Hanging by a Moment ... Letting GO

“It’s better to come from a broken home than to live in one!” I’m in total agreement that sometimes the absolute worst thing you could do to your children, and, or, yourself is remain in a dysfunctional relationship. Although I believe that many people rush to the court steps in an emotional haste to divorce, there are also those who pick up every stone along the way to weigh its value with a slow realization of the choice to be made. Our daughter, Brei, is one of those people. I had wondered to myself before her wedding if her proposal might have been an overlooked omen of things to come. She got lost on a Mountain that night during a scavenger hunt that was supposed to end in a romantic proposal; her ex miscalculating the time needed to solve his cleaver riddles. Imagine our reaction to a search party being called to find and rescue her?! Years later the search party was called again but lacked the dramatics of helicopters, flashlights and ropes. It was a simple phone call from out of the blue. “Mom, I can’t take this anymore!” She asked if we would come to support her when she told him. We did.

Brie’s dad and I have been searching for her for years. Not because she was ever estranged from our family but more that she got lost in a life that no longer supported her worth which over time caused that sweet spark of hers to dim. There are many things that are harder for a parent to endure than a child losing the essence of who he or she was meant to be, but, losing Brie’s spirit in our family had felt like an amputation in many ways. The day we pulled up to her farmhouse in Texas there was visible evidence of her inner struggle. Her exhaustion peeked at us behind her beautiful hazel eyes and revealed to us that her decision was a greater relief than we expected. She told me recently that she believed God placed her in her Texas country home in preparation for that last chapter. Brei said when she thinks on those times she finds much peace attached. I'm inclined to feel that it was that place that gave the richest environment for laying out her thoughts and being able to look at them with an honest assessment of her future. 

Wayne and I anticipated that it would take at least a year for her to settle her divorce and move to Florida, but, like the scavenger hunt, life is quite unpredictable. Instead of 12 months we had a few weeks. With little time to modify our home and figure out how to utilize the space available for 5 children, their mom and a three legged dog, we reorganized as best as we could. The decision to convert our downstairs office into Eden’s bedroom was a good call; separating the moodiness of a 14 year old girl from the shenanigans of her younger siblings has allowed me to keep most of my hair; and her to keep her life -- as of this writing. It has also been a season of re-modifying our life plan. There are issues that come with this life adjustment but all involved are getting the help and the tools that they need to heal and move onward. Wayne and I are no longer resigned to worrying from hundreds of miles away about their well being. We only have to listen to the chaos that ensues when they all try to get ready for school in the hall bathroom that's right next to our bedroom door---I would like to meet the diabolical genius behind that design flaw. On second thought, that’s probably not a good idea.

Brei is coming full circle. She has always been my hippie artist and food guru. She often threatens to ferment me when I die telling me it’s better for the environment. I laugh, nervously, as I think if it were legal she might attempt it. I also can’t clean out my refrigerator without her permission because some of the things growing in there, much to my surprise, are supposed to look like that. Yesterday when I came home, she excitedly exclaimed, “I found a guy with good aged manure!!!!” I shot back, “How can you tell its good manure”? She replied, “OH mom, when you dig your hands in it it’s like the best feeling soil you can imagine and it smells amazing!” The image of her great grandfather, who was a farmer, high five-ing her great grandmother streaked across my mind. We have all agreed that she will be a stay home mom for now so that she can have the time needed to de-clutter her emotional closet as well as assist her children in doing the same. She’s going to the gym, making time for self-care and takes the kids to church every Sunday creating new routines. I've noticed a renewed youthfulness and her sassy sense of humor has returned from a long time in hiding. She’s also back to painting and other artwork. This has earned her some extra money and given her a feeling of accomplishment.

This is our eighth month and we have faced some significant hurdles along the way. like the unmasked horror the day Anna and Autumn came running to me after their mom said they could not watch another cartoon. "But you're our mom's mom--SHE HAS TO MIND YOU!" Each collapsing in complete shock when I had to say no. I make light of it knowing that it's self evident that this has been a great change in our family dynamics Yes. There are issues. Some have been bigger than I ever imagined and some have been smaller but I know the value in creating a structured loving environment where they will all have the best opportunity to thrive.

We have a great family and some truly amazing friends that have made their support known in so many ways. Each leaving us with a warm gratefulness to know that so many of you care.  

