Help for the Helpers?

                            When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.

                                                                                            ~ Thomas Jefferson

I visited with an old friend this week and much reminiscing and catching up was shared.  At this stage in our lives, we spent some time on health issues. He raised an interesting point, one that I sadly admit I had not considered. He spoke about searching for a respectful, compassionate oncologist when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. He shared that one doctor dismissed him after being introduced, without even a greeting, and summarily banished him to a seat in the corner, behind her computer screen which effectively blocked the view of his wife.  He felt disenfranchised and hurt.  He said, “there is no support for the men in this equation when your partner has cancer.”

I caught my breath because he is right.  There are a lot of expectations on the male partner when a woman has a diagnosis of cancer, particularly when it is one that seems to have sexual connotations. Women struggle with how breast cancer treatment will affect their body image as well as their desirability and need the support of their lovers and husbands to help them through. Conversely, the partner of a man with prostrate cancer, in the midst of stepping up and caring for him, might also be dealing with fears and worries about losing an integral part of their relationship as a result.

What is the impact on these supportive partners? Who is considering and helping them? If you are or have been in that position, what do you need?  Please comment and share!

Hostage to Fortune

"I think to love, for such a long time, is a detriment." The woman, a widow after 40 years of marriage, wiped her eyes as she said this. She added that she planned to always wear her wedding rings.  I smiled sympathetically and nodded to encourage her to continue, noticing that she wore a man's wedding ring on a chain around her neck, obviously her late husband's.

Although I was there for a counseling session, she had set the table elegantly. Dark pink napkins were tucked under white soup bowls, the only splash of color in the white room. I could feel the heat of the stove as I followed her into the kitchen. Even though I had dinner plans, I recognized her need to serve, to sit with someone in her empty apartment, to prepare something for someone else.  It's all about her, anyway, I reminded myself as I sat down to sip a small amount of soup.  Sharing some food with her, appreciating her effort, was part of the unconditional positive regard I was there to provide.  "Mmm," I said. "Delicious."

As I listened to her express her sorrow, I wondered if what she said is true. Is it a detriment to love someone for a long time or for any amount of time for that matter? Do we really offer "hostages to fortune," as Sir Francis Bacon said, when we love?  Isn't it worth the risk, even though we will lose eventually? I wonder if comments like these reflect more of a desire to control or avoid emotion than a true regret.  Yeats said we should never give ALL our heart, "for he gave all his heart and lost."  Is it a waste of time just because we hurt when our love dies? Honestly, is it possible NOT to love, just to avoid the inevitable pain of losing?

Consider the alternative, if this were possible.  Human beings seem hardwired to develop connections, to be in and thrive in relationship.  It's almost like it is coded in our DNA, to relate, to mate, to love, to hope, hopefully to grow. It is not easy but the challenge of it can be thrilling. Consciously, I'll offer myself up as a hostage to this challenge, because this is where the flow and the juice and the pulsing blood of life is.  It may be a full catastrophe but I don't believe for a minute that it is a detriment.

The weight of love

Has buoyed me up

Till my head

Knocks against the sky.

~William Carlos Williams

Birds in the morning

A Hurricane Dance Party

The news is playing endless loops of bright red and green spirals, the animated edges of Hurricane Irene which is heading our way. The dark clouds are Irene's tentacles reaching out to cover us, about to open up. We sit in suspension, before the deluge. People have been in excited panic for days; stores sold out of D batteries and large containers of water in a matter of minutes after opening, and someone told me gleefully that one store sold $24,000 worth of generators in an hour on Friday morning.

Even as I attempted to liken the hyped up terror to those 6 pages of possible side effects (including death) that come along with prescription drugs, I too have been very agitated. Perhaps it is the energy of nervous people around or maybe it is the anxiety of my daughter, trying to finish her last week as a nanny while packing for a four month trip to Italy. She has insisted on taking only one suitcase which required several elimination sessions, color coordination choices and teetering around in various shoes, with a quizzical expression. "Should I take the neutral heels or the hot pink ones?" she wondered. I reminded her that Florence is cobbled and heels might not be the best choice at all. She snapped at me because apparently I know nothing about dressing for night life, which of course is true.

The packing dilemmas are all moot now. New York City has completely shut down; for the first time ever, all modes of transportation have been halted. The airports are closed. Even Broadway is closed. Over 370,000 people have been evacuated. After hours on hold, we finally got through to the travel agency and the earliest she can leave is on Friday.

One thing is clear: Irene is bigger than all of us, bigger even than Europe and we have no control over what she will do. She may weaken and everyone will feel a bit foolish. Or the predictions could hold; lower Manhattan with its honeycombed tunnels and subway tubes could be underwater. We could lose power here in the country, but we are prepared for that.

So why am I so agitated? It always comes back to uncertainty. Not knowing touches an edge of extreme fear in my psyche and in my body; before I am aware of it, I am tense and churlish. I overreact to the slightest tone. You would think I would get this at some point – the lesson of sudden death should have taught me that I have no control anyway. All my talk about staying in the moment ought to have honed some skill. Yet I feel like an unhinged possible projectile, waiting to be caught up by a hurricane wind and thrown against a tree.

