death

We did this to ourselves

/ C.B. Kent / Leave a comment

The thing of it is, we created this mess.

It’s easy to blame, villainize, point fingers and condemn. We’ve taken sides, and we all know our side is the right one, in our heart-of-hearts we know.

Like many of you (ok, none – I know I’m writing this purely for my own amusement and no one is actually reading this blather but me), I’m sitting here in my bubble, hidden away from society behind a keyboard which gives me safety and anonymity to spew forth whatever drivel I choose. Lies, truths, it doesn’t matter. No one is going to hold me accountable. No one cares. And that’s how we’ve gotten here. We just don’t care about one another. We sort of co-exist but it’s not a community, and it’s certainly not the kind of existence that fosters growth and understanding. We are all alien to one another, strange and indifferent, and it’s because we do not have to actually interact with one another in any meaningful way. We share that we are human, but, maybe that’s being generous. We are homo sapiens who happen to occupy the same piece of rock out of the some-quantity-larger-than-the-largest-number-I-can-comprehend of rocks there are in what we casually call “space”. We have taken something unique, wonderful, and maybe even somewhat miraculous, and turned our existence, our humanity, into something quite trivial.

We are heading toward extinction.

Okay, maybe I’m being melodramatic. It’s hard to look out of the bubble and not see the hate, the hate-breeding, the awfulness of our human nature, and still be hopeful. It is painful to know that we are allowing our “have vs have-not” culture to take over and continue to sow discontent among us. It is painful to see how we are destroying one another instead of working harder to build each other up. It shouldn’t be about me winning and you losing; it should be about me winning and ALSO you winning, and maybe you even come out ahead of me. Imagine that, me putting you first, or better, by putting you first I, too, stand to gain?

Isn’t that what loving thy neighbor is about?

We seem to have forgotten what it is to be a neighbor, not just in the “my house is next to your house separated by a fence” way. Being a neighbor is being mindful and aware that you are NOT the only person around and you HAVE to co-exist with other people, not just the ones immediately next to you but ALL of them. You are my neighbor in the grocery store, in the mall, six states away, six countries away. You are only a stranger when I choose to see you that way. 

Co-existing, loving your neighbor, or not, all of this is a choice. And this is why I am terrified of where we are and why I am struggling to see a way forward. We got ourselves here and we desperately need to find a way out.

Dear older parent(s) of an adult single child

/ C.B. Kent / Leave a comment

As I write this, my 88 year old mother is doing her second stint (within three weeks) in rehab after a brief hospital stay. I’m a day from getting on a plane (second time in 3 weeks) to Florida to see her.

I’m an only child, mid-40s. The reason I’m writing this letter to you, is that I want to do you a favor. I want to give you something to think about, something that you likely don’t want to think about. And it’s likely something your child doesn’t feel comfortable bringing up when you’re spending time together. Assuming you do that sort of thing.

Here’s the favor: I want you to think about your death. I know you’re thinking, what kind of favor is that? Not to mention, who the hell are you to ask me to think about my death? Please hear me out a moment.

About four years ago my mom’s health suddenly took a turn. Nothing that was expected, nothing that was already under treatment. Mom wasn’t exactly in perfect health, but thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, whatever health conditions she had were manageable.

We were unprepared for this turn, and I was especially unprepared for the aftermath. Mom’s situation then was acute, and I had to make a lot of decisions rather quickly, decisions for which I would rather have had her input while she was coherent. Things like executing a power of attorney, healthcare proxy, will, suddenly became necessary, and I didn’t have time to process any of it, I had to just execute and move on to the next thing.

One of the things your child may face is what to do with you if you’re well enough to leave the hospital but not well enough to return home. Remember that thing you used to say to your child, something along the lines of “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”? There’s no such thing as free long term healthcare. Everything comes at a cost.