Mona McPherson

Night Shift

Embracing a little stillness everyday has become important for my peace of mind as the world has not been the same since my mom’s diagnosis of end stage Alzheimer’s. It’s difficult to set eyes on her bedridden frame with me being so unsure of what her life must feel like imprisoned by a dying brain.


It began to unravel quickly when we noticed her mental slippage in everyday things such as forgetting her computer password constantly which then turned into forgetting to turn off the stove burner catching her sleeve on fire one day. Then there was the trip to the emergency room due to her passing out from what we would learn was low sodium. During the course of her hospital stay it was suggested that a brain scan be done to rule out other things that could be contributing to her mounting confusion. The results showed evidence of mild strokes, or, TMI’s. With more consultation the doctor suggested that we take mom to a specialist. It was two weeks later that I found myself seated in a small room with my dad listening to the Neurologist’s thick Spanish accent beautifully roll out the official diagnosis. It’s no secret that I have questioned that diagnosis ever since we found a stroke had occurred. Mom has never entered many of the symptoms associated with the slow moving effects of Alzheimer’s, instead, her declines have been immediate and life altering. I’m inclined to believe that it has been these small strokes she keeps having, but, can’t lament upon an argument that will never have its day in court since once the diagnosis has landed in a medical chart it takes an act of congress and energy that I don’t have to get it removed.

The stillness that I speak of sits next to me about a half hour before my shift begins. I say shift because my sister and brother, Paul, moved here to help take care of mom and due to our conflicting work schedules, it became necessary to formulate a plan. That plan soon hit a brick wall when my brother’s health took an immediate dive and he was no longer able to work. The family decided that it would be best for him to move into our parents’ home and help dad by taking over the tasks of cooking meals and keeping an eye on mom; at that time she was forgetting to use her walker and ending up on floor.

There was no way to predict how fast my Paul’s COPD would incapacitate him. My brother died just a few months later. Walking into the house that day, I passed my mom who smiled at me oblivious to the fact that her only son lay dead on the floor in the very next room. It was decided that we’d never tell her about my brother since here memory was all over the map. If she ever inquired, which she hasn’t to this date; we would say that he simply moved out and was doing fine. I found it odd and even upsetting to watch mom wildly picking at her clothing that day as Dad, my sister and I waited with her in another room while the funeral home removed my brother’s body. It was as if she knew something was terribly wrong but had no words or understanding.

This symphony of change was a complicated composure but we soon settled into a new schedule with my sister taking the morning shift, the hospice help taking afternoon and me taking the night. I’m slower to open the door to their home these days knowing, again, I’ll be painted into a landscape that I wish I could crawl out of. End stage anything is not a casual walk by quiet streams, but, rather; a typhoon in the middle of your life where the only time you’re away from it is when you’re in the eye of the storm. With Alzheimer’s (or any other brain killing disease) it’s as if the storm never passes; it can only circle back again and again gaining momentum. What it doesn’t destroy the first few times, it will be sure to destroy on its way back through until every structure in the mind has been leveled and all that is left is insurmountable confusion.

The room is dark with ritual as I begin cheerful small talk waiting for her to notice me; and when she does, I lean down and kiss the cheek of the stranger who wears my mom’s face. Her furrowed brow shows signs of her searching for the file that contains who I am; that file has been deleted and she only knows that I’m a nice lady who is kind to her in that moment. The blinds are pulled shut and the gloves go on. She waits in the hospital bed for me to disrobe her and get her ready for the night. Dad gave away the bed they had shared for decades and replaced it with a twin to make more room for us to bath and change mom.

It disturbed me the day I walked in and noticed the bed was gone but it was understandable and unavoidable; mom had reached the stage of incontinence. He refused, however, to take down the wrought iron decorative scroll that he mounted above their bed at her request. That was before her mind slipped away. Dad had started an odd habit of placing and replacing random pictures of him and her into the crevasses of the iron scroll on the wall until he landed on two pictures that he must have an affinity to. The faces staring back at mom in these paper reminders fall like a leaf upon a mind that no longer retains their importance. I’ve found it best to leave dad alone about it as he has enough weighing on him. He is quieter lately. Hints of his distress showing only on his sagging clothes; the weight peels off his body one week at time. A man lost in mourning his son and taking care of a wife who doesn’t know him. Never one to express his feelings, his body is left to scream them at the top of its lungs in a silent holocaust of the heart.

