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 |  Just play: don't look at your hands! |
What a dumb title for a person who never got a single star  on her piano lessons!Daily practice is the thing though: the practice of noticing as well as of writing.  However, I'd much rather play duets than solos, so hop right in! You can do the melody or the base part, I don't care.  Just play along--we'll make up the tune as we go. I'll try to write regularly and deliberately. Sometimes I will do it poorly, tritely, stiltedly, obscurely. I will try to persevere regardless. It seems to be where my heart wants to go, and that means to me that God wants me there too. See you tomorrow. ![Merit Badge in Journaling
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| I can't say my day felt very holy today, whatever the (liturgical) calendar says. I waited at home, making soup and doing laundry, till I heard from Bill about his flight physical this morning. The result was not good, but not permanently bad either. Whew. He should have seen the sleep doctor again, although he has had no trouble with sleep apnea ever since he got his CPAP machine 15 years ago, and the doctor knows this and agrees. However, the FAA is big on making sure about this, surer than necessary. Also, his blood pressure, that's been running around 140 leaped to 160 in the stress of the exam. He'll have to have it taken three more times and documented by medical staff in the next week. Unfortunately, he can't get an appointment to see the sleep doctor until the 31st. That may throw a monkey wrench in the works. The flight surgeon can't hold his report up that long. After I heard the news, I made two patient visits in town, drove back home to get my tax return for the accountant (which he hadn't wanted till 1:30 today,) then back to work for an in-service from Adult Protective Services. Then more visits, a little shopping (at the grocery for fabric softener and Radio Shack for TV Ears,) and then to church. We have a service every evening this week at 5:30. The in-service was pretty interesting. We are all mandatory reporters since we work for a health care agency, and all our patients are considered vulnerable adults, since they're hospice patients. Not all adults are legally vulnerable though, which I didn't realize. APS does not have the power that Children's Protective Services has-- for better or worse. The speaker talked about various scenarios where we should report, but perhaps we might choose our way to do so carefully. Potentially, a neglecting caregiver could bar us from the home, and our patient who would be in a worse situation than if we were there. If there was actual physical or sexual abuse, the situation would be reported both to APS and to the police, but not so for neglect or verbal abuse or taking advantage of a person financially. Those last situations are what we are more likely to encounter. It's a real dilemma when a person wants to continue to live alone beyond the time it's really safe to do so. I know a woman in the hospital right now who fits that category. She has only been home a couple of weeks and has fallen again, and has another respiratory infection. Unfortunately, she has spent her life preferring to be in charge to being loving, and it is coming back to bite her. Her children do not want her with them, do not really want much to do with her. They want somebody else to "put her in a home." Well, she's been in a variety of adult living situations, but she tires of each one, and they of her as well. No residence or nursing home will be able to keep her from falling, but some could monitor her health and her breathing. The priest wants me to talk her into another such place "for her own safety." We'll see. One of the social workers at hospice, a 72 yr old spunky, active lady whose home burned down a year and a half ago, has said she certainly intends to stay in her little cottage (without running water!) as long as she can. She is independent and loves her privacy, and it would be a terrible insult to her spirit to make her change. Fortunately, she has a healthy constitution and managed to avoid the flu bug that took nearly everybody else out for a week or more. She was out for two days. My own mother would have much rather stayed in her own home and died there. It was because I couldn't be there to take care of her that I insisted she move to my town. Her dementia, Parkinson's, and faulty heart valves were all getting worse. Still, I know what it did to her spirit to have to do what I said instead of following her own way. I couldn't stand to see her neglected, so she moved for me. Enough. I didn't intend to go there tonight. Here's a laugh to end with. I asked a friend to help me tomorrow with a task at the Maundy Thursday service, and she wrote my name on her hand so she'd remember. She said that when she first opened a Head Start office, her hands were full of notes like: "diapers," "doctor's appointment," "juice cups," etc. When one teacher approached her for some staple she'd forgotten, Cindy handed her a pen, stuck out her arm and said, "You'll have to put in a requisition."  |
| I didn't leave myself time to write the serious blog I had in mind because I was busy playing. Do you know the lolcats at http://icanhascheezburger.com/? Well, you know you can make your own, right there on the site. They have 90 gazillion pictures to choose from, dozens of fonts and colors. All you do is put them together. Now, there's one thing I haven't figured out and that's how to get my creations in the lineup to be voted on. I'll now probably go past 9 pm trying to add a picture here, so just go stroll up and down the blog block and come back in a little while. Maybe I'll no have cheezburgers but pixurs insted. (Or at least a link.) |
