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Half life

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We’ve all been living a kind of half life recently in my family. For the last few days, we’ve been waiting for a member of the family to die. What the nurses thought would be minutes or hours has turned into days.

There is no hope of a cure.

This isn’t life, and it wasn’t one before that.

Life is more than being alive. It is about being independent and about giving back. It is about being generous with your time and your talents. It is about having enough to keep yourself going and more to help others with.

Whether you are old and on your death bed, or you are in the prime of your life, the same rules apply.

I think about the story I read in “All Creatures Great and Small” about the vet who went to put down a farm dog. He’d gotten very sick and was suffering. He’d reached the end of his usefulness. The vet gave him the medicine, and after a day, he wasn’t dead. He was recovered. He needed some time to sleep deeply, and then he pulled through and was his old self again. He was back on the farm, working, in a matter of days.

I think about the person I knew in high school who was miserable and tried to kill himself. He didn’t succeed. He ended up damaging himself just enough that he had to be put into a nursing home. He never was able to take care of himself again. He required constant care. His bad situation got worse.

I think about a lady I know who is pregnant. Her belly is so big it looks like she is carrying a one year old. She should have given birth weeks ago. She’s tried everything to get the process started.

I think about the story I read in “Spiritual Midwifery” about a lady who was having a hard time giving birth. The midwives asked her if there was anything she was worried about, anything that might be preventing the baby from coming. The mother was worried about the father being a good provider. After they had a talk about it, she relaxed and opened up and the baby came. It needed to know it had a safe place to come to.

Why am I talking about birth while I am talking about death? Because they are the same in many ways. They are a transition, and they can’t be hurried. Well, you can give medicine to speed up contractions, and you can do a C-section. But generally, those happen once the labor process has already started, and that you have to wait for.

We’ve all put our lives on pause recently, some of us more than others. It has been a sort of negative holiday. Clothes aren’t being washed. Dishes aren’t being done, cooking happens in spurts. Meals are on the go. Naps take precedence over actual sleeping. Trips away from the house are short, and the phone is always on.

With a baby not coming, with a family member not dying, it is all a huge wait. It is delaying the inevitable. Waiting until the time is right just makes it harder on everybody else.

Maybe it isn’t about her, but about us. Maybe we aren’t ready for it. You never are, really. It is going to be a big mess to undo all of this once she dies. But her delaying it isn’t going to make it easier. If she somehow makes it out of the hospital, she can’t live on her own. She’s proven that in the past few months. There is only so much money to pay for caregivers. There is only so much time that can be taken away from work before they start to think about firing you.

It is selfish of her to hang on.

This sounds very mean and heartless.

In the past few days I’ve really been angry with her for not accepting that she is dying, for not accepting “what is”. Meanwhile, I’ve not been accepting “what is” – because “what is” is what is happening right now. This in between state, this flux, this not going on to the next step, is what is.

Do I want her to die for her sake, or for ours? Maybe a little of both.

Advice to caregivers

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Your life is not your own when someone that you love is sick. When you are the caregiver you have to change everything you do. It is kind of like living under siege.

You have to make sure that your car never goes below at least a quarter tank of gas. In fact having half a gas or more at all times is really useful. You have to make sure that you have an overnight bag packed in your car or at least in your house at all times. You’ll need a two or three day supply of clothes. Actually, having it packed in your car is better because you might get the call from a nurse while you were at work, and you don’t have time to go home and get your supplies. You have to make sure that you have a three day supply of medicine with you at all times too.

You can’t leave any of this to chance or to the last minute. Taking care of someone who is terminally ill is a lot like living in a war zone. You have to do what you can when you can. There is no guarantee of any other chance to relax a refresh yourself. You have to take care of yourself so you can take care of them.

You can’t do without food. Eating snacks and drinking sodas doesn’t count. Nothing from a vending machine is food. You have to make a point of eating real food, even if you don’t feel like eating. In fact, you won’t feel like it, but that doesn’t mean you can do without it. Cars have to have gasoline in them to go. Bodies need food. Skip all sugars and caffeine – they will make you crash.

You’ll need to make a point of getting as much sleep as possible. This doesn’t mean oversleeping. But take the time to sleep when you can. Sleep is restorative.

Get exercise – go walk up and down the halls. Stretch.

Take a notebook and write. Writing helps process feelings and gets them out. Writing can help you understand what you are thinking.