Some days I just want to stay in bed and pull the covers over my head. Fifteen months of hard labor in this push against my exhausted heart have me only going through the motions. My grief for my brother is complicated. How does one grieve a brother when they’re stuck in a vortex about how to grieve a mother who is living but dead?! Mostly I feel fastened to this genuine clash between mourning the living and mourning the dead. I don’t even care to fight back anymore. The numb isolation is a warm place, almost needed to hold the pieces of me together. Friends ebb and flow as I grow tired of being caught off guard with questions that throw me against the wall of my reality. Yes, I know they care, but, I don’t want to be asked how my mom is doing, and, yet, on any other given day when they haven’t asked in a while; I wonder how they can care so little. It’s not fair to these beautiful people who line the wall of my life. No one can win with me either way so I repose for their peace as well as my own.

One day, when all of this is behind me; I’ll reenter life and we’ll pick up where we left off. Right now, I struggle under the dead-lift of my new conversations that bind the hands of my mind and toss me into an emotional ocean. Will we be able to manage mom at home? Will dad be able to follow her wishes of no feeding tube? How long does it take a person to starve to death? The DO NOT RESUSCITATE sign watching me from the refrigerator seems a mild precursor to what we’re facing soon. My saving grace is my ability to squeeze out of these conversations and swim to the surface before they drown me. That first quenching breath is so divine but there will be a day when I won’t reach the surface. Tough decisions will have to be lived through. My phone has become a game of Russian roulette. Gone are the smiles that crossed my face when my caller ID read, “Mom Calling.” I’m not even sure why I’ve not changed the contact to dad’s name. No more will I face chastisement about when I’m coming to visit her or how much she misses me. All of that has been replaced with a concealed panic that knows the bullet is locked and loaded and each call might be the one that summons me home; like the unexpected one from my dad that pierced my flesh October 17, 2016 the day my brother died.


The night shift ends with mom being fed a few tablespoons of baby food and given her allotted dose of morphine. Dad will gather up the adult diaper to be thrown away, empty the blue basin in the bathroom and then I’ll hear him washing his hands. After that he’ll head into the kitchen and warm up the dinner that I stopped by my house to pick up for him; my crockpot and I are having quite the affair since the plan for my brother to be the cook didn’t work out. I’ll stay with dad long enough to watch him eat and engage him in conversations being sure to monitor his every bite. When he’s done, I’ll rise and kiss my mom goodbye wishing her sweet dreams. Dad will turn on the porch light and walk me to my car. He will thank me for all my help that night and for bringing him a home- cooked meal. We will hug under the stars and say I love before I get into my car. My promise of returning the next night will roll out the window as I drive away. Some nights I cry on the way home, some nights I’m lost in faded memories and some nights I wonder what life will be like when the night shift ends.


Mona McPherson

Tea Time

As Ajahn Chah, a forest monk from Thailand, was discussing Buddhist ideas with other monks, nuns, and lay students he pointed to the tea cup he was using and said: “I love this glass. It holds my tea so admirably. When the sun shines on it, it reflects the light beautifully. When I tap it, it has a lovely ring. This is my favorite glass, but I do not cling to it, because to me this glass is already broken. When the wind knocks it over or my elbow knocks it off the shelf, and it falls to the ground and shatters, I will say, ‘Of course.’ But when I understand that this glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.”


Today a resident with dementia saw me walk in and thought I was her mother. She kept calling out from across the room, “Mama, are you my mama?” Her sweet face was in such a state of fear and panic (like that of a lost child). I didn’t realize she was talking to me until she wheeled her chair over to where I was talking with a client. Once I knew she thought I was her Mama, I bent down taking both her hands and said, “Yes, shhhh … you’re okay, I’m here, I’m here with you now.” The comfort in that statement softening her ice blue eyes. My client asked me how long my mother had been in our facility and I politely explained that she was not my mother. It was an opportunity to educate him about caring for those with dementia and how important it is to meet the broken minded where they are. A lesson he is sure to learn this year due to his mother's recent diagnosis.

At another facility the same day; I had found a quiet corner in which to catch up on my paperwork when I noticed a woman who kept going in and out of one of the rooms, she was thoughtfully disturbed. She stopped at the door and our eyes met when she said, “It’s just so hard to leave sometimes.” She had been visiting her friend who was having a bad day and this woman wanted to stay but had an obligation to pick up her grandchildren. Four times she made it out of the building and four times her love for her friend begged her to check just one more time. It was agonizing to watch her inner tug of war but touching to see her great care. Not all of our residents are so lucky. The last time she exited she told me that she knows it won’t be long until her friend would not remember her so each visit now grows more meaningful. I smiled in agreement and expressed my admiration for her taking such good care of her friend.

