“Sorry for Your Loss” and “Facing the Maudlin and Morose”

 

Donna Ashworth -
Her poem appears below.

“Facing the Maudlin and Morose” – Wm. Darius Myers

 

Mortality makes me morose.

 

A steady diet of dying and bereavement,

my own,

and not just that of patients’ families

whose deeper losses fail to make mine less painful,

renders me “sullen and ill-tempered,”

            as Oxford identifies “morose” as meaning.

 

And so I provoke those around me,

too often for most,

to join in my maudlin mood—

that state in which

a clear understanding of mortality

leads to self-pity,

sentimentality,

and a significantly regretful nostalgia

for the days in which I could still act

as though I believed

everything would last forever.

 

But,

I know now,

very few things last forever.

 

And yet,

there are,

            of course,

some things that do last forever.

 

Thankfully, though,

the maudlin and the morose

are not among them.

 

 --------------------

All of which brings me to consider Donna Ashworth’s poem,

“Sorry for Your Loss.”

 

When I say sorry for your loss

it may sound perfunctory

trite even

 

but what I mean is

 

I am sorry

that you wake in the night

gasping for breath

heart racing in agony

 

I am sorry

that you will know a lifetime

of what ifs and

could have beens.

 

I am sorry

that you ache

for one more minute with your love

knowing it can never be.

 

When I say sorry for your loss

please know

my soul is reaching out to yours

in understanding

and trying very hard

to take away

just one little ounce of your pain.

 

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Our hospice agency has a bereavement coordinator. She provides services to families after the death of the patient, helping them to experience their grief authentically, and pursue their mourning effectively.

 

But each of us on the care team (nurses, aides, social workers, volunteers, office and support staff, and chaplains and counselors) all face the daily challenge of providing services to both patients and families who are already experiencing losses. Can we help them to experience their grief authentically, and pursue their mourning effectively, even before the death of the patient? Probably so. And in doing so, perhaps they would see that we are “trying very hard to take away just one little ounce of your pain.”

 

Maybe that would become clearer if we were to say, to the patient, as well as to the family: “Sorry for Your Loss.”

 

 

 

 

Donna Ashworth’s book, Loss: Poems to better weather the many waves of grief, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Loss-Poems-better-weather-waves/dp/1785304429/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1SHNES3SURQKP&keywords=loss&qid=1698425033&sprefix=loss%2Caps%2C179&sr=8-3

Thoughts on a Reason for the Hatred of Hamas (and Zionists, and 19th Century European Nation-States, and—in fact—all humans everywhere in every era since Genesis 3).

 

The fundamental intractability of the Arab-Israeli conflict (from the inception of a people identified as "Ones who struggle with God" - the literal translation of the word Israel) stems from the same struggle we each face whenever we distinguish “me” from “you,” and “us” from “them.” For Israel, the importance of these distinctions is heightened due to Jews being defined as "other than" all other peoples. They are historically "the chosen people," set apart by God, for God. While the idea of struggling "with God" stems from the Patriarch Jacob's literal wrestling match, refusing to let go of God until he received a blessing, there is also the sense that Israel struggles "with God" as His ally, seeking to pass along His blessings to (and/or impose His will on) all other peoples, including the Arabs who "occupied our land" for 1,878 tears (70 CE until 1948).

 

It is this "set-apart-ness" that many Europeans found objectionable during the 19th century as nations began to differentiate from one another by certain commonalities within distinct geographic borders. In short, those who lived in Germany were Germans, those who lived in France were French, those who lived in Spain were Spanish, but the descendants of Israel ("sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob")--no matter WHERE they lived--were all one with one another as Jews (short for followers of Judaism or, formerly, inhabitants of Judah--one of the twelve tribes of "The Hebrews").

 

Persecution against Jews in Europe arose as nationalists reacted to "The Jewish Problem in Europe." In the 1930s, under Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany, most of Europe—with support from North Americans—agreed on "The Final Solution to the Jewish Problem in Europe." But the solution proposed was not Zionism, the emigration of Jews to a new nation-state of Israel to be located in Palestine. The solution implemented by Nazi Germany was extermination—the attempted murder of every Jew in all of Europe, with roughly six million Jews dying as a result.

 

With that as background, the Zionist argument seems reasonable. "Yes, it is VERY inconvenient for the Palestinians to be expatriated from their homes and forced to live elsewhere. But the alternative, when we Jews lived elsewhere, was for others to exterminate us, and leave us with nowhere to live anywhere." Subsequently, though, most Palestinians have come to find the Israeli position sounding something like, "You're in our way, you Palestinians. So we will herd you into settlements, starve you, and occasionally kill some of you, so that we feel safer from all those others who are still trying to exterminate us."

