wednesday 26.04
Today Eve, the registered nurse from hospice was here. She called and shared her intentions, explained why she was running late and arrived late, keeping me from accepting an invitation to join my parents for lunch...They returned before Eve arrived and this too showed upon their faces.
My space has been situated, now, so that Eve can speak with me in the room where I stay, a room half surrounded by objects of sentiment and Ashley's bed and a remembrance of who I am, internally and externally, as I take step after step in this foreign land, the land of my parents. In the room, in the land, I can sit and talk and invite Eve in and the mood created, seen by a keen and patient eye, is for the purpose of understanding me better, a shrine of sorts, and although it is NOT my room, a borrowed room, it reminds me that I am here, in Texas, on borrowed time and terminal.
As Eve is speaking with me and our conversations become deeper and deeper, her thought process alters. I take her hand, with conviction, and step her out of the box and demand answers, not assumptions or textbook, but answers as to my physical wellness, as she is 'schooled' to recognize symptoms and I provide her the blanks that she must fill in, to answer my questions, often complex, but asked with great passion and wonderment.
And as she looks at me and I say 'in the eye' and show her by pointing to my eyes and leaning toward her with passion, bearing my heart, shedding a tear and another, she is forced to look at me with her schooled eye, see what I feel, hopefully or at least more distinct, and provide me an answer. And I tell her a story, a truth, about me that only two others know, don't believe, but know and she smiles and I realize for the first time, she, understands as best she can, the process actively dying is putting me through. Past the physical, but raw emotion as I too begin to reflect emotion past her surface, but into her being.
The outlook not being good, she looks at me, again, 'in the eye I shout, I need to know, it is my G-d given right to know', and tells me a story that only I can understand and I know her intention is for me and the feeling is good and well received.
She describes my demise as a painting as I am 'schooled' in art and choose my painting medium with thought. I know whether, she says, if someone brings me a canvas of work, the piece is 'art', not based on whether I like it or dis-like the period it has been painted in, but because I have been taught technique and composition and can assess the painting's worthiness on this. Eve bases here assessment of me and my dying process the same way, metaphorically speaking, as a person 'schooled' in medicine.
And I knew, when she spoke and I listened that her metaphor was thought about and expressed with consideration and dignity toward me and only me, that she had learned about me and was comforted and saddened to have to share with me her opinion, knowing I could handle it, with dignity and a positive attitude. Only this time as in all others in the future, I was teaching her medicine and 'schooling' her in the process she can empathize with, the process of MY death and dying.
And I watched her and she listened to me as she thumbed through my medical documents and I offered her a copy and she accepted, never looking up from the pages she was studying. Eve was now but a student that, like me, was trying to understand and put meaning behind what it feels like to be terminal. And as she spoke in language that only I can repetitively do, she mentioned my disease as 'surreal' and I smiled with heart and knew, as I did previously, that I was not long for this earth, but more important, Eve was human and knows the end of a friendship that is beginning to blossom out of need, not want, will never be complete, but everlasting in a moment.
She will move to another patient and come to see me again, and again if it is meant to be, and learn from me, the teacher, and begin to feel, slightly, what the teacher feels, beyond comfort and toward dignity. As she watches me 'actively die', knowing her 'school of medicine' failed me, my soul teaches her something deeper and gentler about humankind and the drive of the human spirit.
I will smoke a cigarette in the backyard, careful not to allow the smell to pierce the house's interior, listen to a song on the i-pod, figure out how I will simply, but powerfully, explain to my mother and father the result of the visit and I will cry to my creator ( in private) and ask with raw emotion, to be spared too much more physical pain and hope, only hope, that my spirit gets ready to soar as I grab another pill and try to make sense of the last months...
My space has been situated, now, so that Eve can speak with me in the room where I stay, a room half surrounded by objects of sentiment and Ashley's bed and a remembrance of who I am, internally and externally, as I take step after step in this foreign land, the land of my parents. In the room, in the land, I can sit and talk and invite Eve in and the mood created, seen by a keen and patient eye, is for the purpose of understanding me better, a shrine of sorts, and although it is NOT my room, a borrowed room, it reminds me that I am here, in Texas, on borrowed time and terminal.
As Eve is speaking with me and our conversations become deeper and deeper, her thought process alters. I take her hand, with conviction, and step her out of the box and demand answers, not assumptions or textbook, but answers as to my physical wellness, as she is 'schooled' to recognize symptoms and I provide her the blanks that she must fill in, to answer my questions, often complex, but asked with great passion and wonderment.
And as she looks at me and I say 'in the eye' and show her by pointing to my eyes and leaning toward her with passion, bearing my heart, shedding a tear and another, she is forced to look at me with her schooled eye, see what I feel, hopefully or at least more distinct, and provide me an answer. And I tell her a story, a truth, about me that only two others know, don't believe, but know and she smiles and I realize for the first time, she, understands as best she can, the process actively dying is putting me through. Past the physical, but raw emotion as I too begin to reflect emotion past her surface, but into her being.
The outlook not being good, she looks at me, again, 'in the eye I shout, I need to know, it is my G-d given right to know', and tells me a story that only I can understand and I know her intention is for me and the feeling is good and well received.
She describes my demise as a painting as I am 'schooled' in art and choose my painting medium with thought. I know whether, she says, if someone brings me a canvas of work, the piece is 'art', not based on whether I like it or dis-like the period it has been painted in, but because I have been taught technique and composition and can assess the painting's worthiness on this. Eve bases here assessment of me and my dying process the same way, metaphorically speaking, as a person 'schooled' in medicine.
And I knew, when she spoke and I listened that her metaphor was thought about and expressed with consideration and dignity toward me and only me, that she had learned about me and was comforted and saddened to have to share with me her opinion, knowing I could handle it, with dignity and a positive attitude. Only this time as in all others in the future, I was teaching her medicine and 'schooling' her in the process she can empathize with, the process of MY death and dying.
And I watched her and she listened to me as she thumbed through my medical documents and I offered her a copy and she accepted, never looking up from the pages she was studying. Eve was now but a student that, like me, was trying to understand and put meaning behind what it feels like to be terminal. And as she spoke in language that only I can repetitively do, she mentioned my disease as 'surreal' and I smiled with heart and knew, as I did previously, that I was not long for this earth, but more important, Eve was human and knows the end of a friendship that is beginning to blossom out of need, not want, will never be complete, but everlasting in a moment.
She will move to another patient and come to see me again, and again if it is meant to be, and learn from me, the teacher, and begin to feel, slightly, what the teacher feels, beyond comfort and toward dignity. As she watches me 'actively die', knowing her 'school of medicine' failed me, my soul teaches her something deeper and gentler about humankind and the drive of the human spirit.
I will smoke a cigarette in the backyard, careful not to allow the smell to pierce the house's interior, listen to a song on the i-pod, figure out how I will simply, but powerfully, explain to my mother and father the result of the visit and I will cry to my creator ( in private) and ask with raw emotion, to be spared too much more physical pain and hope, only hope, that my spirit gets ready to soar as I grab another pill and try to make sense of the last months...
posted by the warrior at 4:17 PM
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