| Our search committee at church has found three likely candidates to be our new rector. The first came to visit this weekend. Several groups, some invited for lunch and some open-to-anyone receptions were held to meet him and his wife, and the clergy met him last night over dinner. It was 10 p.m. when we got up from the dinner table, and I still felt as if I hadn't even met the man inside that face. He had few, if any, questions for us, and, as my husband put it, appeared to wish he were somewhere else. Although we gave him lots of information (or, maybe because we gave him lots of information) about the city, the church, the diocese, and the people, he had no questions. I felt as if we'd invited an interesting couple to dinner, but they didn't show up. Today was Palm Sunday, with all its pagentry. Our assistant rector carried on the show in grand form, complete with the changing of the Lenten purple vestments and hangings to the Passion week red, a change made after we processed all around the neighborhood with the choir, brass players and congregation singing, "All Glory Laud and Honor, to Thee Redeemer King." In place of the gospel lesson, we had a reading of the passion, this year from the gospel of Matthew, done in parts, that is, with different people playing different roles. I was the narrator, and, at the early service, did some of the parts too. It is a powerful thing to do, especially when the whole congregation yells, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" The sermon centered around Peter's denial of Christ, three times before the cock crowed, as Jesus had predicted. Peter continued to say," I do not know the man!" The preacher said that Peter spoke truly, that he did not know Jesus, really, and we frequently don't either. It was a well written, well spoken homily; in fact, the whole liturgy was excellent. If we'd been trying to impress the candidate, we surely should have done so. Fortunately, that wasn't our goal. It was to worship, and to involve everyone in the drama that the passion of Christ is. That's how we get ready for Easter-- that and five more services before that day dawns. I'm tired already. |
| From The New Yorker magazine: |
| Today, on our way out to see a patient who lives 18 miles from town, the social worker and I were discussing the difficult tasks one family member has taken on in order to insure a good end of life for her mother. The daughter in question, whom I’ll call Abby, is here from Connecticut to visit her dying mother. She has made the trip several times a year, and has been paying on a funeral plan for a long, long time. Her mother, I should mention, is not a wealthy woman who will be leaving an estate, not even a small one. The dedicated care, in itself, is not rare, but it is also not commonplace. The thing that makes this particular mission unusual is the relationship between these two women. Abby was sexually abused by her father from the time she was an infant. When she caught him doing the same thing to a much younger sister, she turned him in to the police, and he was sent to prison. She had to be removed from the home because her mother was so angry with her and treated her so badly for reporting him. Abby’s mother has never said she was sorry that it happened, or even indicated that she might be. Forty years after the fact, Abby is here to tell her mother she forgives her for not trying to stop the abuse. She wants her mother to be able to die in peace. She knows her mother will probably not reciprocate, but she wants to give her the opportunity. Even if mom doesn’t say a word, Abby will know she did what she could. As we talked about Abby, the social worker told me of another case she’d had that was similar. Belva, I’ll call the woman, took care of her father until he died, even though he had seriously physically abused her in her youth. Another patient, a man this time, at the insistence of his wife, took his ill mother into their home and, with the wife’s help, nursed her until her death. The mother had abandoned him when he was six, and had not seen him again in all that time. My last example is not as heroic perhaps, but it’s still impressive. It, too, is costly love. Carolyn called me today, very distressed. Her ex-husband’s mother is a hospice patient, and, although the divorce has been bitter, she still loves her former in-laws, and is determined to see they have the best of care. The ex has not followed through on his commitment to help them, and she is doing all she can, what with the ex and his girlfriend in and out of the picture. Carolyn called to say that her stubborn father-in-law, Willard, is trying to write his wife’s obituary and has decided not to have a memorial service. He has flip-flopped around about it, and is in a bit of a dither. Maybe I could help. I met Willard for the first time yesterday. Previously he had told the social worker that he did not want a chaplain coming, that he was sure I’d try to convince them that there is a God. Then I got another message from a CNA to call him, that he’d decide from talking to me if I could visit after all. Evidently I passed the test, because he told me to come right over. That was last night. Tonight his wife is much closer to death, and he’s uncertain about his decision. He tells me on the phone that maybe I can convince him to have a service, but that he’s “a tough nut to crack.” I tell him that I’m not going to try to make his mind up, that I’ll support his decision, but that I do have an opinion. He wants to hear it. When I arrived, his son was there. It quickly became clear to Willard that, even though the son told his dad he’d go along with whatever the dad wanted, he himself thinks there should be some sort of service for his mother too. Willard is still not sure. He's angry at friends and family who have not come to visit during her illness, or even before it. He doesn't "owe them anything." He knows that it will matter to Carolyn, and maybe to his son. He's thinking about it. Willard also heard me affirm that it is possible to have a service that isn’t full of religious language and phony sentimentality. He was glad I came. I was very glad Carolyn called. |
