I saw a whole lot of stars last night. Good for the soul, that.
I’ve been taking this opportunity to be in the experience of life without having to explain it, or articulate reasons to anyone outside my own skin. I had almost forgotten what that’s like. With very bright and articulate people in my life, it’s hard to get that in my personal life. Their need to understand is borne of pure love — they worry, because they’ve seen me through some rough times, and in order not to worry too much, they need to understand in their own minds what’s going on in this mind over here, which is in a completely different person. (Mom, you’re in good company with my lot! <3)
I’m in a lot of “thin end of the bell curve” categories, so this can take some doing: INFP (about 2-4% of the population, last I heard), serendipitously rather than linearly accomplishing (about 20%), and ADHD female (goodness knows, but the proportion seems to be growing as the markers are better understood), in addition to the weird requirements of all these illnesses — pretty much guarantee that anything normal won’t work, no matter how carefully I plan and execute.
This is the second summer in a row where things have not gone according to plan, so much so that a new term somewhere between “not according to plan” and “WTF just happened” needs to be coined to express it. I’m beginning to think I should just take this as a new life pattern, since the switchbacks tend to heal the dribbling wounds of layers & layers of PTSD. (Well-managed PTSD is not the same as resolved PTSD, although the most dramatic difference is on the inside.)
My friend and honorary BIL Ron wound up with massively metastatic liver cancer because 2 years of pandemic disruption and lousy treatment from LA’s indigent support system (which is a criminally bad system, worse than war-escaping migrant camps and most internment camps, according to the UN) left his early, localized, treatable cancer as an undiagnosed blurch on a CT scan which he had a few months before the pandemic was identified.
His care was denied because there weren’t enough staff or open beds. He was killed because of, but not from, Covid. When you think about maskless people and Covid deniers, think about treatable, localized cancer turning into a deadly and agonizing bloodbath for people like Ronnie.
Yeah… I’m not bitter… much!
Folks, this is not a drill. It’s not imaginary. It’s a fast-evolving pandemic in its early days. Read up on the Black Death for a little perspective.
A couple months ago, as people told themselves the pandemic was “settling down” right before the peak of record-setting waves of contagion and death (check the data, not the ideology) Ronnie bent down to pick something up, passed out, and woke up in hospital getting the third of eight units of blood. Then he found out over half his liver was lost to cancer and that treatment would only buy him a matter of months.
He opted to skip treatment and make the best of his remaining time.
He wanted to go fishing, so he set his mind to get strong enough for one last boat trip. His family proposed bringing him home to Northern California, where there’s glorious fishing in all sorts of waters.
Long story short, the appalling facility he was in was so good at losing contact information, that his hospice social worker didn’t realize he even had family until I had the option of including a gift card with a care package I sent from Amazon, and I included four names and numbers. Then things started happening.
If you’ve got someone in a facility, send them a card! It’s documentation that people care, and nothing happens in health care without documentation!
I never thought of it as anything other than a nice gesture, but turns out it’s a whole lot more: It’s evidence that they’re worth saving. ÷O
Put your number on it if they’re in bad shape, so the facility has someone to call. Atrocious that this should be needful, but hey, welcome to modern America! o_O
OK… maybe a *little* bitter.
Since I was about ready to have him kidnapped to get out of that stupid facility, we had contingency plans up the wazoo to get him out of there and home.
Even longer story short, it turned out that the only feasible option was to drive him home, which was a 2 person job and only one person in that elderly and health-challenged family could do that, so I changed my own plans (plan is a 4-letter word anyway) and got the soonest ticket I could.
As he listened to this planning conversation, Ronnie smiled from ear to ear with tears streaming down his face. He could take in how much he was loved and wanted, and he was going home to a slice of paradise to be surrounded and supported by the care of those who loved him.