Like the story about Ajahn Chah, I’ve learned that we are the glass and our bodies will be broken in death.  I saw many broken teacups today that reminded me of how precious time is and how each life encounter can grow more meaningful when adding the light of our awareness. Which makes me wonder if we each knew the day of our death, or, better still, if we'd wind up broken minded and conveniently tucked away in a nursing facility ; how differently would we spend our time?! It would be mostly spent living in the moment not only savoring the sunsets, the feeling of sand beneath our toes and enjoying all of our favorite things (I've been told by the actively dying), but, too, praying that we'd be compassionately cared for when we no longer can care for ourselves. But until then, do not cling so tightly to your life that you never fully enjoy the cup that holds your tea.


Thank you for reading this and sharing a little of your valuable time with me.  

Mona McPherson

 

 

Falling Through the Cracks

Many times the mystics and prophets allude to our species as spiritual beings in the belly of a human experience. These mystics and prophets squeeze the juices from these ideas into a believable matter when we consider so much of what goes on in life to be unexplainable. What is this divine connection between us that comes into play. On this island of thought I set most days and observe the comings and goings of the lives that cross mine. Most seem set on autopilot when it comes to their faith. There's a growing contradiction as they wander the streets of their spiritual homelessness all the while stumbling over their first world wealth.


In another lifetime, I was the wife of a Southern Baptist Deacon heavily involved in evangelism when our well established church decided to create a mission church. It would be housed in a trailer park conveniently located in the poorest part of town. The idea from its earliest inceptions was to bring a home of worship to those who wouldn’t show up to our rose colored stained glass cathedral. At least not with borrowed clothes and dirty shoed children hanging off their hips. Or, perhaps, the single mom doing magic tricks with the family budget on a minimum wage job couldn’t afford the extra gas for extravagances like hiking so far up to the other side of town. Either way our church had a heart for those less fortunate and we prayed to be able to establish a home of worship for them. Our prayers were answered with the gift of a trailer in the very heart of the neighborhood that we had set our sites on.

The first Sunday I was the choir director in our shabby singlewide trailer. It’s a laughable thought since my singing could clear the rodents out of a NY apartment complex in under a minute. Alas, I was on a mission for God so it didn’t matter at all. There were four of us called to this work and we prayerfully committed to do whatever it took to keep the doors open for God's work.


It was a rough start but eventually people began to come in small doses here and there. One day a drunken man stumbled into our shanty church in mid-hymn and reclined in a chair. The only other visiting parishioner was an older African American woman who looked at him compassionately and then turned her attention back to me on what I feel now was a mission of her own,  keeping me at least partly intime with the song. The drunk man balanced on the tin chairs and fell asleep snoring loudly with our young pastor speaking over him. This dear man came every Sunday and sometimes could remain alert enough to sing along, and, on rarer occasion, alert enough to hear part of the sermon adding an amen or two. It was my job to wake him up after the service and help him down crooked stairs. I remember a growing appreciative feeling for his commitment to show up each Sunday and imagined we were more than just a material shelter; we were a spiritual one. That thought kept my heart so open and warm with the feeling that we were feeding the needs of others.

Each Sunday I donned a ridiculous clown suite with a big red wig. It seemed like a great idea until the first time I climbed into it in the sweltering heat and felt my makeup rushing down my face like a mudslide. I'd walk the dusty streets handing out church pamphlets, candy and hugs to wide-eyed children. Their parent occasionally looked over the fan propped in the doorway long enough to see what the ruckus was. Most exchanges were mildly uncomfortable but I rationalized to myself that when you're doing things for God, it's supposed to be uncomfortable. The only exceptions where the ones who yelled extreme profanities about me staying out of their yard. Their ability to weave the "F" word in and out of each sentence astonished both me and the Jesus in my heart. Others smiled with lips half turned in conviction that although church was good enough for their children, they were above it. There was no point of engaging them when they weren't ready and maybe never would be to hear the gospel. I'd simply say in my goodbyes, "God loves you."

