Our least compatibility!

     There were tons of shared values and in so many ways we were delightfully compatible, Joanne and I.  There was one area where we were miles apart and growing farther the more we aged. Time was not going to solve this issue as time only drew us further apart. The late model car I was loaned while my car was being repaired had a solution for our divergence but only Trygve and I got its benefit.
     Temperature comfort zones for the two of us? Never the twain shall meet. Seventy-five degrees is pushing the bottom of my comfort zone while that temperature topped out hers. She was often out in the cold of winter wrapped comfortably in a windbreaker that I'd find too light at seventy degrees.The loaner car from the body shop had individual temperature controls for each side, right and left. Perhaps that would have been even better than the compass and temperature gauge she desired in her next car.
    All this came to mind when I read the poem copied below.  Joanne loved autumn and winter, but summer? not so much. As we passed from summer into autumn and now approach winter it makes me sad that, once again, she is missing it.
   "How have I set the thermostat in her absence" you ask? At a 'chilly' 72 degrees lest the contrast be too great with other environs. As I write this I wear two shirts, a sweater and a corduroy shirt-jacket. No, I don't need gloves.

"Finally fall.
At last the mist,
heat's haze, we woke
these past weeks with

has lifted. We find
ourselves chill, a briskness
we hug ourselves in.
Frost greying the ground.

Grief might be easy
if there wasn't still
such beauty -- would be far
simpler if the silver

maple didn't thrust
it's leaves into flame,
trusting that spring
will find it again.

All this might be easier if
there wasn't a song
still lifting us above it,
if wind didn't trouble

my mind like water.
I half expect to see you
fill the autumn air
like breath --

At night I sleep
on clenched fists.
Days I'm like the child
who on the playground

falls, crying
not so much from pain
as surprise.
I'm tired of tide

taking you away,
then back again --
what's worse, the forgetting
or the thing

you can't forget.
Neither yet --
last summer's
choir of crickets

grown quiet."   Kevin Young

Takk for alt,

Al

Loss in all its forms!

      Two nights ago I posted a quote by Dean Koontz. A friend thanked me for the quote and reported how he planned to use it in addressing persons grieving the loss of a beloved institution. Death provokes grief but so does any loss, large or small, the depth of the grief related to the value of who or what was lost.
      Miscarriages, still births and infant deaths, and the grief they cause, can be complicated by misunderstanding and the private nature of the loss. A picture of Kao Kalia Yang, who is one of my favorite authors, caught my eye in the Minneapolis paper today, StarTribune p. E12. This is in the book section and a huge headline said Delivering untold stories of loss. Yang, who is Hmong, and Shannon Gibney, who is African American, have produced a book entitled What God is Honored Here?:Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color.  Their purpose they said "...'creating a container to help folks process trauma,' and how it can make readers feel less alone."
    Gibney is a new writer to me but I know that Yang can write powerful prose of deep emotion.
    On the same page of the Strib is a review of The Big Book of the Dead, Marion Winik, the article about it is entitled A big book of praise songs for those who have left us. The article begins "Why do we listen to songs that remind us of lost friends and lovers? Why do we love to hear stories of family members who have died? In 'The Big Book of the Dead,' Marion Winik argues that we find comfort there,..."
     That certainly is true in my experience. Hearing stories of Joanne, my late sister Lucille, my late brother Richard, my deceased  parents...is always gratifying. It runs counter to the caution people often exercise "I won't bring up the deceased because I don't want the bereaved to feel bad.." The reality is we feel bad already and the grief is exacerbated by the silence avoiding mention of the deceased.  It makes my day when someone says to me "I remember when Joanne..."
    Grief, abounds, both large and small so let us listen to one another that hope may be found.

Takk for alt,

Al

"We know more people...."

   As the deaths of family, friends and acquaintances added up Joanne and I remarked to each other "I think we know more who have died than we know who are still alive."  This would be a factor of our age because the longer one lives....... When a friend sent me the Billy Collins quote below I was reminded of the remark that passed between us.

"Last night we ended up on the couch
trying to remember
all of the friends who had died so far,

and this morning I wrote them down
in alphabetical order
on the flip side of a shopping list
you had left on the kitchen table.

So many of them had been swept away
as if by a hand from the sky,
it was good to recall them,
I was thinking
under the cold lights of a supermarket
as I guided a cart with a wobbly wheel
up and down the long strident aisles.

I was on the lookout for blueberries,
English muffins, linguini, heavy cream,
light bulbs, apples, Canadian bacon,
and whatever else was on the list,
which I managed to keep grocery side up,

until I had passed through the electric doors,
where I stopped to realize,
as I turned the list over,
that I had forgotten Terry O’Shea
as well as the bananas and the bread.

It was pouring by then,
spilling, as they say in Ireland,
people splashing across the lot to their cars.
And that is when I set out,
walking slowly and precisely,
a soaking-wet man
bearing bags of groceries,
walking as if in a procession honoring the dead.

I felt I owed this to Terry,
who was such a strong painter,
for almost forgetting him
and to all the others who had formed
a circle around him on the screen in my head.

I was walking more slowly now
in the presence of the compassion
the dead were extending to a comrade,

plus I was in no hurry to return
to the kitchen, where I would have to tell you
all about Terry and the bananas and the bread."  Billy Collins

     Markers happen! While I was in The Little House yesterday I came across a 'marker.'  Arlington is a town near The Little House and there is a restaurant called 14/81 because Highways 14 and 81 run past it. 14/81 is one of the favorite spots to gather the family for dinner. The 'marker' was a sales slip from there dated 4/18/2016. Itemized on the receipt was "grilled shrimp," something I never would order.  A quick check of the log book in The Little House revealed that Joanne and I were staying there that weekend. When we had that dinner we had no clue that in less than 2 years Joanne would be dead. It's a marker of how quickly like can change.

