself yearning to be a better dad than I am, and to have better skills than I have, and be better organized than I am.
This is the point where I usually will excuse myself for a short self-pity break. Then I came across this brief story in some of my old journals:
A man visited his Rabbi. He sat and said that he had spent his life trying to live according to what the Rabbi taught, but after all these years he had gained nothing. He was still an ignorant and foolish man. The Rabbi turned to him and said, ”But you have gained an awareness that you are ignorant and foolish, and that is something.”
And now, things are still the same in my home. It is hard to be a single father of two teens. It is hard to stay organized and work like i do and also have my own hobby and life. And I have spent a lot of time working and studying and learning and trying and counseling and being counseled and still I am not the father and man I want to be. No matter how long it seems I have been traveling this road, I am just not there yet.
But, I have gained an awareness of the fact that I am not yet the man I want to be. And that awareness of my imperfections is something of value. And it must really be something too, because i can almost catch a glimmer of what it is to celebrate my imperfections and that there is such a well-perceived gap between who I am and who I want to be.
Tonight I celebrate my imperfections. Tomorrow, I will continue my journey. Who will join me in the party and the adventure?
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