The young pastor and his wife who began the church moved away within that first year and a retired pastor took his place. He was greatly offended that the drunk was allowed to come every Sunday. The new pastor's first order of business was to ask the man to stop coming to church if he could conduct himself in a more righteous manner, we all knew he couldn’t. The new pastor was not interested in seeking help for the drunk man so we simply cut him free to drift away into the woods nearby. My clown suite was also retired as I would learn, "Saving souls was not the work of clowns!" I gained back my second class status as a woman when he dismissed my argument about how the clown suit was working with the proof of the number of children now attending Sunday School. That stance almost got me removed from the mission church that I had grown to love. With my Southern Baptist roots well grounded; I picked up my petticoat and sashayed to the back of the church where I belonged. It would not be long until a not so loving church leader picked off my Sunday School students one at a time.


Dissatisfied with  our meager surroundings the new pastor finagled the church to purchase a double wide newer model. Our sponsor church bought a more accommodating used double wide trailer that came with the same porch ailment that seemed contagious throughout the rundown park. I remember seeing the drunk man that first Sunday we opened the new church home. He came and stood outside the church for the whole service; I wondered if he had forgotten that he wasn’t allowed in. He came back many Sundays and never once tried to open the door. I watched him through the window as he sang along to the empty hymns about God loving us at our wretched worst. I’m remembering him singing outside the home that Jesus brought for him so clearly that it still kicks up the dust in my heart about how shameful that doublewide, crooked porched, trailer in shanty town became.

Billy Graham once said that the new spiritual awakening would not begin in the church but through corporate America. He's right! While others are content to watch their fellow church goers fall through the cracks in the church's foundation, others are on a quest to nail a new proclamation to walls of our brothers and sisters' hearts. One that is so anchored in truth that it clears away decades of the debris of apathy and empowers us to make phenomenal changes in our broken systems. Changes that include clown suits and love for those with addictions ----- an all inclusive love that does not require stain glass windows or uppity alters. I think Jesus would be onboard with the change.


Mona McPherson

 

Mona McPherson  

 

A Beautiful Resilience

Update on Zeke by my daughter Mikka:




Okay, here we are, nearly three months old. To describe our journey thus far as a roller coaster is an understatement. Zeke has made his point that he does things on his terms, and has fought a tremendous fight with beautiful resiliency, we are in awe of this incredible little human.


In this front row seat to both the most frightening and amazing journey of my sweet boy has forced me into a space of self growth. Having a child that suffers with any kind of illness or condition is an indescribable pain that forever changes the person you are. Spending all my time with Ezekiel is the greatest pleasure of my life. His infectious, joyful smiles bring a lump to my throat. I find joy in the fact that I have been able to create a life for this little boy that is safe and makes him happy. I feel that is my duty as he is living a life I will never understand or relate to. All I can do is stand idly by while he does all the heavy lifting.




I find myself in the monotony of our routine, then out of no where the severity and delicacy of his life smacks me in the face. I return back to that scared, helpless place of fear that I lived in for most of my pregnancy. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t live in the joy of getting to be his mommy, his safe place. I soak up the moments of normalcy as I missed out on so many the first 36 days of his life.




As we look to the next surgery, there is a sense of excitement as we have been informed that life is able to be a bit more normal. BUT, there is also fear, so much fear. We are familiar with what we are facing because we went through this once already. The difference is this time we know him. Like really know him. Knowing that I once again will have to carry Zeke back through those doors to the operating area of the hospital and physically hand him over to a nurse. Knowing that he will once again be sedated, intubated, his chest cut open, his heart altered, and all of that recovery, again. Breaks. Every. Single. Part of me.




So for now I will live in his smiles. Live in the conversations we are starting to have since he is now cooing. Take all of the kisses and snuggles he will allow. And enjoy him and his beautiful resilience.