Takk for alt,

Al

PS. I picked my car up at the  body shop in Marshall as I drove back to Minneapolis today...and they refunded the dollar they charged for the loaner. 😃

To Be, Not Destroyed.

“Grief can destroy you --or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see that it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life.”
― Dean Koontz, Odd Hours

       Even in the crushing first hours, days, weeks after Joanne's death, at some deep level, I knew I'd survive and find meaning again. And, I have. Koontz is correct "...you can recognize that every moment of it (relationship)  had more meaning than you dared recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider  the sacredness of it."

    Living absorbs our energy and , while we value relationships, the depth and sacredness escapes us in the moment. When death intervenes we then realize the depth of experiences in their loss. Visible from my chair as I write this is a picture of us, Joanne and me, taken in the lounge of the Hurtigruten as we traveled  down the coast of Norway.  We'd agreed that it was one of our best trips and hoped to repeat it, which we cannot do. The full meaning of the moment only now fully appreciated as the sacred time it was.

Takk for alt,

Al

The gift of age!

    The 'significance of friends' is a theme which I've often touted on this blog. Today I've been reflecting on the intersection of friends and age. The last few years have brought me a number of new friends which seems a special gift, especially as I hear of elderly who are isolated. All friends are a gift never to be taken for granted.
    But, as I mentioned above, this writing will focus on the nexus of age and friendship. Currently in the environs of The Little House, today I had the pleasure of spending much of the day with a friend with whom friendship goes back to 1976.  Over the years we've had many memorable occasions  together building a shared history that is deep and rich.
    While I was reading the Minneapolis Paper online this afternoon, a childhood friend saw my car outside The Little House and stopped for a chat, as he does with some frequency. This acquaintanceship goes back so far I don't remember a time that I didn't know him. With him conversation can go to people, places and things that very few others can reach. Were I to guess, I'd think I knew him as early as 1941!
     Email is another form of connection with friends. Today I had emails from two of Joanne's friends. One is a friend from their college days which means in the mid-50s. They kept up their relationship, lunching regularly, until Joanne's illness. Another email was from one of Joanne's colleagues from her days at Lutheran Services in America. 
     Age and friendship...growing old together...Yes, there are many gifts.

Takk for alt,

Al

Living Wisely and Well, Part II.

   Sunday's Adult Forum, referenced in yesterday's blog, and ably led by Tom & Becky von Fisher, focused on helping us think about the last portion of our life, with specific attention to housing; where and how might we live in our old age. Their underlying premise is that "There is seldom a satisfactory outcome when new living arrangements become a requirement rather than a choice."

   Another quote they shared resonated with me: "To ripen into an elder, into being that is more than simply elderly and more  than only self, is a deliberate, thoughtful, sustained choice that arises from the intention to see things as they are."  Kathleen Dowling Sing, The Grace In Aging. 

   Seeing things as they are, is my goal. How well I do that is perhaps best judged by others. But, I strive for honesty...honesty of perception, which is not easy but critical to the examined life and, as we all know, '"the unexamined  life is not worth living."

   Then Garrison Keillor came with this reminder of mortality...something about which we must needs be honest.

"It turned cold and gray in Minnesota last week and snow fell, which some people talk about as being depressing, but it’s not, it’s reassuring. The talk is ritual complaint, an attempt by people living comfy lives to acquire the dignity of suffering. Genuine suffering is on its way sooner than you think. One day we’ll be hit by a winter heat wave like the one that melted half of Greenland and then our real troubles will begin. One day I’ll step off a curb and my legs will buckle and strangers will call 911 and I’ll be hauled unconscious to a crowded ER and when I awake, I won’t be able to remember the words to “Abide with me, fast falls the eventide” or “Minnesota, hats off to thee.” It’s out there, waiting to happen. Snow is nothing."

Garrison Keillor.

Takk for alt,

Al

     

Living Wisely and Well

    Most Sunday's Grace Lutheran has an Adult Forum between the first and second worship service. Last Sunday, Tom & Becky von Fischer presented on the topic Living Wisely and Well. It was an adaption of a presentation they did for a reunion of Tom's Seminary Class. Filled with wit and wisdom it included this quotation from Life Reimagined, by Barbara Bradley Hagerty.
    " Invest in friends The more friends you have the healthier, happier and more mentally acute you will be now and in later years. We are wired for friends. Research indicates that robust friendships are more important that close family re;relationships. When these relationships involve helping other people, reaching out, being actively engaged to do things for others that is an added bonus."
     Well wouldn't you know, friend Tom (see above) emailed me this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer with some very kind words about me.  Moved to comment on it I resist because it is so profound in its expression there is little I could add. I will repeat what I've often said "one of the best things about me are my friends."

"There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us,
and one should not even attempt to do so.
Once must simply hold out and endure it.
At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort.
For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled
one remains connected to the other person through it.
It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness.
God in no way fills it, but much more leaves it precisely unfilled
and thus help us preserve – even in pain – the authentic relationship.
Furthermore, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation.
But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy.
One bears what was lovely in the past, not as a thorn, but as a precious gift deep within,
a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain." 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Takk for alt,

Al