All of your own personal chores have to be dealt with immediately. Don’t leave the mowing for another day. Don’t leave doing laundry for another day. You don’t have another day. That day is when you get called to go have to take care of somebody else’s problem.

You have to keep your own head above water before you can rescue someone else. If you’re not very good at swimming and you try and rescue someone else you will both drown.

You have to be able to shift gears. Sometimes the problem is shifting out of this emergency mode once you return to normal. Nothing is ever the same after you’ve taken care of someone who is dying. It’s like you had to grow an extra arm. So you don’t really know what to do with it once everything is back to normal. And of course it never is normal once they die. You are without someone you cared for.

Being a caregiver to a parent when the relationship was bad is extra hard. They have not taught you how to take control. They have not taught you how to be an adult. They have taught you your whole life that your opinion doesn’t matter. They have taught you your whole life that whatever you think is not okay. So now you don’t have the legs to stand on to take care of them. You can’t ask them what to do because they have reverted into being like a child. Now you have to be the adult, and you’ve not had any practice at it.

Death is the other side of birth

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Our culture is so squeamish about death. Death is just the other side of birth. But we hide that too. We do both with strangers, in hospitals. We used to do them in our homes, with our friends and family. Both used to be a normal part of life. Now they both have been taken away from us. Or rather, we’ve given them away.

Just like people are starting to get the idea that a home birth can be a safe and fulfilling experience, so too can death. These aren’t medical procedures. There isn’t anything wrong. They don’t need doctors or nurses. They need trained helpers, midwives.

Fear comes from ignorance. Learn everything you can and it won’t be scary. Don’t know how to find the information you need? Go to the library. That is what the librarians are for. Google “Signs of death” and you’ll find helpful stuff too.

There are signs of approaching death, just like with an approaching birth. They are only scary if you don’t know them.

Fear of death just makes it worse. It isn’t a failure. It is natural, and it happens to everybody and everything. It is a transition.

It is leaving this body. The body is just a vehicle for the soul.

Nurses don’t get this. Doctor’s don’t get this. They are worried about giving an overdose of pain medicine to a terminally ill patient.

Why do we show more mercy to a dog than a person? Why does the person have to suffer to the bitter end?

Broken heart

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When patrons hear that Jeff died of a heart attack just 7 weeks after his wife died, they often comment that “He died of a broken heart.”

No, he died because he didn’t take care of himself. He died because he spent his time taking care of everybody else and not himself.

He ate meat-laden breakfast sandwiches every morning. He got fast food for lunch. Sometimes he didn’t eat supper at all. He ate cookies and drank tea all day long. Everything had sugar or caffeine or both, and lots of it.

He knew his blood pressure was high, but he didn’t do anything about it. He had unusual pains and didn’t feel well, but didn’t go to the doctor.

I suspect he thought that if he took time off to go to the doctor, then he would be taking time away from us, his coworkers. He didn’t want to inconvenience us and make us even more short-handed.

You can’t make us more short-handed than being dead.

He had OCD. Constantly trying to fix things, to control things. The one thing he could control, his health, he didn’t.

Maybe if he had taken the time to take care of what he could take care of, he’d still be here.

He had a lot of stress, what with having two kids to deal with – children that weren’t even his legally. His wife had two children from a previous marriage, and they’d never gotten around to having him adopt them. They were worried about dealing with the kids’ deadbeat dad.

He drove an hour one way every day to go to work. His wife liked where they lived, but he couldn’t find work there. He put his needs aside. That was a long drive, and a lot of stress.

It was always about other people. He just liked to make people happy, he said. His dad was the same way, and he died young too.

What would make us happy would be for him to still be here, and well, and balanced, and happy.

The hen, the ant, the grasshopper, and Jesus

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“The Little Red Hen” is a useful story about people who prepare and people who are lazy. The creatures who are lazy expect to get something for nothing, and the creature who worked is having none of it.

“In the tale, the little red hen finds a grain of wheat, and asks for help from the other farmyard animals (most adaptations feature a pig and a duck) to plant it, but none of them volunteer. At each later stage (harvest, threshing, milling the wheat into flour, and baking the flour into bread), the hen again asks for help from the other animals, but again she gets no assistance. Finally, the hen has completed her task, and asks who will help her eat the bread. This time, all the previous non-participants eagerly volunteer. She declines their help, stating that no one aided her in the preparation work. Thus, the hen eats it with her chicks leaving none for anyone else. The moral of this story is that those who show no willingness to contribute to a product do not deserve to enjoy the product.” – from Wikipedia

Then there is also the story of “The Ant and the Grasshopper”, which echoes this.