About the Storm

It's an overcast morning, cold and due for storms later in the day. Perfect time for reflection in a quiet mostly Mormon neighborhood. The wind can be heard pushing against the window like an unwanted guest that I shall not let in. I’m alone for the first time in three weeks with nothing pressing to do except wait for my granddaughter’s return from school so that we can go to the hospital. It’s a daily occurrence with her new born brother confined to his room there until he begins to gain weight after heart surgery. To kill some time, I stumbled upon a show where a chaplain was visiting a man with stage 4 prostate cancer. The man’s stern stance of beating the disease leaned hard against my mind. It pulled the curtain back on my last attempt to get my brother to understand that his hope might be better placed in settling his affairs before he died rather than discussing being cured of stage 4 COPD. To no avail. His denial kept the boat rocking between us until I finally cut the anchor and let him sail away with what he needed to believe before he died. The chaplain on TV was met outside the room by an intern questioning why he gave the dying man false hope when he did not challenge his erroneous belief. The chaplain admitted to no such thing. “I met his hope where it was.” The chaplain looked at the camera pointing his finger like a parent correcting a child, “Hope is the last thing to die, let it die on its own!” If I were to call anything a sin now, it would be to rob someone of their hope.

Utah is cold in the mornings and the clouds add more pounds to the temperature making it seem heavier than it really is. Today the weather is on my mind. I think of the storms raging in the south as well as the catastrophic one hammering Australia and I find myself identifying with the landscape of our world; it gets torn into pieces and then must repair itself. We all know that feeling. It wasn’t my brother and mother’s deaths so much as watching them suffer, and, now, settling into the reality that loss will keep coming. The same with my grandson, although he is set to beat the odds; I’ve witnessed his storm with a scar running the length of his chest where his tiny frame was cut and chest opened to reach his little-big heart; a heart that would have cost him his life in only three days after birth had the ultrasound months prior not caught the defect. Thankful is not a big enough word to scale the Alps of my gratitude for today's technology.  It was only a little over two weeks after his surgery that I found myself holding his wiggly body mostly free of the wires and tubes assigned to him after surgery.

If it were left to me and my own definition, the tragedies in life would carry one singular purpose...to take those hard and sharp places in us and make them softer. The pain, loss and struggles I’ve seen in a very short span of time have loosened the rock of my resolve to be an unyielding force against my emotions. Like a landslide, everything I’ve been holding back has rushed down and over my barricades in a fast and furious attempt to teach me a deeper truth. And now I understand. The tragedies that I have walked through have softened me and with so much debris removed, have also made a generous path for the pain of others to walk. There is no need for anyone to suffer alone when ample provisions of empathy have collected in the canyons of time and experience. The rough places revealed a softer strength that has ended up being harder than any I've known before. It is from this strength that I'm being fueled to connect with those in need, if only to listen or supply them fresh waters of encouragement to drink. Nature like life, has its seasons and once you’ve been through enough of the poundings the best thing to do with some of your extra time and knowledge is to assist your brothers and your sisters. I’ve been helping others most of my life but something deeper occurred through this particular season. I can't name it but it feels much like a caterpillar hanging off a cocoon on my soul preparing to birth something new within me. Its still on the vine but quickening. 

The nimbostratus clouds are now blocking the view of the mountains much like my own clouds have been blocking my sight. It’s exhausting to deny time and again that you have a true need of others, especially when the opposite would be a healthier mental position to take. I’m reminded of the hypothetical lady on the roof in the flood when she drowns and meets God. She's furious that she prayed and was not saved from the flood. To her questioning God replies, “I sent several boats after you!” How many boats have you sent me, God?! How many did I turn away in the course of my life?! I remember them; I also remember that comfortable place where my thoughts convened to weigh out the price of appearing weak, or, better still, me deciding that someone you sent were not strong enough to assist me (perhaps I didn't want to need them). There is a point that we can reach where all of those statements of, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine…I’M FINE!” Can actually buckle loudly under the weight of un-fine-ness and crack open to reveal the mask of denial. Once that mask is yanked from your face, it doesn’t fit properly again, especially if there is an audience to your breakdown. It isn’t weakness that one is showing when he or she speaks from the cloth of their own fabric—it is truth dressed eloquently in a coat of many colors because unlike popular belief, truth, is not black and white. If we do not share our truth, there is no way to find the colors of warmth and communion waiting to be discovered in those around us.

