Sept 5th 2006
Idle Thoughts at DawnAfter I watch a good movie, I often think I can write a novel and spin a story as emotionally gripping and light, as I have just seen. However, it is a gift to be able to tug an audience from laughter to tears and in-between, grapple with issues of change, transition and choice. I'm not sure I could ever do that. All I know is what I see and what I see right now are many tears, resisted, held back, from the inevitable fears associated with suffering, lost, and death.
I am living in a hotel, in a town more foreign to me than the countries of Latin America where I have recently been a resident. I find the suburban freeways more frightful than the open seas and the temperament of Mother Nature. Today, I drove from Highway 280 to Highway 580. I was cast onto highways 80, 680 and 880, the major interstate highways, east and west of Northern California; for a moment, I was lost on these highways, spinning round and making me feel quite inadequate as a navigator, not to mention the commander of this vehicle. But life can be like that, spinning one into fret, even with the familiar.
Forgive me, as I can't help myself, but I am making a stretch at comparing my life as a sailor and my life as a landlubber. To resist this temptation, to compare is difficult, so I fall prey to an old familiar habit, of analyzing life as it unfolds, moment to moment, then judging my moments, fretting at their viability.
Each day it becomes clearer and clearer to me that only a few will escape the inevitable suffering that comes as we age and grow nearer to death. Our western world has evolved to create a "civilized" society where we strive to be young and strong for as long as we can, but with the first signs of failing organs and faculties, we all dread the next transition. So, I ask myself, "Is there a graceful way to transition?" and "what is our desired quality of life at the end of our life?"
It is dawn and my husband, John, is finally able to sleep. He is wrestling with many changes in life. In his eyes, I can see his struggle; he struggles in silence. What he doesn't need to share is the sadness that lingers like a heavy fog around his heart. He is our Captain and having sailed many miles with him, I know he will navigate this passage with his innate keen sense of feel and not by any charted path or usual use of his senses. He will find his way, as he was raised, to be of strong mind, quick wit, and focused attentions. However, life at this moment is overcast. Patience will be necessary. As all sailors know, managing through the doldrums is only a breath away, for change is inevitable and change will come.
His parents are no longer the strong and capable people who raised him and his sisters. The people he knew for fifty years whose book of life includes memories of lives well lived. Lives that ran the gambit of the American family experience, typical of our times, fish Fridays, chipped beef on toast, crooning to Frank Sinatra and the Beatles, barbeques in the backyard, community swim meets, vacations in Lake Tahoe, hikes up Vernal Falls, long weekends spent at the Reno Air Races, the many graduations, the celebrations of marriages, the birth of grandchildren, the extension of love to family and to friends. Their family's life was not extraordinary nor was it ordinary, it would not make it to a magazine cover, but it would make it to the family albums.
For in those neatly organized and dustless leather books lie the tales of joy, laughter and a few tears, too. Years of California's history lie between the black and white and the transition to color photography. Between the bindings, lie the reflections of a time and the people who lived them. It is impossible for John to look at these memories and not feel the bittersweet of sadness and joy.
However, the reality is that his parents are at this moment, frail. They struggle with their breath, their words, and their thoughts. No single physical or mental task is easy. Everything takes more effort than ever before. Gone are the "good old days", the strong days of our perpetual youthful America. Instead, each moment, the quality of their life each day, is built not on future plans, but on a series of recollections, a grin or a smile of brief pleasure. The choice bite of a chocolate chip cookie becomes a memory of a thousand chocolate chip cookies. Their glance at a familiar face becomes an incredible joy, like the sight of sunrise each day. Time lives another dimension and it is no longer about being on time or rushing through time. It is simply about taking time.
John is reminded to place in context, the life of his parents. They have lived through over eighty years of the world's evolution. Perhaps, that is tiny in the whole scheme of the world's evolution, but not to us. And their life's achievements, as simple and abundant as they have been, are not at all about the especially struggling days of recent times. No, instead, we must remind ourselves to remember them for all their achievements and gifts and not to just focus on their current state of being.
We are not the first to make this transition with our parents. And we will not be the last of our generation. Still the transition is painful and the moments letting go of our loved ones a struggle. We are struck by the lack of tools available to deal with the suffering, not just ours, but theirs. How feel people have prepared themselves for the transition. In our youth, we are educated with degrees and we ambitiously navigate our lives to be the best we can be, but rarely does our faith or our education bring us solidly to a script for dealing with this transition. And perhaps, just by its nature and the sparkle of uniqueness of each life lived and each life's demise, there is no single script.
There is no greater tribute to John's parents than to acknowledge them for the gift they have of accepting and respecting each individual as an individual. Although, I am the newcomer to the family, I have observed that they have always showed every person they've met with respect, openness and curiosity. Perhaps, there are closet tales and matters swept under the rug, surely there were, but in the end, that is irrelevant, for what they did do, is raise three fine children with healthy lives, attitudes and a humble respect for their ability to affect world. His parents made many loving choices for him and his sisters.
And in the end, is this living and dieing with "grace"? Leaving a legacy that remembers you for the best of you and your actions without judgment?
And in the end, is our assessment of a healthy quality of life lived, all about the way we live every day with joy; harmlessly respecting others; and balancing time by relinquishing the future to those who follow, releasing the past, and relishing each breathe of the present?
And in the end, will we know when we have reached a state of grace and that life is good when a last bite is taken, into yet another warm chocolate chip cookie, and we savor how succulent and delicious that bittersweet chip feels as it lingers and then melts away. Can life be simply the joy of a chocolate chip cookie and the memories that a small boy has of his mother in a kitchen baking endless dozens of warm chocolate chip cookies?