Speaking of costs, how are your finances? Have you figured out yet that you’re probably going to live a long time thanks to modern medicine? Sure, you’ll be popping pills galore and your joints will sound like the creaky stairs in a horror film, but you’ll be alive. Here’s a secret I learned: you either have to be filthy rich or dirt poor to get the services you’ll need in your elder years. The folks in the middle, the majority, your options are few and you may be reduced to destitution because your money will run out long before you thought it would. Word of advice: get a lawyer and a financial planner, now. In fact, tell your child to get these people, too.

I’m making some assumptions here. One, you’re young enough to do something about the rest of your life – and if you want control of that, it’s not too late to ensure you get what you need, when you need it. Two, you and your adult child have a relationship. Your adult child likely has a life of their own, and I’ll tell you from personal experience that dropping everything when your parent(s) need/s you isn’t easy. Especially if you live thousands of miles away.

Kudos to you if everything I’ve said here is old news and you’re squared away.  And if by reading this you’re thinking about getting things squared away, great. My job here is done. Good luck to you.

When the levee breaks

/ C.B. Kent / 2 Comments

When you know an inevitable thing like death is going to happen, you put it out of your mind.

When the inevitable thing, without warning or prompt, gets a timetable, it becomes the centerpiece of your life, on display where you can’t avoid it, no matter which direction you turn.

I accepted that my mother would die long ago; as she aged, I knew the time was getting closer, but I hadn’t considered that other forces would intervene, bringing closer to soon.

The prognosis isn’t great. It’s not the worst it could be, no, and that’s likely coming eventually. I’m angry at the idea that she could suffer. No matter my disagreement with her, I never wished her harm. I never wished a fate such as the one she has before her.

I’ve always known my mother’s eventual death would force my hand in some way. My decisions now have another influential factor now that I know my time with her is actually short.

I can do what I can, which is spend more time with her, get her house in order, take care of things as they happen. Relocation isn’t an option but a more frequent visit schedule is. My life is going to be impacted, this is a fact. I just hope that my absence isn’t going to estrange me from my loved ones. I hope the ones I love will understand this is a temporary thing, and that I need them now more than ever before.

A Psalm of Life

/ C.B. Kent / 1 Comment

The older gentleman slowly lowered himself to the empty stool to my left. One of the younger women tending the griddle half-turned, her right hand still expertly flipping the pile of hash browns for an order, and gave him a huge grin. “Coffee?” she asked, and he nodded, returning the smile, dentures gleaming.

“You a local?” he asked me. I shook my head. “From Massachusetts.” He proceeded to ask specifically where, and it turned out he used to live a couple of towns over from where I now live. His eyes were probably not as bright as they used to be, but his voice, though a touch gravelly, was clear and resonant.

I turned to the corn muffin that had been placed in front of me, warm and lightly brown from the griddle and slathered with just the right amount of butter. I was about to take a bite when I felt a light tap on my upper arm.

“You see this?” He was holding a drawing of a barn, the lines so clear and precise I thought at first I was looking at a woodcut. “I drew this,” and a gnarled finger pointed to the name written in block letters in the left lower corner. At first I thought he was going to try to sell it to me, but with a slightly shaking hand he put it back to where it apparently lived, propped up on the corner of the counter. I asked him if he was an artist, and he chuckled, “No, I was a mechanical engineer. I picked up a book on how to draw and tried it.” He pointed to other drawings hung up in various places around the diner, his, and a few clearly made by children. I suddenly felt like I was eating at someone’s house for the first time, welcome yet unsure of the customs.

My breakfast of eggs, hash browns and bacon appeared before me and I tucked in. The woman behind the griddle, I think her name was Nancy, asked the gentleman if he wanted something to eat. “Can I make you whatever I want?” she asked mischievously. He declined, but she gently insisted. A lemon poppy-seed muffin was negotiated.

“She is a lovely woman, so charming. You should watch how she works, so fast, and everything comes out just right.” He wasn’t wrong. The tiny cooking area was just big enough for Nancy and the owner of the place, and side-by-side they produced orders, never getting each other’s way.

He tapped me on my arm again and with a smile intoned the following:

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
   Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
   And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
   And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
   Was not spoken of the soul.
He laughed and patted me on my arm. I laughed with him, because that’s what you do. His words were familiar but I couldn’t place them.
“That woman, she’s just lovely. And watch how fast she works!” He gestured a fast motion with his hands. There was a pause for a bit. A waitress poured more coffee in mugs that had the diner’s – the owner’s – name.

