October into November 2006

As I opened my eyes this morning, the flock of mourning dove that usually breakfast on my patio were lined up on the phone wires outside my tent in a delightful choreography of morning ablutions. The skies beyond them were intensely blue and filled with the lush fat clouds of early fall. These a precious sight after weeks of skies reddened and smoky from the huge 200,000 plus acre wildfire that came within eight miles of Ojai. Large banners hang throughout our town offering thanks to the firefighters and rescue teams that finally contained the blaze that had climbed and jumped the mountainous outback behind our enclave. Such amazing people they are, such grueling scary work they do.

Here and there we've had a few cool early fall days as the sycamore and apple trees at the edges of the meadow are turning brilliant gold. Everything in the yard and in the house is dusted with the yellow oak pollen that falls everywhere this time of year.

It's been seven weeks since last I wrote, weeks that brought challenge and stretching and being away from my usual life for over two weeks. Having a quiet few unplugged days now with nothing looming gives me space to let down and discover just how exhausting it's all really been. As the week began, depleted and too tired to move, I found myself repeatedly dissolving in tears, feeling sorry for my wasted self. I napped on and off most of the days then found just enough energy for my healthy bone yoga-exercise-tai chi routine and a nighttime walk before I'd crawl into the tent to sleep.

As the days pass I find myself slowly reviving, luxuriating in the empty silence. Lying abed in the tent for long mornings of drifting and Reiki, being nourished in my cells by sleeping outdoors on the ground again. (Such a relief after more than two weeks in my dad's all but hermetically sealed air-conditioned home in hot, humid southern Florida.) As I feel some energy returning, I play in my garden repotting, deadheading, pruning and fertilizing one last time this growing season. I set out some new starts of bok choy, chard and mustard greens for winter picking, nibbling on candy sweet cherry tomatoes fresh from the vine as I mess about in the dirt.

The latest emotional roller coaster started just as I put up last month's column. My friend Cynthia had an intense, volatile reaction to what I wrote there about my experience of her telling me about her new romantic exploration and as well, my version of the history of our sharing leading up to that moment. This even though she'd seemed perfectly okay with parts I'd already written and read to her before she'd left town earlier that week. And, despite my having done everything I could think of to disguise her identity to any but the people who already knew our history from tales one or the other of us had previously shared with them. She sent several emails that spewed her fury from the screen into my cells. She felt that I'd seriously-and without her permission-violated her privacy, jeopardizing the boundaries she and her new person had about telling more than their closest people about what was unfolding between them before they themselves were clear about it. She was even further enraged by the fact that I seemed so shocked and surprised by her reaction. She was outraged knowing that I would in all likelihood remain committed to revealing my story on-line despite the injury she felt it created for her, exposing her life in ways she did not want to be exposed.

I willingly and with alacrity and apology made some additional changes in the text she suggested to further obscure her identity where she felt it might yet be endangered. I shared my profound regret that she felt so violated and exposed by my telling my tale (the facts of which we had both agreed upon for years) even with such disguising. While I did understand that this wasn't about facts, I tried to speak to her concern that large numbers of local people would be reading the web site and figuring out her identity. I assured her that my local readership was nowhere near the size she imagined nor was it likely that they would get caught up in that sort of gossipy response.

Despite my feeling very disturbed that telling my tale was precipitating so much rage and upheaval in her, she was right in believing that I would continue to need to tell my story. Writing it for my monthly on-line journal column had been a rite of passage into making peace with this new place to which we'd/I'd come. And, my commitment in that column has been to speak deeply of whatever has been the most compelling unfolding during the preceding month of my journey.

She had trouble seeing how we might ever be able to process our way through this-as she saw it-enormous betrayal of trust. That I'd be likely to write (and publish on-line) the tale of that very process when and if it took place made her want to scream with the continuing violation of her privacy.

I could see and acknowledge the catch-22 of it all for her. I could try to hear and feel the violation she was feeling even though I had no parallel personal experience from which to draw understanding. For me, being transparent and public about everything I'm going through inevitably provides the safety I need. Outing myself in my most convoluted, edgy and tangled places frees me from fears of being unexpectedly exposed or ridiculed by others in those vulnerable places. This has been a difference between us that's often been problematic through the years of our connection.

After the flurry of heated emails, we finally reached some détente, she felt heard even though I wasn't willing to pull the column off the web site. A time-out of indeterminate length seemed to be in order. We left it that she would be in touch when, if and as she could see a way to begin to try to process the whole extremely painful experience. The likelihood of that coming anytime before the beginning of the New Year seemed slim to none. But for a one-line email exchange reporting the cancellation of reservations she'd held for a (now inconceivable) celebratory getaway for my coming birthday and a brief interchange affirming that reconnecting would be up to her, we've had no contact of any sort.

