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Poem – we are all orphans

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We are all orphans, you and I,
regardless of what age we were when
our parents left us,
regardless of how
they left us,
regardless of if
they left us at all.

Thirteen or thirty makes no difference.
Death or divorce makes no difference.
The pain is the same.
The loss is just as deep,
the edges of the wound
just as jagged,
just as raw.

But we deceive ourselves
when we say
we miss
our parents,
because even when
they are alive and with us,
we still have a lack,
a feeling of loss.
Even when they are fully present
we are missing something.
We think
that when they die
we have a name for this feeling.
We call it grief.
But really we were grieving
even when they were with us.

Our lack, our loss,
is that we desire to be
One with the One.
We desire to be together
with our Heavenly Parent.
Not dead,
but fully
and totally
alive in that presence.

Just like how people who are dying,
even when they have not spoken
in days,
will cry to be home,
even when they are there
already.
It isn’t a physical address
they are longing for.
It isn’t a place.

Likewise it isn’t our earthly parents
we miss,
but our True Parent.

Ritual to honor a deceased parent

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This uses something called “Hell” money. Chinese people use this fake money to show respect and honor to their deceased relatives. It is a way of keeping their memory alive. The Chinese have no “hell” or “heaven” – it is simply the afterlife. It is closer to “purgatory” or a “holding” area. It isn’t a place of punishment – it just simply isn’t a corporal existence here with us. Western missionaries translated the idea as “hell” because they did not understand it. You can obtain Hell money online (I used ArteCrafts on Etsy) or if you are fortunate enough to have a Chinatown section in your town, you can get them there.

If Western culture had a way of showing honor to deceased parents, I’d include it. They don’t. They don’t have a way of respecting and releasing grief. The Mexican Day of the Dead ceremony is very healing – you welcome back your dead ancestors for the day so they are still with you. In Western culture, you visit the grave (maybe) and pretend everything is fine. I’m all for adopting other culture’s ideas if they are healing. This represents my own twist on the idea.

These are the ingredients:
A candle.
Lighter.
Water to put out the fire if necessary.
Tray to hold the ingredients.
An incense stick for each person being honored.
A bell.
Regular and gold-orange Hell money.

You need a safe place to burn things – we used a fire pit. This should preferably be done outside, but could be done inside with a fireplace. There should be a way for the smoke to go up and outside.

To begin –
Cover your head – a hat or a handkerchief will do. This is for safety and for reverence. Avoid a ball cap.

Light the candle and put it at the top center of the burning area. This is not in the middle. Consider if the area is a clock. The center where you will burn the items is in the middle, where the clock arms are. You put the candle at the 12 o’clock position.

Light the incense sticks – one for each person you are remembering. Stick them in the burn area at the edge – at the 9 or 3 o’clock position. Angle them in towards the center, but not sharply. Say the name of each person, saying “I welcome (name) into this moment. I honor, love, and miss you.” (or other words that feel appropriate for you and your relationship)

Ring the bell once, calmly and reverently. This marks the beginning of silence.

Then burn the hell money one at a time, taking turns for each person who is participating in the ceremony. Have several different kinds of hell money. Some include representations of clothing or household goods. The idea is that you are “sending” these items to your relatives to make their stay in the otherworld easier.

If it feels right, burn one together in honor of your shared grief for the other’s parent.

Then burn the golden-orange hell money last. Only burn one of each.

Then ring the bell to signal the end of the ceremony.

Leave the incense burning. You can waft over you to bring some of its healing to you.

Regular Hell money looks like this
hell money2

Gold-orange money looks like this –
hell money1

Thoughts on public displays of grief.

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There are several different ways that people publicly grieve. Here are few I’ve noticed that seem especially modern. Many seem counterproductive to the healing process. Many seem to exacerbate and prolong grieving.

Commemorating relative’s deaths on Facebook. Every year we hear when their relatives were born or died. Sometimes the birthday post will say “Happy Birthday Mom! You would have been 87 years old today!” Is it suitable to wish happy birthday to someone who has died? Mom has been dead for 20 years. Many of the people who are their friends never even met their Mom.

The side of the road memorials. These often have crosses with the person’s name on it and some fake flowers. Is that where the person died? Was there a car crash? Is this meant to warn others that this is a dangerous area and to drive safely? Is it legal to put private roadside memorials on public property? Could the memorial itself become a safety hazard by distracting someone? How long is too long to leave one of these up? When did this start? These have not always been.

The stickers on the car – “In loving memory of (insert name here)”. These are very large, some of which cover the entire back window of the car. Sometimes there is a profile of praying hands or of Jesus. Often there are birth and death dates. There is a possibility that the sticker itself could be a hazard to the driver, making it hard to see when they are changing lanes. The people on the road most likely did not know that person. How is this message relevant or helpful to them?

Tattoos for the dead. Either with birthdates and death dates, or an image of the person, or both.

