I awoke around 4:00 am, a time of day considered “too early to wake up” by most people. After our morning meditation and dialogue, Sharon White and I then drove towards my aunt Susie’s home, around 7:00 am, so that I could walk Sharyn’s companion dog Ruby. Sharyn was aunt Susie primary caregiver, until taken down by disease last week. My Sharon now has to make sure Susie takes her medication, drinks some water (she is chronically dehydrated, as she hates water, or drinking, for her own peculiar reasons). Sharyn was the one daughter that could tolerate my aunt, and she also happened to have taken the role as her caregiver for over one year (this has been a mixed blessing, as she has immense emotional and physical problems, but at least we were relieved of our sometimes daily commitment to her care while also caring for my disabled father). The rest of aunt Susie’s family have plausible reasons as to why they have no time, or desire, to attend to her needs. Then again, so do we, but someone must step up, and so we do once again. But, Sharyn took ill last week, and has now been hospitalized for 11 days. She is now diagnosed with terminal cancer, which has enveloped her entire midsection, including the pancreas and liver.
At the Webster and Jennings Road intersection, on our way to Susie’s, I notice a person in a fetal position lying alongside of Webster. I stop our vehicle, and Sharon gets out and check’s for signs of life. We find that the person is of Native American heritage, and is also quite alive, though recovering from some sort of drug experience (undoubtedly opiate related). A neighbor comes over, photographs the young man, and states that the house he was asleep in front of is a drug house (big surprise?). Sharon talks with him, and sees that he is OK. We take our leave, and head to Susie’s.
I walk Ruby at 7:30, as I have for the past 10 days (sometimes coming back two or more times a day). Ruby is a beautiful 13 year old canine companion to the now dying Sharyn. Sharon finds that she is now Susie’s primary caregiver once again until OPI (Oregon Project Independence) gets another available caregiver on site. Sharon also has become an integral part of the communication network incorporating Sharyn’s brother and her sons and rest of the family, at least those few left with any care and interest in this collapsing household.
There is time to go work out at our athletic club, then we visit Sharyn in the hospital. We spend close to two hours discussing her gut wrenching and heart breaking diagnosis and prognosis. There are tears and anguish expressed, and somehow I remain engaged and attentive to all that is unfolding before me, no matter how distressing the energy becomes.
I receive a phone call from Mr. and Mrs. C, and we attempt to troubleshoot a computer issue. I was to install a new thermostat for their home today, but they cancelled because of his family coming in from Texas. I will still be with Mr. C most of Friday, as per usual lately, to be present in friendship and love while he fights terminal metastatic melanoma. The cancer dominates him, impacting him, and his wife, on all levels.
We leave from the hospital, and head over to my father’s home, to confirm his care and condition. He is another poor water drinker, though he responds well to encouragement, at least in that moment. Hot days lay him low, and even with air conditioning, he has lower energy than normal. Madison, now his primary caregiver when Pam and I are not scheduled, will see to his evening’s needs.
We prepare for a dinner with our number one grandson. He is not on a winning streak, and at 20 years of age, he has a poor relationship with telling the truth, and taking personal responsibility. His deception just paid him some dark dividends, when his other grandfather opens up his grandson’s letter from California, (where grandson had lived the last eight years, prior to coming up to Portland in February, after some “unknown issue”), and finds that he was prosecuted for shoplifting and carrying a concealed weapon the past year. The mother intentionally withheld that information, because her MS is getting worse, and she needs for him to stay local to provide future care/assistance to his mother. She feared telling the truth would have both sets of grandparents turn on her son, and not trust him (huh? She thinks the way to gain trust is by withholding information, which explains well why our grandson is such a polished liar and manipulator, he learned quite well the tools of the dark trade while living with his mom).
We have dinner, and discuss integrity, honesty, character, and telling one’s truth. I see that this young man, who has just been kicked out of his other grandpa’s house due to dishonesty and lack of success in finding full time work, is about to embark on a life’s journey with a most difficult search for truth. He may not make it. I drive him to the train station this afternoon, where he is heading back to California, to take up with the same friends that he got into trouble with.
There will be another hospital visit today, and the shocked family will be there.
I never anticipated retirement life would be quite like this. Whatever happened to more than one vacation a year? We had more vacations when we both worked full time!
Sharon and I are truly on a journey into the unknown.
I hope and pray that our grandson will not be seen in a fetal position sleeping along some California by- way. His “truth” will guide him into great, pain wracked lessons, if the past is any indicator of the future.
When the student is ready, the Teacher appears.
Not all lessons bring joy, but understanding does follow. I hope that we all have the necessary access to our reservoir of “life force” and wisdom as our civilization moves down its oft times unpredictable and dangerous course.
(excerpt from the song Truckin’, by the Grateful Dead)
You’re sick of hangin’ around and you’d like to travel
Get tired of travelin’ and you want to settle down
I guess they can’t revoke your soul for tryin’
Get out of the door and light out and look all around
Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it’s been
Truckin’, I’m a goin’ home. Whoa whoa baby, back where I belong
Back home, sit down and patch my bones, and get back truckin’ on
Please, save yourself