All of this unfolded as I was trying to gather up rest and peace in preparation for my then upcoming 16-day sojourn in Florida with my sister and my dad. It was a great relief to be done with at least this go round, to have it all put on hold indefinitely. The deep work I'd done last month with my little ones-who'd been so upset, bereft and grieving over the huge changes Cynthia's new relationship created for our sharing-has held solidly. In an odd way, it actually feels a great relief to have this time-out, to not in fact be privy to the day-to-day details of their unfolding romance. I suspect that, in truth, Spirit arranged this whole rupture to allow her the space she needs to be where she is without my jaundiced eye witnessing her journey. And, to allow me to not have to do the work involved in monitoring my cynical-about-romance attitudes so that I could hear her experiences in her own terms.

Some days I have moments where I wonder how and if we'll ever find our way to yet another incarnation of our 22-year connection. It occurs to me that this time we may not. As far as I can tell, that possibility feels okay to me at this moment- there's a level of drama in it all that can be more than too much for me. The grieving I did last month was a huge letting go, my surrendering into the absence of what used to be.

Letting go has been a repeating theme through all of the past many weeks. It took a lot to prepare for letting go of my regular life. Letting go that I needed to do in order to make the journey to Florida to hang out with my dad and sister while my step mom was gone for two weeks. Having a huge and-at the time I was leaving-only 30 per cent contained wildfire roaring through the nearby backcountry made the separation from my home, my life and my kitty even more challenging than it already felt. Yet, I somehow managed to achieve what my old friend Justine calls “escape velocity.”

Reaching the velocity necessary to escape the gravitational pull of my usual life involved elaborate arrangements with Auntie Evelyn (Ms. Pretty's twice-daily visiting cat-sitter) and three friends who variously spent the weekends or paid intermittent daytime visits to make sure that Ms Pretty-who's used to almost 24/7 company and available cuddles-didn't feel abandoned. It meant putting together a cat-evacuation pack and arranging with yet another friend for a safe house if cat evacuation were to become necessary. It also involved moving what-at the time-seemed to be critical files and documents into my car that was going to stay safely out of the fire's range near a friend's house in Ventura. And, of course, it involved trying to anticipate what clothes and comforts I might need over the long stretch of time away from my base camp.

Once out the door into the dark of my early morning departure, I was gone from my life and into the limbo/between place of my 10-hour journey. When I arrived at my dad's I was launched into a whole new reality. It was a reality quite different from my frequent three-day dips into his and my step mom's world. This time she took off for her journey to Spain a day and a half after I arrived, leaving my sister and me completely in charge of the quite involved and complicated business of overseeing my dad's safety and well-being.

Our time with my dad was all absorbing. No other life existed for me while I was there. (Even though I did have two separate ad-lib phone sessions with clients and a pair of emergency calls to two close friends one night in the midst of a total meltdown.) It was a sweet, loving, sad, sometimes hilarious and sometimes frustrating time of getting to see just how much our 90-year-old dad is slipping at this moment in his life. A time of appreciating just how much our step mom has to cope with on a daily basis as she tries to do all of what used to be shared work along with the full-time watching over his now often unreliable self.

Dad has type-2 diabetes and a form of Parkinson's that-while not involving tremors-does seriously compromise his balance and stability. He has glaucoma, heart problems, fluid retention and cholesterol issues and of late, marked beginnings of dementia. These conditions require him to take enormous numbers of pills, eye drops and two kinds of insulin injections as well as to monitor his blood sugar level at four intervals during each 24 hours. All the work of these before meals and before bedtime regimens has become rather overwhelming to him. He gets confused and disoriented in the middle of each process and needs reminding of whether he's already checked his blood or drawn up his shot or taken his shot. And then there's always the issue of whether or not he's hungry and willing to eat when he takes his shot. We were able to uncomplicate the issue of eating and shots by having him take his shots after rather than before meals: so much easier than my step mom's routine of having to pressure him to eat once he's had the shot.

We easily slipped into a rhythm together. I took over the morning routine while my sister (not a morning person) slept in. We alternated the lunch schedule with the incredible sweet, caring aide who came two or three late mornings each week to oversee and help with his showering, shaving and changing clothes. We shared responsibilities for the dinner routine and left the bedtime routine to my sister so that I could have the evenings off for quiet/alone-time and long walks around the neighborhood.