“The fable concerns a grasshopper that has spent the warm months singing while the ant (or ants in some versions) worked to store up food for winter. When that season arrives, the grasshopper finds itself dying of hunger and begs the ant for food. To its reply when asked that it had sung all summer, it is rebuked for its idleness and advised to dance during the winter.” – from Wikipedia.

This echoes what the apostle Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 3:10
“For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat.” (RSV)

But fables, and Paul, are not Jesus. What does Jesus have to say about all of this?

Matthew 20:1-16
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place; 4 and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. 5 Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing; and he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8 And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first last.” (RSV)

This is totally not fair. But human ways of doing things aren’t the same as God’s ways of doing things.

God says in Isaiah 55:8
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

This doesn’t make any of this any easier, though. Isn’t it “enabling” to let someone slide, to get away with being a slacker? It is hard to work as a team and only two out of the three people are working – but you all get the same pay. It is hard to want to help someone who refuses to take care of themselves.

You know, “Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” I grew up with that phrase.

We think like this, but God doesn’t.

It kind of sucks.

I want people to reap what they sow, not what I sow. I want people to fall face first into their own mess, rather than me having to come rescue them from it. But I know I shouldn’t think like this.

This being a disciple is hard. It is kind of like being in AA.

Non-believers think following Jesus is for weak people, but that can’t be further from the truth. Following Jesus means dropping everything that popular culture has taught about being selfish and “every man for himself”. It means putting yourself and your needs last. It means doing the right thing even though it is the last thing you want to do.

Friend or foe

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“Since we are friends, you can…” (fill in the blank as to whatever rule they want me to break.)

I’m friends with a lot of patrons. I’ve met several great people while working at the library. Heck, I even married a patron.

I’m friendly with a lot of other ones, in part because that is part of my job. Some of them confuse “being friendly” with “being friends” though. They ask me to bend or break rules, to make exceptions for them, because we are “friends”.

We aren’t. If we were really friends, they wouldn’t ask me to do something that could get me fired. Like waiving their fines. Like not changing their address to their new out-of-county address. Like not using their ID or their library card to access their account.

Friends don’t try to get friends fired.

I’ve been a people pleaser throughout my life, and I’m learning it doesn’t do me any good. “People pleaser” is the old way of saying “codependent”. I felt like I needed to do whatever they wanted me to do so they would like me. Fortunately I’m getting over that. If they get angry because I won’t do something that is illegal or unethical or just plain against the rules, then they aren’t the kind of people I want to associate with anyway.

Me Me Me

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My father-in-law’s dementia has progressed a lot faster than anyone could have anticipated. It has gone about five steps ahead of where it should have at this point.

I believe it is a coping mechanism. I believe that he does not want to deal with the fact that his wife is dying and so he is not dealing with it. I believe also that he is very upset that all the attention is going to her and not to him.

This is a way of drawing attention to himself. This is a way of making other people notice him and take care of him. It is quite embarrassing that this adult man is reverting to childlike behaviors.

He has always been a needy, vain, controlling person. There is one “family” picture in the house – all the other pictures of him are with famous people. He’s always talking about all the famous people he has met. He never talks about family gatherings or vacations. He always has to have the latest, best things. He bullied his wife and then his sons for years.

Outwardly, he is an old man. Inwardly, he is a little boy, always seeking approval through being associated with other people. He cannot stand on his own.

He is in a nursing home and he says he wants to go home. But he doesn’t understand or want to understand that no one is there to take care of him. The person who would take care of him is herself needing to be taken care of. She has nurtured him and put up with his tantrums and rages his whole life, it seems. But now, because of her terminal cancer, she is the one who has to be taken care of. She is the one who has a home health nurse and a hospice nurse coming to the house.

While his needs need to be acknowledged, ultimately he has to learn that it isn’t all about him. There’s some middle ground where people say you’re great and you know you are. There some place in your head where you don’t have to have other people tell you that you’re awesome. And maybe part of it is not having to think that you’re awesome. Maybe just being average is okay.

Bad seeds

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I think it is very dangerous to spread news about young boys and guns in school. The stories about mass shootings at school where boys are killing strangers just encourage more of the same, rather than preventing it.

