People all say that what were seeking is a meaning for life. I dont think thats what were really seeking. I think that what were seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
-- Joseph Campbell.
Fucking-A right.
Life, death, rebirth; Samsara. I spoke with my mom today and she and the doctors have agreed to take my grandmother off all medication that does not directly relate to her own comfort. They have gone into 100% comfort-care, and according to the experts it should be a matter of weeks if not days. This is good news, and I am sending the frailtough old thing quiet assurances and promises of better Forevers to come.
I assured my mother today that she was doing the right thing. I also told her that if circumstances permit, and the end is slow, I will fly home to be there for them both as my grandmother passes. This goes against best advice; a friend of mine worked in hospice for years and cautioned me that often the presence of loved ones delays the end. People, like old wolves, often prefer to die alone. We shall see how it plays out.
This song is death through rebirththe in-between when you realize how perfect it all was and remember why you keep doing it over and over again. It begins after death, and ends before birth.
Alright, I had a different journal up earlier. I was going to try and keep this kind of light, but you know what? There is the Awful Truth at the end of my grandmothers rainbow: she is still the woman she's always been. There is no soft sigh, no final release of care. No surrender and no pride in a long life. There is a physical inablility to remain conscious punctuated (mostly) by brief moments of fear.
She is still so trapped by her own mind that he last moments and hours spent in her body are spent in terror of the next thing, guilt and fear guilt and fear guilt and fear. She's going out just like she lived, which I suppose is a form of integrity and testament to her hard-headedness. I suppose that if I believed some of the things she does, and lived the life she had, I'd be frightened, too.
I got all of my eyes and most of my fucked up from her.
I love her, deeply and truly and with ferocity, the way she taught me to.
------
Seven years ago, when she was an old lady just entering her ninties, my 25-year old brother moved back home to be her driver, shopping buddy and the guy that made sure she got to church every Sunday. He is a chef, and trust me, Wichita, Kansas is not the place to advance your culinary ambition. He put his career and his life on hold to give this woman who had never given without strings the best life she could live.
Mind you, among the elderly, grandchildren are like Rolexes and imported cars combined. The ultimate status symbol.
My brother used to take my Grandmother and her gaggle of cronies out to Sunday brunch after church. Where were their men? Their men were dead. My brother would always pay, and true to their era, they let him. They loved him, and you can imagine the scene, perhaps. The women started dying, in groups like old friends will do, and eventually my grandmother got too weak to do it anymore.
I remember him tickling her neck with his beard, and this tiny little thing who used to frighten me giggling like a child. In all my life I'd never had expected to see this woman giggle. It was pretty fucking impressive, and I realized; he hadn't just paid his debts, he'd conquered her. He'd done what I did on the mountaintop, save that he did it in the lion's den.
-- Joseph Campbell.
Fucking-A right.
Life, death, rebirth; Samsara. I spoke with my mom today and she and the doctors have agreed to take my grandmother off all medication that does not directly relate to her own comfort. They have gone into 100% comfort-care, and according to the experts it should be a matter of weeks if not days. This is good news, and I am sending the frailtough old thing quiet assurances and promises of better Forevers to come.
I assured my mother today that she was doing the right thing. I also told her that if circumstances permit, and the end is slow, I will fly home to be there for them both as my grandmother passes. This goes against best advice; a friend of mine worked in hospice for years and cautioned me that often the presence of loved ones delays the end. People, like old wolves, often prefer to die alone. We shall see how it plays out.
This song is death through rebirththe in-between when you realize how perfect it all was and remember why you keep doing it over and over again. It begins after death, and ends before birth.
Alright, I had a different journal up earlier. I was going to try and keep this kind of light, but you know what? There is the Awful Truth at the end of my grandmothers rainbow: she is still the woman she's always been. There is no soft sigh, no final release of care. No surrender and no pride in a long life. There is a physical inablility to remain conscious punctuated (mostly) by brief moments of fear.
She is still so trapped by her own mind that he last moments and hours spent in her body are spent in terror of the next thing, guilt and fear guilt and fear guilt and fear. She's going out just like she lived, which I suppose is a form of integrity and testament to her hard-headedness. I suppose that if I believed some of the things she does, and lived the life she had, I'd be frightened, too.
I got all of my eyes and most of my fucked up from her.
I love her, deeply and truly and with ferocity, the way she taught me to.
------
Seven years ago, when she was an old lady just entering her ninties, my 25-year old brother moved back home to be her driver, shopping buddy and the guy that made sure she got to church every Sunday. He is a chef, and trust me, Wichita, Kansas is not the place to advance your culinary ambition. He put his career and his life on hold to give this woman who had never given without strings the best life she could live.
Mind you, among the elderly, grandchildren are like Rolexes and imported cars combined. The ultimate status symbol.
My brother used to take my Grandmother and her gaggle of cronies out to Sunday brunch after church. Where were their men? Their men were dead. My brother would always pay, and true to their era, they let him. They loved him, and you can imagine the scene, perhaps. The women started dying, in groups like old friends will do, and eventually my grandmother got too weak to do it anymore.
I remember him tickling her neck with his beard, and this tiny little thing who used to frighten me giggling like a child. In all my life I'd never had expected to see this woman giggle. It was pretty fucking impressive, and I realized; he hadn't just paid his debts, he'd conquered her. He'd done what I did on the mountaintop, save that he did it in the lion's den.
VIEW 21 of 21 COMMENTS
Can you tell I've been listening to much Wagner recently?