My sister and dad hung out watching TV-something they both enjoy-and sitting out on the (hot, humid) patio smoking cigarettes, something else they both also enjoy (though my dad gets to do this only when my sister is around). I'd hang out around the edges doing my healthy bone exercises and endless cleaning and puttering around the kitchen that opened to where they sat in the family room. We had a few rounds of making sure we were both okay with the division of labor: clarifying that I-for whom puttering activity is most relaxing-was completely happy to be re-lining and cleaning the cupboards (something I'd promised my step mom that I'd do) while my sister was keeping dad company and entertaining him (a lot of work!) as they were sitting around the TV or hanging out with the geckos and their cigarettes on the patio (her way of relaxing).

Lydia and I did unbelievably well together clearing up hazy moments as they appeared and figuring out how to recognize and cope with each other's sieges of being over-the-top or in meltdown. We were both pretty impressed with each other and with ourselves. Especially since we've never spent this kind of time together as adults and our ways of being in the world/dealing with things-that-need doing are so very different, in fact almost polar opposites.

My way of handling what feels like so many things-to-do is to spiral around getting onto them as soon as I can. That feels comforting since it leaves me then free to deal with any curves and unexpected challenges that come up. My sister has a whole different rhythm, moves more slowly, has an abiding sense that there's plenty of time to get to everything and so feels completely comfortable leaving things for some indeterminate later. We had to keep reassuring each other about not needing the other to be on our timetable and it really being okay to each move at our own pace without judging each other's ways.

As the only driver, I did most of the household, food and for-dad shopping while Lydia stayed with dad. It was my way of having alone time and time away from the TV noise (which my sister made sure didn't start till noon), the smoking and feeling cooped up. I was so incredibly grateful that she was there to tend my dad more directly than I felt able to do for very long at a stretch. For me parallel play, the just hanging out in quiet space with someone else is really enormously challenging. When I'm with someone, I like to be communicating, actively relating or working together. Quiet space is for me very much an alone kind of thing, not something I can easily relax into with another person. And, my dad is for the most part very non-verbal, not particularly interested in anything about which we could have a conversation. He does, though, always respond to our stories about our lives in very caring and connected ways. But, once I've run out of the few stories I have, it gets really hard for me. Not so for my sister-fortunately! But even for her it does involve work. In what for the most part was good-humored fun, she'd use me as her straight person, repeatedly cracking my dad up with her running, teasing commentary on my quirky behaviors.

In the middle of our first week there, my dad's sister (our favorite aunt and my step mom's main support) had a severe bout of vomiting and dehydration that required a trip to the hospital. She called for me to come to her house that morning so that I'd be there when we called the EMT”s. I followed her ambulance to the hospital and stayed with her in a private room in the emergency room for the next 12 hours while they suctioned massive amounts of blood from her stomach, re-hydrated her and subjected her to every conceivable test before freeing a bed for her in the medical ICU. It took a few days for them to diagnose what turns out to be a badly located and aggressive stomach cancer. (The very thing she's lived in fear of for most of her adult life.) For the next week we spent part of every day visiting her: first in the ICU as they stabilized her and then in a private room. Her two sons came to Florida and all of us and another niece of hers were involved in information gathering, specialist-seeking and supporting her as she considered the possibilities and risks of being a large 85 year old woman facing complete removal of her stomach and the variety of complex challenges this will involve.

It was (and still is) a scary and complicated time for all of us but also one filled with so much love and caring. Our dad-who's mind had a hard time holding onto whether or not he'd already spoken that day to our traveling step mom, an equally hard time remembering that he needed not to smoke in the house and that none of his four old watches were any longer able to keep time-seemed to have no trouble at all holding on to the details of my aunt's predicament and tracking with us as that story unfolded.

He was very sad, distressed and worried about her, was sorely missing our step mom and worried about her as well (we found out later that she in, a fit of peak, had threatened him that she wasn't going to come back to him after her trip) and was generally disoriented by all these frightening and significant changes in his familiar routine. Even as he frequently spoke of his delight in having his ”girls” with him for such sweet and close time, it was clear how extraordinarily stressful, sad and overwhelming all of this was for him. It was equally clear that there was nothing we could do to ease any of it.

For all his familiar and sometimes frustrating quietness, he is and has always been a kind, caring, gentle and sensitive father, son, brother, uncle, grandfather and nephew. Still, it was easy for us to see how challenging he is as a husband to a woman who is and always has been starved for conversation and contact of a verbal sort. Though it's hard for us to handle her raging at him and threatening to abandon him, as the days went on we could feel just how crazy making his dementia (on top of his muteness) could be to someone who needed or wanted any more than incidental meaningful interchange with him.