It’s tapping on the windows and running down the glass in streaks, rain. Not even a rumble to announce that it has decided to come early; it simply unpacked itself over Syracuse without apology. The sound plays a nice tune and relaxes me deeper into the oversized couch. It also drags the dog from across the room placing his face on my lap with that familiar question on his brow. “No, Dodge, I did not cause the disruption of your 5^th nap this morning!” You can barely hear it but the grass has begun to dance from the other side of the wall. I suppose that’s how my heart feels when I finally give myself permission to truly feel and cry, happy. Truth running down ones face seems like something that would make the heart want to dance. It's the heart that seeks to strip us naked of our pretenses so that we are fully seen but that is not a place of comfort.  All I know this rainy morning in Utah is that I’m glad my circumstances didn't drive me into a mental cave and make me bitter or choose aloneness. There is no stopping the storms. My new found softness makes me realize that I really don’t mind the rain if it means that I will become a shelter, and, too, that I can become strong enough to seek the warm shelter of soft strength in others. The Law of Reciprocity requires that I only speak from the place of my truest feelings so that God can bring into my path the provisions needed for my growth, or, I am to not speak at all. What I have learned from not speaking at all is that a foul stagnation begins to emerge where living waters of spiritual progress once flowed. Therefore, I embrace life at my truest north and will begin from there.

Mona

No Regrets!

“You need to mind your own business!“ My brother’s words hit me as I entered our parent’s home. It was not a surprise attack; I knew it was coming as this was the first time we had been together since his last trip to the hospital. “How can I mind my own business when your doctor told me that the one lung you have left was tissue thin and once it tore you’d be dead before you hit the floor?!” The anger in him could be seen pacing back and forth behind his brown eyes. End stage COPD leaves little room for extreme emotions without a violent reaction, and, true to form, his coughing began. My brother, Paul, got up from the couch with his breathing machine in tow and headed out to patio to smoke and to calm down. He was angry that I had the nerve to discuss his ability to drive with his doctor. My position, if he could drop dead any moment was it safe for him to drive a vehicle. The doctor said no and then explained that they would be turning in the appropriate forms to notify the DMV. My brother never got over blaming me for taking his driving privileges away. He would tell me later that he needed time to himself and driving was the only respite he got from being around my parents 24/7. “Do you know what it’s like being a grown man living with your parents; you know I'll be looking for a place for me and Carol, how am I going to look for a place if I can't drive?!” The correction that I wanted to make, but wrestled to the ground before saying it, was, “You’re dying!!!!! It’s not like you had a bad run of things and are living here until you can rebuild your life; this is the END!!!!” But I sat on that statement until it cried Uncle and clenched my jaw shut as tight as I could. My brother's denial of his immanent condition, even though he was a hospice patient, was something no one could make him face.

Paul had been as steady a patient in the Florida Hospital ER as he was a patron at the Kangaroo Gas Station on the corner of Palm Coast Parkway and Belle Terre, his go to place for cheap cigars. With losing his driving privileges, my sister and I took turns taking him wherever he needed to go. In my case, we always ended up at the Kangaroo for him to score his filter-free brown coffin nails. It rattled me each time he prepared for the slow walk from my car into the store. Paul would always ask that I get as close to the door as possible but no matter my attempts, it was never close enough. At 6’6 and 130 pounds, he labored to go the distance from car door to counter. Each trip left me feeling guilty for being an accomplice in feeding his addiction. The angle of my car gave the perfect view of his frail frame barely able to stand holding his breathing machine in one hand and buying his death with the other; the stares he got bore through me like molten lava and I wanted to barge in with all my might and rip the judgment right off those nameless faces, but, that would require parking and possibly bond money--neither were appropriate under the circumstances. I've tried to wash that image of him at the Kangaroo off the walls of my mind and repaint something kinder and gentler, but I can’t so I avoid that intersection whenever possible.

He would tell the doctors that he quit smoking with each ER visit and just out of his vision I would shake my head, no he hasn’t. To his credit, Paul did try; his addiction just grew stronger the weaker his body became and he grew tired of dad having to call the ambulance every week. One morning Paul called wanting to know what time I would be over to mom and dads. When I asked him why he said he was having breathing issues and might need a ride to the hospital. Since he always had breathing issues, and he didn’t sound panicked; I felt no need to rush. Not even a second later I remembered that his last attack landed him on a ventilator for the first time. I called him right back, “Hey, do you mean I need to come right now?” Nonchalantly he said, “That would be a good idea.”