Many of these different public memorials are designed to be permanent. Sure, we want to remember the dead. To not remember them and what they meant to you is to make it as if they didn’t exist. But is it helpful to grieve forever? It is meaningful to show your grief to complete strangers? They don’t know your loved one. Is it a way of saying that your grief is worse, because you are showing it off? We all have loved ones who have died. It seems that to have a public display of grief indicates that you feel that others do not grieve.

Grief is a long and difficult process, and Western society does not have a very healthy relationship with it. This is the same society that doesn’t even acknowledge death as a natural part of life. The dying process is seen as an aberration or something to be treated. No wonder our grieving has no set pattern for beginning, middle, and end. No wonder it gets so messy.

I’m not questioning the need to grieve. I’m questioning the need to grieve publicly and permanently. Is that healthy? Is it productive? Is it fair to everyone else?

Poem – Guilt and expected death

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There’s a guilty feeling the caregiver has
when their loved one dies.
Be it spouse, parent, child,
you’ve taken care of them
for a long time
and they have finally
passed on.

Nobody talks about this.
They talk about how hard it is
to take care of
someone you love
for a long time,
someone who is terminally ill.
Someone who isn’t going
to get better,
and the only cure
is the grave.

Your life is finally back
to being yours.
Your time is yours.

You should feel bad if you
didn’t
give your time
to help them
– but you did, and now it is over.

There shouldn’t be guilt
about surviving,
guilt about feeling relieved
that it is over,
guilt about being glad
your duty is done.
But there is.

You are glad for them
that they are no longer suffering,
but also glad for yourself
that you can do
what you want to do
again.

You aren’t so crass as to say
you’re glad
they are dead,
but you are.

It is a weird feeling,
made weirder
by the mixture of grief,
the exhaustion of being
an unpaid,
untrained nurse,
there 24/7.

Poem – Plates

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I opened the box
from my mother in law,
the heavy brown cardboard, the crisp pale paper inside.
She’d been dead a month by this time
but she knew it was coming
so there’d been time to prepare.

Every plate
every bowl
every cup
even the gravy boat
she had wrapped
herself
one
by
one

and placed carefully in this box.

She knew
that this was the last time
she would see these dishes,
these dishes that we had used
as a family
for Christmas
for Easter
for Thanksgiving
every year.

She knew
this was the end
that there would be no more holidays
for her.

We’ll continue
in our fashion
in our own new way
without her
but with her plates
so lovingly
and so carefully
wrapped.

Poem – Grief is messy

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Grief is messy.
People don’t like to get it all over themselves.
This is why they brush it off, brush you off.
This is why they say “At least it isn’t…” or
“At least you have something left…” or
“It could have been worse…” or
Any number of things designed to get you out.
Out of their heads, out of their lives, out of the room.
They are afraid that your grief
Is so big
It will spill over
And cover them
And maybe even infect them.
So they say “At least” and “If” and “But” to hem in
To wall up
To shut down
Your grief
Just in case
It is catching.

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.

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.

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?

Stuck inside

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Sometimes it is about using whatever tools that will work. Say you have a child that is trapped inside a building in a war zone. You want to get the child out but the child is so afraid that he has locked himself inside. He has locked the doors and put barricades over the windows. You will use any tool necessary to get inside.

I think the same thing about mental-health help. I’ll use any tool to get inside. When we are suffering with grief, anxiety, and addiction we are in a war zone. We are so afraid to leave our houses, which are all of our familiar habits. We won’t leave, even if it is the familiar habits that are harming us. The devil you know is better than the one you don’t, right?

So when you are afraid you will retreat to the things you know best. Even if it is the things you know best that are causing you pain. More accurately, they are only relieving the surface of the pain, and not the source. They aren’t addressing the cause of the pain. So the problem just builds and builds.

People who are suffering from grief, anxiety, depression, or addiction all need help, but sadly we think they need to ask for it to get it. We let them struggle alone in silence. The last thing they are going to do is ask for help, because that kind of thinking is beyond them. In fact, thinking that a) there is a way out and b) they are worthy of help – would be the way out. The fact that they think their cause is hopeless is how they got stuck in that hole to start off with.

When people are having heart attacks, we don’t wait for them to ask for help before we take them to the hospital. Why do we wait for people who are having soul-attacks to ask for help?

I envision a place where people can learn how to break themselves out of their own houses. Perhaps we have to slip instructions through the windows. Perhaps we have to play music so they can hear it through the cracks in the walls. Whatever works. If it is a book on child rearing or something from Rumi or Lao Tsu or Buddha or Jesus or AA Twelve Steps, I don’t care. Whatever works to get them out of that house.

Because that house is killing them.

People trap themselves inside addiction and bad habits out of grief. They feel a sense of loss over a divorce, over moving, over a death. Grief comes in many forms. And if not dealt with, it manifests itself in as many forms. You can’t ignore grief and loss. It has to be processed.

But so many of us get stuck inside our grief and we don’t know how to get it out. In fact, we don’t know that we should get it out. We think it is normal and it keeps us safe, while meanwhile it chokes us.

I will use any lock pick, any sledgehammer.
I will cut open the roof.
I will go down the chimney.

We have to free people and teach them how to be alive.