 

Ironically, the underlying belief motivating much of Israel’s Palestinian policy, that “in this place there can only be ‘us’ and none of ‘them,” is the same underlying belief that caused the 19^th Century European Nation-States to identify all Jews everywhere as a “them” that needed to be separated or eradicated from among “us.” Even more difficultly, it is the same underlying belief that infects all humans everywhere: “We are other than, different than, and therefore more important than them.” The disease stems from the third chapter of Genesis, in which we determined that “I am other than, different than, and therefore more important than you.” So, if you or they are in the way, we conclude that I and we have the right to identify and implement a solution to that problem…unless we find the commonality of us all being “we.” Could that possibly result from our common condition and mutual acceptance of our fearful tendency to war against the “them?”

What Was Life Like Before? (Death and Terminal Illness Aren’t the Only Things We Deny)

In the television program Virgin River, Melinda Monroe (“Mel”) has left her Nurse Practitioner position in Los Angeles and moved into the wilds of California’s Northstate (very like the communities I served for over two decades). Mel’s decision follows the death of her husband Mark, and others around her and in his family especially demonstrate the kinds of behaviors chaplains, counselors, social workers, and other hospice staff members refer to kindly as “family dynamics.”

 But in the midst of varying layers of drama, at one point she’s questioned about her perspective on their marriage and its challenges. Wanting Mel to return "the family's" wedding ring, her sister-in-law asks, “If Mark were still alive, do you think you’d be still married?"

 True, those around the bereaved can often be horribly insensitive. But this scene (in Episode 5 of Season 2) reminds me, too, of how often our patients’ loved ones fall prey to pretending that everything in the patient’s relationships were uncomplicated by conflict, or that somehow being gravely ill results in some new sense of nobility, respect, or at least stability in the life of the patient.

 As we’ve seen frequently in recent months, though, even as our patients face their impending end-of-life, they are still who they have been. We work with families where relationships have been damaged by substance abuse, abandonment, disagreements, religious conflicts, and many other factors. The questions raised by these realities sometimes needs to be asked:

 “If your loved one wasn’t dying, would you let them live with you?”

 “If your loved one wasn’t dying, would you have taken an interest in their religious beliefs?”

 “If your loved one wasn’t dying, would you have stopped the divorce proceedings?”

 “If your loved one wasn’t dying, would you…?”

You cannot resolve what you will not address. Ask the questions.

 

So Much Can Go Wrong: Tropical Fish Edition

 At San Francisco State University, our Biology professor noted that he didn’t believe in any personal deity, and so we should take his terminology with a grain of salt. “But,” he said, “there is so much that can go wrong with the human body that it’s a miracle that any of us survive until birth.” As hospice workers, we get to see a lot of what can go wrong. In eight years of law enforcement chaplaincy, I think I saw most of all the other things that can go wrong.

 

To illustrate that, I looked up a list of all the things that need to go right in order to be a successful pet owner for tropical fish. According to those who admittedly want to sell you supplies and equipment related to keeping fish alive in your home, here’s the list:

 

1 – Get everything out of your household water that will kill your fish. Chlorine is just one of the many poisons that we tolerate, but that your fish will not.

2 – Don’t shock your fish with rapid temperature changes.

3 – Don’t shock your fish with sudden changes in their aquarium.

4 – Maintain a consistently proper pH and other chemical levels.

5 – Maintain a consistently proper temperature in the aquarium.

6 – Change 25% of the water monthly, without messing up any of the above.

7 – Clean the tank regularly so that all of the above are maintained without waste building up.

8 – Don’t put fish in with other fish that will kill and/or eat them.

9 – Also, don’t put fish in with other fish that they will kill and/or eat – because the uneaten remains of dead fish will violate #7 on the list.

10 – Don’t overfeed your fish, since it’s not just uneaten dead fish that will violate #7 on the list.

 

As hospice workers, we could compile a similar list for our patients, their friends and family members, caregivers and collaborators, and even our own team members. But here’s the point I’d like us to remember:

 

There is so much that can go wrong, that we will never give anyone “The Perfect Hospice Experience.” Still, providing them with hospice care is so much better than the alternatives that it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call it, if not perfect, then at least a miracle.

Living in Light of Death: Thoughts inspired by Lewis H. Lapham’s essay, “Memento Mori”

Never blame a patient, family member, friend, caregiver, or yourself for having difficulty in dropping Denial. It does serve a purpose at times. But it is pathologically reinforced by almost everything and everybody around us, all the time. Still, the mistaken belief in our own immortality is a dangerous delusion. Correcting that mistake, breaking through Denial, and awakening one another to the reality of mortality is a holy calling to which hospice workers should be among the most devoted.

 

In an essay entitled “Memento Mori” (Latin for “Remember you must die.”), Lewis H. Lapham is commenting on Woody Allen’s famous quote about death: “It’s not that I’m afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Lapham writes,

 

I admire the stoic fortitude, but at the age of seventy-eight I know I won’t be skipping out on the appointment, and I notice that it gets harder to remember just why it is that I’m not afraid to die. My body routinely produces fresh and insistent signs of its mortality, and within the surrounding biosphere of the news and entertainment media it is the fear of death—24/7 in every shade of hospital white and doomsday black—that sells the pharmaceutical, political, financial, film, and food product promising to make good the wish to live forever.