It continues to be hard for us to imagine how stressful and confusing it must be for him to have her yelling at his already confused self all the time. Even the aide told us how much calmer he seemed with us rather than Pearl watching over him. Yet, at the moment, no other arrangements are acceptable to Pearl. She isn't ready either to have more than a minimal amount of hours from an aide or to consider living in an assisted living setting with aides for his care. Here again there is so much letting go to do: none of us (their children) are in charge. It's all up to her and when she's ready to take the next steps. We can only wait and support her decisions as she makes them.

It's hard to see how far from his familiar self my dad is drifting. The blessing of it is that he's not yet aware of how much he's losing mentally. He already copes with plenty of despair, grief and frustration around his physical incapacities. Despite all the challenges, he's quite clear and verbal about his interest in staying alive as long as possible.

It's upsetting to see what our step mom's life has been reduced to. Most of their old friends have died or are sick or incapacitated. She yearns for friends and more than just her 2 days a week of league bowling (she's a hotshot bowler) and one evening of card playing. But, all proposals for ways she might get connected with new community meet with concerted resistance. We think it may well be that she, once a very social being, has grown fearful or uncomfortable about reaching out on her own. Whatever the reasons, she details her frustration to all of us but is not ready at this point to do anything differently.

She came home (accompanied by her daughter) from her gala but enormously taxing trip exhausted and not well physically or emotionally. Hearing about my aunt's situation upset her not only for my aunt but also for herself. Without having my aunt well enough for emergency support and holiday meal/celebration sharing, Pearl feels pushed further to the wall. This may well be the impetus for her willingness to make a significant change in their living situation.

It's such a huge, complicated tangle, so completely out of our control, so very sad and upsetting to stand and watch. All there is for it is to love and pray and offer what support they allow when they allow it, lots of letting go in this.

I came home, had a day to turn-around and then worked several days before I, at last, made it to this time out, to becoming fully available to feel my exhaustion and my deep sadness. After so many relatively good years for the elders in my family, the past two have been fraught (for all of them) with the struggles that come with such longevity. As my dad's 96-year-old dad used to say before he died, “you live this long, you wear out the parts.” And, as my 95-year-old great aunt (who died this summer) frequently bemoaned, “the saddest thing is that you outlive your closest friends.”

It makes me think again about what I might choose when faced with the rigors of advanced age. I know that I certainly wouldn't want to outlive my mind. The question is how much physical debilitation I would be willing to handle. I don't see myself choosing as my aunt is, to undergo such a risky surgery with such horrendous aftermaths in order to live a bit longer. But, who knows what we might really think in the actual moment of choice. Like the book title my father likes to quote calls it, “Getting Old Is Not For Sissies!”

Reading through these tales of the past almost two months, just before posting them on the web site leaves me feeling agitated, edgy and even a little anxious. I can't find a place for myself. I'm too tired to take a walk and too agitated to nap. I wander about talking to myself trying to hear what's up inside of me. I come back to the computer to see if writing about it will help. Then, it's suddenly clear.

The long-silent voice of my inner critic (the hatchet lady) is here stirring me up, rearing her nasty head. “What's the point of all this blathering on and on,” she says. “What makes you think anyone else even cares about all this self-indulgent, self-serving rubbish! All this blah, blah, blah!” And, “What makes you think it's okay for you to write about your experiences with other people without their knowledge or permission; just who do you think you are?”

It's been so long since she's attacked so viciously, I'm thrown off center for a bit. My little person feels terrified, as though she's bad and wrong, not okay. Then the mommy voice rises and calms both the little one and the hatchet lady. “It's for us that we write these stories, because we need to put them down. If other people don't care about them, they needn't read them…it's not about other people being interested, it's about us being interested in ourselves and that's okay and important for us.” And, she reminds us “it's only our story that we're telling about the other people and it's okay for us to do that even if they don't like it. It is important to disguise them if they worry about being in our story.”

Cynthia's railing at me has stirred up that mean critical voice that comes up to stop me when some part of me feels afraid that I might be doing something bad and wrong, something that will get me into trouble with other people. As I hang out with the frightened part I hear that she's uneasy about what people will think about us for choosing the way we've chosen despite Cynthia's upset. The mommy voice tells us that “it's certainly true that some folks will think it wasn't right to choose how we did.” And, “it's still okay to choose to do what we need to do even when other people don't like us for it or feel we're wrong.” She reminds us that “it's always a scary place to land-when we need to do something other people will be judgmental, critical or angry about.” She reminds us that she'll “be here loving us in the middle of it no matter what anyone else thinks or says about us.”

I feel calmed by her love even as it still all feels a little edgy.

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