Important note here: he already had this information, but he also had his own layers of damage which made it hard to let the information in. That resistance was there for a reason. You can say something to someone all you want, but if they aren’t equipped to accept it, it won’t go much further. There has to be a big enough change in themselves and their circumstances for those scars to shift, so the info can flow.
Ron was able to put aside everything that kept him from being able to accept that information, and he had, as the wise social worker said, “a moment of pure happiness.”
The following day, his condition deteriorated. We updated our plans to go visit and hope for the best.
The morning I was supposed to fly out, he was gone.
I did my quiet-inner-voice thing, and it said “go anyway.” So I did.
Bodhisattva oath
I’ve been contemplating the distinction between working the Bodhisattva vow and being a doormat (or codependent, as we call it now), off and on, ever since I discovered the concept when I was 12 or 13. It’s been an important part of my work of dealing with the last couple decades of harrowing illness, poverty, and systematized abuse as a patient. It’s become a regular topic recently in my meditation class. This is a big deal and an important point to consider.
The difference, it seems, is about self-care and responsible boundaries. These are particularly key for people who are women, healers, and in a vulnerable situation; it may not have escaped your notice that the wording which defines these terms was developed by men who had quite a bit of support in their work, and such people need a lot less protecting.
It’s healthful for people in habitual authority/access/power over others to embrace a practice of profound and selfless compassion. It gives them more insight and calm.
Those of us whose ground state is based on acute awareness of others require a more nuanced approach.
There are techniques which allow a diligent practitioner to pursue the Bodhisattva vow over the rim of what appears as boundaried behavior without psychological damage, but they only come after many years of serious training and discipline with qualified supervision. So, people like me have to be pretty darned careful how we proceed.
In short, I was in two minds about my own reasons for coming, but I yielded to the quiet tidal bore of my inner voice and took that flight.
Serendipity
I’ve landed in a beautifully imperfect place among people who wear their glorious sweetness and relentless flaws in flowing symmetry. From Ronnie’s kin, I’d expect nothing less.
Above all, I realize it’s not my bathtub to soak in and not a set of problems for me to fix. I’m just here as a welcomed guest and loved part of this extended & protracted family system.
This is a big deal.
There’s a lot of work for me to do (administrative nonsense, since death and life are both business matters; my trip will be paid for) and that’s healthy, because it’s easy for me and a real boon to the family. Healthy boundary there.
There is a lot of soft, verdant ground for me to walk on; a ton of stars spilling across the sky overhead; a cornucopia of Isy-friendly food pouring out of the greenery on this well-kept land; and my allergies have backed off considerably. My ex has put my health needs absolutely first in every consideration and the rest of the family is happy to support that. Definitely healthy.
And me? I’m not over-explaining! It’s amazing :D! I just quietly take care of my needs and appreciate everything that I *can* partake of. Good boundaries there, too.
I’m learning, carefully, again, how to be present. How to unlock from anxiety without letting go of my real needs. My phone is nearby and in signal, but usually off. That’s healthy too, right now. It’s a kind of technology break, which my battered and hyperactive brain is probably long overdue for.
I’m also bereaved in the presence of others who are also old hands at bereavement. It’s a peaceful thing. It feels curiously wholesome, even as grief and mortality are shredding sorts of events. Ronnie and all our late loved ones are very present in their very absence.
I could natter on about the wheel of life and possibly even spout some Buddhist wisdom about interconnectedness and emptiness, but to put it in words is to miss the point. It’s an experience. All you can really do with an experience is to be in it and allow it to be part of you.
So that’s what I’m doing. And there’s real healing in it.
For some things, no explanation is needed because, at root, none is… oh I don’t know… possible?
Anyway, I’m OK. I’m doing the things and being the me and accepting the limits (including transport) while appreciating the strengths (like interconnectedness) and feeling very secure and centered and remarkably peaceful withal. This is good. And if my phone is off, be assured it would be on if I needed it. Right now, the stars and the green and the peace are healing me, and I’m simply letting them. <3