 

Lapham explores some literature, and especially his experiences of how up-close and personal death can be, before making his recommendation that we turn away and pretend, that we resume our devotion to Denial. The final sentence of his essay reads, “Certain only that the cause of my death is one that I can neither foresee nor forestall, I’m content, at least for the time being, to let the sleeping dog lie.”

 

Though everyone and everything around is always telling us differently, you and I are going to die. And that knowledge can make us ever more determined to live. Unless, much as Woody Allen wants to play hooky from his death, you choose to sleep through your life.

 

The Power of Place – Thinking of Amy Grant’s “If These Walls Could Speak”

This past Sunday, I was privileged to hear some stories told, corrected, and embellished with added details from others who had been present for the events. One example will give you the tone, I believe.

My Uncle John came to the party for my dad’s 85^th birthday. John had been in the vehicle following my father as Dad drove the family’s newly purchased vehicle home, or at least in the direction of home. Downshifting to pass a truck on a two-lane highway, the rear wheels passed the front wheels and the back bumper was perfectly centered on the concrete-based steel gatepost when it cleaved the trunk neatly in two.

Other stories, though, tracked a little more consistently than the hapless Dodge described above. But not without some meandering into other lanes and events, if not entirely different topics. Be sure to listen to the stories you can while they can still be told intact. My father’s were. Intact. But with enough side-trips and stops along the way that I sometimes wondered when it would be appropriate to ask (as I’m sure I did on hundreds of childhood treks up, down, and across the state of Ohio), “Are we there yet?”

But in thinking of the influential “theres” of my childhood, I would ask, “Is anyone there yet?” No Myerses that I know of are at 610 Joycie Lane in Waynesville. I think a cousin now lives in my other grandparents’ place at 120 Washington Street in West Union. And although I feel like I went home from school to 1080 Warren Drive in Wilmington almost as often as I went to my own home, I know that it was sold after my aunt and uncle were both gone.

And, of course, it’s not just the consistency of grandparents’ and others’ homes (Where Robert Frost would tell me that, once I have to go there, they have to take me in.), but there are other powerful memories locked up in places where I slept most of my childhood nights: 374 Randolph Street in Wilmington, 416 Shade Drive in West Carrollton, and then…San Francisco. But there are so many memorable California places, we’ll save those for another time.

Where are your “theres”? And of whom could you say, “It was theirs,” and perhaps even “I was theirs.” I’m writing this as one of my weekly reflections intended for my colleagues. We work at a hospice where the founder was recently removed, and where many of us were hired by the Executive Director who started our office and, it was announced yesterday, was just removed as well. So, as we meet today, our “wheres” and “theirs” have become a little less certain. Our stories have just taken a turn. Perhaps, for some of us, it’s just a brief meandering from the main road. For some, it may seem that we’ve swapped ends and are backing toward an immovable gatepost.

Whatever course today finds you on please know, at least for now, that there are others who will one day be able to tell, correct, and embellish your story with their own perspectives. My prayer is that we will patiently consider what has been, and what is, and ask ourselves frankly, “Are we there, yet?”

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Here’s a place to find Amy Grant’s “If These Walls Could Speak.” It’s a song that’s been haunting me since Sunday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNzwQI9eSAU&list=RDvNzwQI9eSAU&start_radio=1&ab_channel=BettyAttoms

 

Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Day in Autumn” – being read amidst an even later season of life

I recently posted another meme. Above the high-tide explosion of waves against the golden-hour stones of Asilomar Beach, it reads, “Hope less. Live more.” I am at the stage in life (and, truthfully, I have been so for longer than I would care to admit) in which the list of what I once planned to accomplish, what I once imagined I would have time to accomplish, is shortened more and more by the cumulative effects of old injuries, gradual infirmities, and surprising indignities.

Although my spiritual traditions include “the sure and certain hope of the resurrection,” my life today, in the meantime, has become very different than I imagined it would be. But while I could choose to grieve and mourn past abilities passed, or seek some future restoration or renewal, I now cannot live any other day but this one. I cannot surround myself with any other group, team, or family than those now here.

This Fall-ing of life, when we recognize that some things will now always be what they are, how they are, where they are, and with whom they are—is what I think the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke was getting at in his poem “Day in Autumn.” (Translated by Mary Kinzie.)

After the summer's yield, Lord, it is time

to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials

and in the pastures let the rough winds fly.

 

As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness.

Direct on them two days of warmer light

to hale them golden toward their term, and harry

the last few drops of sweetness through the wine.

 

Whoever's homeless now, will build no shelter;

who lives alone will live indefinitely so,

waking up to read a little, draft long letters,  

and, along the city's avenues,

fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen.

Whatever fruits, however sweet, you have yet to bear; whatever falling and fallen leaves may swirl around you already; and whatever signs and symptoms of encroaching decrepitude you find afflicting you; may you also find the courage, the tenacity, and the joy necessary to live the day you have today.