What's wrong with feeling sad?

I texted Julia asking how she was doing and noting that I felt a little blue. She came over right away to chat. I said I'd been feeling low in the afternoon and I was trying to figure out why - was it the cloudy skies these days, was there something about the relationship with my girlfriend (no, we'd just had a wonderful weekend). Ah, was it maybe the visit to Gramsy? That brought tears to my eyes - it's usually easy to identify which issue is creating a stir.

Julia said she thought visiting her Gramother in hospice might bring back uncomfortable feelings for me. I asked "Isn't that OK"? What's wrong with feeling sad thinking about someone whose life is coming to end? Once I'd determined the root cause I still felt some sadness, but I was fine with that. I think the scarier thing would to not be affected by life, or to avoid uncomfortable situations altogether.

Gramsy

My friend Julia's ninety-one year old grandmother enrolled in hospice the other day. I went to see them, walked in and gave her grandmother a kiss on the forehead. She mumbled something about germs and I said 'oh I didn't mean to give you anything', and she said no, she didn't want to give me something.

We sat and chatted for a bit and Gramsy passed along to us some of the wisdom that she'd gathered over the years - including "people don't change, if things are not working out you need move on to someone new."

Later Julia said Gramsy never let's anyone kiss her and she doesn't know how I got away with it. :)

On the way out of the hospital Julia and I chatted for a while with teary eyes about life, death and hospice.

Very, very old

These days sometimes I feel very, very old.

I feel like someone who has been through the wringer of life. Life kept expanding and moving forward, then it began to shrink down, until one day it was rushing down to a single point. A point impossibly small to get through. A point that all my insides would fight against going through. It shrinks to that moment when Dad stopped trying take Robin's pulse. I didn't want to stop trying to find it. I kept feeling something there. I wasn't sure if it was echoes of a spasming heart, or the echo of pulse in my own fingertips. Not really ever being that close to death I still knew that it was over for Robin by the way her body had transformed. Even the stillness she had attained the last few days was nothing like the lack of tone which then pervaded her body, devoid of life. The animal instinct in me knew she was gone even though the thinking brain didn't want to give up hope.

Everything didn't come to a screeching halt. From that point forward time didn't standstill no matter how much I resisted it's marching on.

The lessons I've learned I couldn't have learned any other way. These days I don't know that I changed so much, as much as my inner qualities were brought to the surface. Like the farmer's field upturned in Spring the fertile soil exposed to the surface, finally free of the crust formed during its fallow years. The soil rejuvenated, exposed to the elements, ripe for seeding. Understanding and accepting the cycle of all things.

Sometimes I feel very, very old because of the new depth of my patience with myself and with others. Sometimes I feel old because I seem to have wisdom beyond my years. Sometimes I feel old because of the love and acceptance that is deeper than ever.

I still consider myself to have a youthful body and youthful outlook. My life is full of duality these days and one of the strongest I feel is the competing sense of having the wisdom of someone who is very old, combined with the feeling of still being so young. I really enjoy, and feel quite comfortable with the contrast of these feelings.

Discharge papers

In the den over the computer there hangs my college diploma which Robin had framed for me one Christmas. Alongside it hung her honorable discharge from the National Guard. I noticed the wall hangings as I helped my girlfriend print something and I thought it was time to move Robin's document somewhere else. Later in the week I replaced it with a framed picture from the massage practice which has Chinese symbols next to the English translation "Love Heals All".

Today Dawn was sitting at the computer and looking toward the living room, talking to me. I saw her eyes go up and to the right. As she continued to speak with me I could see her eyes and brain processing the fact that something had changed on the wall. Her eyes came back down to look at me as she wrapped up what she was saying. She's a pretty sharp cookie - as demonstrated by the fact that she could keep talking without missing a beat, yet process other inputs. Even if she didn't overtly recognize the change, I expect her brain registered it.

Lately I've been starting to make changes around the house. Really, nothing has changed here in two and half years and it's not so much like I feel I need to make any particular change. I feel like I'm starting to make it "my house". In a way it feels like I'm starting to take on a new responsibility for the way things are around here.