Pulling into the driveway I can still see him coming out of the front door with my dad behind him. “He needs an ambulance!” My dad insisted as Paul opened the door. The look on dad’s face should have been enough for me to turn off the car and call an ambulance but Paul waved him off and we drove away. Even before getting off my parent’s road, my brother’s breathing became erratic. He tried to say something but couldn’t. The sweat dripped off his forehead like a leaky faucet into a handkerchief he was thoughtful enough to bring. It was when he lost all color in his face that I started to lose it. Cars whizzed past us like bullets as my right foot pressed as hard as it could racing us to the ER. Fortunately, I remembered a friend’s presentation where she told the story about one of our Social Workers who witnessed something similar. The Social Worker slowed her own breathing down and calmly talked to the patient. It was all I could do to calm myself as the look on Paul’s face was so traumatic. My hands were white knuckling the steering wheel, I eased off the gas and began to slow my breathing as I spoke to Paul calmly. In that moment I thought my brother was going to die in my car before I could get him to the hospital.

Paul didn’t die that day but when he regained his color and the ability to breathe on his own, I marched into the ER room with my adrenalin still in full tilt about the horrifically selfish position he put me in. “NEVER call me again to take you to the ER!!!!” I said, daring him to challenge me. Instead, he admitted, softly (and with a greater awareness of his condition) that he didn’t think he was going to make it either. Sometimes when I’m driving alone, out of the blue, I’ll look over to my passenger seat and see him fighting for his life; my whole being reliving that tragic moment. That memory will be tucked into the glove compartment of my Kia when I trade it in; my hope is that it stays with the car as I've never had that memory come back anywhere else.

Paul came back into the living room from the patio and parked himself on the couch. He began texting his girlfriend when I decided to speak up. “I know you’re mad at me and think that your driving is none of my business but it IS my business! My family and friends are sharing the road with you. Your doctor said when that lung tears, you’ll be dead before you hit the ground. What if that lung tears and you drop dead behind the wheel and crash into another car killing innocent people? What if one of those innocent people where a family member or close friend? You’re being selfish! Stay mad at me as along as want; it will not change my mind. YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE DRIVING!” Paul didn’t look up from his phone but I refused to leave the room until he said something. “YOU WIN!” He said sternly. “You get what you want!” Again, his words tense with emotion. “I’m sentenced to this &^%$# house with no escape or peace from our parents, are you HAPPY now?!” His selfishness twisted around the axils in my mind and I struggled to remain calm. Paul clearly saw himself as my victim and made no attempt to understand the logic of what could happen. “It’s not about me winning, it’s about doing the right thing and I’m confident that I DID, but I'm sorry it makes you feel this way!” With that I got up from the recliner and went into my mom’s room to visit with her. Although I no longer engaged with him about the driving issues, Paul reminded me often about how my "thoughtless" decision impacted the quality of his life. There’s a part of me that remains sorry for the restrictions I placed on him just weeks before he died, but, my responsibility outweighed his person privilege.

It was October 17^th 2016 in the early part of morning when I walked into the bedroom. Paul was curled up on the floor in a fetal position, eyes closed and mouth closed. Cindy was laying in the hallway on her stomach cupping his head; her tears free falling into the floor with a few landing in Paul’s hair. She was upset about trying to lift his head to put a pillow under it---he was too stiff to move. “He’s not going to know.” I said, without thinking. “I just want his head on the pillow and not on the floor, it shouldn’t be on the floor.” Her words still wet walked slowly through my heart until I noticed what they were really saying; she was his big sister and still trying to comfort him even in his death. I suggested we attempt it one more time but we still failed to get the pillow under his head. Paul had been dead for hours. From what I can piece together of his last moments he got up out of bed for some reason and passed out just like the doctor said he would. He hit his head against the doorframe; when I moved his face there was blood and an obvious impact to the right side of his head. Cindy and I sat on the floor with our brother as dad paced around the house not knowing what to do with himself. He kept wanting to explain that Paul was supposed to blow the horn he had given him to alert dad that he needed help. “Why didn’t he blow the horn, WHY?” No matter Cindy’s attempts to explain to dad that it happened too quickly for Paul to even know what happed, dad’s guilt could be seen crawling all over him like a million baby spiders he could not shake.

Why am I sharing this very private story about me and my brother? It's to ask you to consider the people that you know who need to surrender their driver's license. We were fortunate that Paul died at home. Looking back over the headache and heartache this cost me; I have no regrets. Had my brother been behind the wheel when he died it is highly probable, since he drove I95 often, that he would have taken innocent lives with him. It feels important to me to spread the word. No one likes to lose their independence, but, even fewer like to lose a loved one over someone's inability to face the truth.

Feel free to share my blog if you think this information would be beneficial to others.

Mona McPherson