“Flowers for Avi…”

This morning I snapped awake at 5:01 a.m. I knew that Arlene was dying. The phone didn’t ring until 9:04. Maria simply said, “She’s gone.”

Last Wednesday, I spent the afternoon with Avi. She was nauseous and had spent the night throwing up. Still, she was eyeing a slice of cold pizza–wanting and not wanting to eat it. We sat together in her living room with her husband and the Hospice Social Worker. She was, as always, checking to be sure that everyone was comfortable–was the temperature okay, did we want pizza, should we turn the fan off?  She got up several times, was somewhat confused and clearly in pain.

On Saturday morning, I spent time with her and her husband and sister in the Emergency Room. She still smiled when she saw me and when I took her hand, she kissed my hand. She was tired and barely coherent.

Later, after visiting my Dad, I went back to the hospital. By this time, she had been admitted and had a private room. She was resting peacefully and gave me a faint smile of recognition and squeezed my hand. I sat with her in silence and then told her that it was okay to let go. That she could breathe and relax and allow herself to be completely loved by the heart of the universe. I knew when I left that it was the last time that I would see her.

This morning I sat alone with her body and spirit. I sang to her and felt her energy close at hand. We had talked about this moment many times. I promised that I would come and sit with her after her death wherever she was. I thought about all the goodbyes that we must say in this lifetime and about all that Avi taught me about living and about dying. Before her diagnosis, she knew that she had cancer. After her first round of treatment, her remission and her recurrence, we spent every Wednesday morning together from 10 to noon. I learned about her joys, her sorrows, her fears, her regrets, her family, her Hospice work, her faith and her doubt.

I once read about a tribe in Africa where when someone dies, the community gathers in remembrance and decides who will take on that person’s sense of humor, and their way of telling a story, and perhaps their way of cooking or dancing or singing. Their commitment is to keep the person alive in spirit. I, for one, aspire to take on Avi’s tender and generous heart and her sensitivity to the suffering of others.

Avi, you will always be remembered. I picked these flowers from my garden for you.

“No coming, no going,
No after, no before.
I hold you close to me,
I release you to be so free,
Because I am in you,
And you are in me…
Because I am in you,
And you are in me…”

- PLUM VILLAGE CHANTING BOOK -

“Happy Fourth of July…”

The Fourth of July always brings back wonderful memories…parades, community fairs, picnics and FIREWORKS…

I LOVE fireworks! This is the first year that I’ve attempted to photograph the display in our little community.

What a blast! Literally and figuratively. At dusk my husband and I walked to the middle school track with our folding chairs, my tripod and camera in hand.

The full moon was bright and I wondered how the ambient light would affect my photos. I really had no idea what I was doing.

Just a grand experiment in aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Plus, who knew what was coming next and where it might show up in the frame?

I won’t subject you to the entire show…just a taste of the variety…

Such a palate of vibrant color…

And now, for the GRAND FINALE…

This is where you sing the “Stars and Stripes Forever”….

“Approaching Father’s Day…”

This is my Dad at Christmas last year.  It’s not unusual for him to dress for the occasion…a ribbon and a hat? The perfect package.

Today I bring him lunch from the Goshen Bakery. I wheel him outside and we sit together watching thunderheads pile up to the east. The air is moist. A doe and her twins fawns nibble wild clover on the other side of the parking lot. We eat fresh spring pea soup, salad, mushroom and asparagus fritatta. And, of course, dessert–apple tart and some kind of outrageous chocolate mousse cake.

Dad is pensive. He says, “My mind is just all over the place. It’s a jumbled-up mess.” I empathize. He knows that his memory is fading. He wants to know what’s next. “What should I do now?” he asks. “I’ve always planned my life. All I ever wanted was a happy marriage and happy children. And I think I had that. I loved your mother more than anyone. I think I loved her well, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Dad,” I say, “you did love her well; you loved all of us well.”  He seems relieved by this.  “Then she didn’t leave me for someone else?”  “No, Dad, she died a long time ago.”

He asks about his car and I tell him that it’s sitting in my driveway; that he hasn’t driven for seven years. He’s shocked. He wants to know what kind of a car it is and how many miles are on it. I tell him it’s a Honda with over 190,000 miles on it. He seems pleased and perplexed. He wants to know if it is a sedan or a wagon, what color and who drives it and says , “I don’t remember it at all.”

He says, “I just try to think about about things and I can’t anymore. I don’t know what to do or where to go from here.” I smile and hold his hand.

“Who discovered zero…”

LAKE SHORE IN HALF LIGHT

There is a question I want to ask
and I can’t remember it
I keep trying to
I know it is the same question
it has always been
in fact I seem to know
almost everything about it
all that reminds me of it
leading to the lake shore
at daybreak or twilight
and to whatever is standing
next to the question
as a body stands next to its shadow
but the question is not a shadow
if I knew who discovered
zero I might ask
what there was before

- W.S MERWIN -

“That excursion…”

Don’t go outside your house to see the flowers.
My friend, don’t bother with that excursion.
Inside your body there are flowers.
One flower has a thousand petals.
That will do for a place to sit.
Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty
inside the body and out of it,
before gardens and after gardens

- KABIR -

“About the heart…”

TO THIS MAY

They know so much more now about
the heart we are told but the world
still seems to come one at a time
one day one year one season and here
it is spring once more with its birds
nesting in the holes in the walls
its morning finding the first time
its light pretending not to move
always beginning as it goes

- W. S. MERWIN -

“Not doing…”

Woke up to fog. Beautiful, soft, mysterious…A way of being…

NOTICE WHAT THIS POEM IS NOT DOING

The light along the hills in the morning
comes down slowly, naming the trees
white, then coasting the ground for stones to nominate.

Notice what this poem is not doing.

A house, a house, a barn, the old
quarry, where the river shrugs–
how much of this place is yours?

Notice what this poem is not doing.

Every person gone has taken a stone
to hold, and catch the sun. The carving
says, “Not here, but called away.”

Notice what this poem is not doing.

The sun, the earth, the sky, all wait.
The crowns and redbirds talk. The light
along the hills has come, has found you.

Notice what this poem has not done.

- WILLIAM STAFFORD -

“An exotic moment…”

KEEPING QUIET

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

- PABLO NERUDA -

“Like seeds dreaming…”

“…You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot
unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death,
open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires
lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow, your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity…

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides,
that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance…”

- KAHLIL GIBRAN -

IN MEMORY OF MY SISTER-IN-LAW

DARLENE

Your gentle, loving spirit will always be with us.

March 19, 1943 – March 3, 2009

“Ferment and season…”

Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

- HAFIZ -