I think the media mentions it in the news so that everybody else knows what to look out for and be careful. But the problem is that when they spread the news they’re also telling other boys here’s a thing to do. People who never thought about taking a gun and killing random strangers at their school now have that idea in their head. It’s not that the rash of it spreads on its own, it’s that we plant the seeds.

So now, kids who feel ignored and overlooked have an idea of how to get attention and be noticed. Any attention, even negative, is attention. Attention is energy. That is what everybody wants. Being famous for a bad thing is still being famous. And, briefly, they feel powerful, which they have not felt before.

We have to address that sense of powerlessness and give everybody the attention that they need. Every person has the chance to grow up into a beautiful flower. Ignored, abused – they will grow up into misshapen weeds.

It is our choice.

All people need to learn how to express themselves and how to respect others while they express themselves. All people need to learn how to self-soothe and not rely on others for their self-esteem and happiness.

Achieve this and we will have peace.

Blessing and a curse

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Deuteronomy 11:26a
26 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse:

Later on, we read

Deuteronomy 30:15
15 See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil.

Every day, every hour, every moment we have a choice to do what we know to be right. It isn’t a religious guilt-trip thing either. It is actually very freeing.

We have a choice to get up on time or sleep in. We have a choice to eat well, to exercise, to speak kindly to people.

The past doesn’t matter. Our family or personal history doesn’t matter.

Every day, hour, moment we have a choice. Just because we ate a piece of pie doesn’t mean we have to eat a second one. Just because we have never gone for a walk around the neighborhood doesn’t mean that now isn’t a great time for it. Just because we have never gotten along with this person doesn’t mean that today isn’t the day to give it a try.

Every moment is a new chance. Now is a new chance, a new choice.

And if we do make a bad choice, we aren’t stuck. We get another chance to turn it around.

God doubles our energy when we turn back to what we know to be right. Just like in the story of the prodigal son, God comes running to us to make up the distance when we return.

I leave you with the entire text of chapter 18 of the book of Ezekiel.

The word of the LORD came to me again: 2 “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? 3 As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. 4 Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sins shall die.
5 “If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right— 6 if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman in her time of impurity, 7 does not oppress any one, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, 8 does not lend at interest or take any increase, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes true justice between man and man,9 walks in my statutes, and is careful to observe my ordinances—he is righteous, he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD.
10 “If he begets a son who is a robber, a shedder of blood, 11 who does none of these duties, but eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, 12 oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, 13 lends at interest, and takes increase; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominable things; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.
14 “But if this man begets a son who sees all the sins which his father has done, and fears, and does not do likewise, 15 who does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, 16 does not wrong any one, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, 17 withholds his hand from iniquity, takes no interest or increase, observes my ordinances, and walks in my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. 18 As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity.
19 “Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. 20 The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
21 “But if a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die.22 None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness which he has done he shall live. 23 Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? 24 But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does the same abominable things that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, he shall die.
25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? 26 When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die for it; for the iniquity which he has committed he shall die. 27 Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is lawful and right, he shall save his life.28 Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. 29 Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?
30 “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, says the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. 31 Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of any one, says the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.” (RSV)

Birthday Wretch

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One of my coworkers had her birthday recently. It was five days after another coworker had died. He died at 42. She is in her 70s.

I considered not saying anything to her about her birthday. This is the one who never talks except to complain. “I don’t mean to complain, but…” is her catch phrase. But I decided to wish her a happy birthday anyway. Now I wish I hadn’t.

Her response? “When you get to my age, birthdays don’t matter much.”

Any other time, this wouldn’t have hit me as hard as it did. But five days after a really awesome person died?

Ungrateful wretch. At least she had a birthday to celebrate. She’s had way more birthdays that Jeff will ever have.

It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that the good people die young and we are stuck with the mean people. It isn’t fair that there are patrons who come to the library every day and spend all day on the computers, playing Facebook games. They are wasting their lives, while there are better people who don’t have lives left to waste because they are dead.

I keep wondering, when she dies, will anybody go to her funeral? What will they say? Will they miss her?

I’m sad and angry at the same time for all the people who are still alive and are not using their time well. They sleepwalk through their days, they are mean, they are selfish. They don’t volunteer. They don’t make the world better.

Why do they get more time and the wonderful, amazing, kind people have to die?