 

“After the War – I was in the Navy – they discharged me to the bottom of Texas. I said, ‘How am I supposed to get home from here?'” I assumed he meant Galveston but I wasn’t going to interrupt. He proceeded to tell me how he hitchhiked up to New Hampshire, given lifts by good samaritans all the way. One of them was apparently a woman in a Buick convertible. My mind’s eye saw a robin’s-egg-blue car, the woman wearing a kerchief that fluttered in the wind. He never said how long it took.
He turned towards me again.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
   Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
   And things are not what they seem.
He emphasized the word “not” with his finger. When he got to the second verse, I listened more carefully, and wondered if in some small church around the corner he delivered sermons.
Life is real! Life is earnest! 
   And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
   Was not spoken of the soul.
And he laughed and patted me on the arm again. Was he trying to tell me something? As I scooped up the last of my eggs, I realized customers where stopping to say hello to him as they left the diner. They call people like him “fixtures”.
During a pause in orders, Nancy  leaned over the counter and said to him, unprompted,”You know you’re my favorite.” He laughed. A moment later he said, “You should watch how she works, so fast! And what a charming woman. Just lovely.”
There was a small mound of hash browns left on my plate and a few swigs of tepid coffee in my mug. Could I, would I, at an age when all I will remember are the stories but not what I had done the day previously, be a fixture in a place like this?
As I started to gather myself to leave, there was a third delivery of the poem, and just as the others, emphatically sincere. He laughed heartily, as if this were a riddle that I was meant to unravel.
I found the answer later, which like all riddles is always hidden in plain sight. He was a sailor, after all.
Lives of great men all remind us
   We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
   Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
   Seeing, shall take heart again.

Death and Vegas

/ C.B. Kent / Leave a comment

Perhaps the Sodom and Gomorrah nature of Vegas was why some of my thoughts and conversations this weekend revolved around life and death.

My friend and I were having breakfast one morning and the topic of death came up. Well, of burial, specifically. My mother has already pre-paid for her burial (grave, interment, casket, I think); she’ll be buried next to her mother. I’m sure the necessary paperwork is somewhere I’ll never find it when the time comes.  My understanding is that it’s better (read: more economical) to plan your/your loved ones burial well in advance. And once she’s buried there, and the house sold, the likelihood of me returning to that area will increasingly diminish as time passes. I’ve no love for Florida, and “paying my respects” is an interesting practice that I can’t seem to wrap my brain around. It’s not like the dead “know” you came to say hello (or cry, or shout, or curse or tell stories, or lay flowers or small stones). I realize the ritual is for the living, part of the mourning process for many. We place markers, also not for the dead but for the living; monuments, tributes, “I was here, once” your sign says to those who care to read it. You were here, once, and this is who you were: someone’s mother, daughter, you were loved, you were important to someone or some many someones enough for them to erect a stone for others to see. You Were Here. You Are Gone, Now.

Flying also brings about anxiety of a premature death, and the events of the past week, of the downing of the Malaysian airliner over the Ukraine, had me white knuckling the armrests every time the planes pitched and wobbled.  Reminds me it’s time to get my affairs in order.

 

 

How this all started

/ C.B. Kent / Leave a comment

I’m 42 and thinking about my eventual death.

It’s not like I’m dying right now. Okay, well, if you want to be pedantic about it, yes, we’re all dying right now. And we’re all going to die at some point. Not something many of us think about unless we’ve got good reason to.

Whether or not this is a “good reason” is a matter of opinion. I can tell you that watching my mother age and, recently, move closer to her death, caused something in me to ping. I can’t stop thinking about how I’m living my life and how I want to live leading up to my death, which could be at any time. I can’t stop thinking about how I want to die, were I given the choice. So I’m getting it all out here so that I don’t drive myself and others crazy by just keeping it all in my head.

Welcome, and I hope we all stay long enough to get something out of this.