Oh well. I can't control Irene, I can't control the airlines or the newscasters. I can calm down though; I could bake something nice. We could put on some loud music and have a Hurricane Party until the lights go out, then continue by candlelight. Sounds like a plan….one which I can control.

Forget about the Rapture - try Karuna instead

A small group of people, fueled by a pastor whose church has been raking in millions on his claims, have declared May 21, 2011 the End of the World. Some people have sold all their belongings and piled into cars, vans and RVs, driving around the country to convince the rest of us to Believe Before It Is Too Late. They are standing on street corners, stopping people as they go about their own business. The signs are everywhere, and I am not talking about floods, fires and famine. There are signs throughout the New York City Subway system, people are carrying placards in Times Square. The New York Times reports that a nice family from New Jersey has dragged their three reluctant, skeptical teenagers to the City to spread the word. The kids wonder if they will still have to make their beds.

Doomsday rumblings are nothing new. The Right (or possibly Wrong) Reverend who predicts the End this time draws his calculations supposedly from Biblical sources and says that while the true believers will be lifted up sometime on Saturday, the rest of us will roast until October 21. It will be oblivion by then. He said the same thing in 1994. End Day predictions have been made with certainty and the accompanying pamphlets, placards and proselytizers in 1844, 1914, 1918, 1924 by the same group, 1942, 1981 and again in 1988,'89.'92,'94,'95…..Apparently, Sir Isaac Newton even calculated the date: 2060.

Some claim the ancient Mayans have also predicted the End (or could it be the New Beginning?) on December 21, 2012. Personally, I think the Mayans got tired of carving, thinking that 500 years into the future was enough to predict. There is a large movement of intelligent people who believe that Mayans were predicting a major shift in consciousness. If we are all about to experience a worldwide consciousness shift for the better, if we could truly develop peaceful, respectful dialog across the dinner table, across political aisles and across borders, then I say, bring it on. I am not exactly seeing signs of an increase in civil discourse right now; political wannabes still spout vitriol and lies, governments still send in the guns, crazed fanatics are routinely blowing themselves into tiny bits, along with as many people as possible for some kind of "cause." This morning it happened inside a hospital.

Rapture literally means "to catch up" or "to snatch." To be rapt means to be engrossed or absorbed. To be enraptured means to be transported with emotion or filled with joy. Which brings me to my question:

Where is the joy? How do we trust that we will wake up tomorrow and it will be a good day? What can we do to change our attitude to approach any day as if it is a good one? How do we stop our rapt attachment to negative thoughts, worries and fear? I don't for a minute believe that selling all my earthly belongings and standing on a hill with my arms up waiting to be wafted into heaven is the answer.

Karuna is the answer. Compassion, first applied to my unruly mind which can't seem to stop its habit of drawing false conclusions and believing the worst is about to happen. Karuna, pouring like honey on all my self-created obstacles. Compassion radiating out towards the people I love, once karuna has soothed my inner beast. Karuna will bring my arms down if they reach away from what is real, to gently wrap them around the people I love, soothing them as well. Joy can be generated by spreading karuna out to the whole world.

As I write this, there have been no earthquakes, no beam-ups. The Doomsayers are still standing in the subway stations holding their pamphlets. I've got cinnamon rolls in the oven and nothing says karuna more than something freshly baked. Take a deep breath. As you exhale slowly, breathe compassion out towards all.

Cold Calls

"Hello," I said into the phone. I am calling from Hospice, to offer condolences on the death of your mother. "Oh, thank you, I suppose," said the man." But I expected my mother to die, after all. She was 93. But, perhaps you don't know this. My wife died two weeks before."

I asked him how he was doing and if he had thought to talk to anyone. After all, the purpose of my call was to make him aware of the bereavement program, which includes lectures, support groups and even one on one counseling. "Well," he said, "if someone could give me a clue as to how to rebuild my life, I'd really appreciate it."

How, in the face of what seems like insurmountable pain do we find a way to go on, let alone build a new life? Yet, most of us who are widowed do manage to find a way to live fully after loss. We get up in the morning, we eat, breathe, we pay our bills, we continue to raise the children, go to work, in fact, we live. In the beginning, we are often surprised at our ability to get through the day. We are shocked that the sun comes up every day. I was amazed for months that the birds sang in the morning, building nests, mating, feeding their little ones. Numbly, we float through, or we bravely plough through with tenacity. We really don't have a choice; after all, we are still alive. It would be prudent to live well. In fact, this is the highest honor we can offer our lost loves, to continue to live vibrantly, passionately.

This man, who has suffered two losses back to back, cannot see how he will accomplish this, yet I am confident that eventually, he will. It takes time and he is only in the first months. My motto in the early years was to "proceed as if." Even though I kept asking myself, "Whose life am I in," I went through the motions until the motions began to feel natural and part of me. I identified things I loved, activities that gave me joy and forced myself to participate in them.

The man said that he just wants everything to get back to normal. I told him gently that he would have to find a new normal and that I was confident he would, in time. I certainly hope he does.