Has anybody else noticed some small changes around the site, and can you tell me what they are? I can't quite put my finger on it, but some things are different. And does anybody know why some things are showing up in the portfolio as pink? I have more questions about this site, but can't remember them now.  Answers. Our new cat came from the Humane Society with the name Brook, most likely assigned to her there. If she'd been surrendered by an owner, they might have given a name, but she was seized by Animal Control for an unnamed reason. I wanted to name her Blue Eyes because it's her most unusual feature. Bill liked Brook, and since I wanted the cat to be his, I agreed. But then he kept forgetting and calling her Blair, which is his daughter's middle name! The twins wanted to name her Mystery or Ice Cream Sundae, and I reminded them that T.S. Elliot says all cats should have three names. (Never mind that that made five!) Bill has been doing crosswords every night, and he notices the recurring words. One of them, previously unknown to us, is olio, a hodgepodge or miscellaneous mixture. This cat is part Siamese, part calico with a lot of white. Her newest name is Olio. (Yes, it does sound like the old word for margarine, which would fit better for a yellow cat. And yes, we're still forgetting and calling her Emily, our old cat's name.) While we were still at the pound, I tried a brush on her called the Furminator, and it worked great to get loose hair off. Guess what? Now we're at home, she doesn't like it and won't let me. Maybe when she's a little more used to being here, I'll use it anyway, but not for now. Gotta go sit with Bill and look at the newest baby pictures. Maybe I'll get back if I think of something more interesting to report. Wouldn't take much, would it? Oh yes, here it is, the 17 second video of Zach at six weeks laughing at his Pooh bear. Very cute! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2mk6occ0Rc |
| First, here are some pictures for you. I couldn't get them to load as images, so thumbnails will have to do. Please click on them to make them full size. The first is a truck in front of me at a stop sign. I took the picture through my dirty front window as he pulled away (you know it must be a man!)   The next two are pictures of our new cat that we adopted from the humane society Saturday morning. She was wonderfully accepting of the new place, grandkids in her face, and everything. She's still a little distant with the dog, who couldn't care less. I don't know how to make her eyes show up as the pretty blue they are. She isn't really a demon cat with red eyes, you see. She's actually a lovely pastel, Siamese-y version of a calico. |
It was a busy weekend, good busy. My daughter and the twins came down Saturday afternoon, after a long hiatus. The last time they were here was just after Thanksgiving when the twins stayed with me for a few days while their dad was in the hospital on the coast. They used to come every couple of months at the least, but they were younger and had fewer activities at home. And gas cost less. This time, the main incentive was that a co-worker invited us to come bottle feed her four bummer lambs Saturday evening. After they’d made their plan, the co-worker called and said they’d be out of town Saturday after all, but Sunday noon would be fine. Well, that meant I got left out of the deal, due to church. I took my jeans with me and changed right after the service, but by the time I got there they were fed. Guess I’ll have to make my own trip out there to try it. The second incentive for a visit was that my daughter’s washer is now the one that’s not working, so she washed several loads here. Turnabout from Christmas when I did the same at her house.     e:gift1} A thoughtful, useful, and clever gift arrived in the mail today. My thanks to Debi Wharton  for reading in my blog about sucking up my earring backs and sending me some dandy, soft replacements. What a nice thing to do, Debi! The space shuttle is shooting off tonight at 11, so I'll be able to depend on some writing time in the next week while Bill watches NASA. This is the first time in a long while that all astronauts on the mission are men.Godspeed Dominick Gorie and crew! |
| I’ll continue to describe the rooms of Cork’s Place, a grief center for children. For the first part of the article, see Tuesday's blog below. The next room is geared to an older level, with foosball and air hockey, shelves of games and books, the piano and other instruments. Teens sometimes sit and talk on the couch or floor pillows, with or without the diversion of activities. The third room we toured has a wall filled with craft materials of all kinds for all age levels. There’s a rectangular table built like a sandbox but filled with rice instead. Many little toys and figures, including tiny caskets, are there for the children to play with. The next room was the paint room. Only three children are allowed in there at a time, and there are many smocks and shirts hanging on pegs on one wall. There’s a table of big jars of washable paint, and a canvas drop cloth to protect the floors. The walls are fair game, and they are covered with handprints, splashes, hearts, stick figures, anything the child wants to do. The “volcano room” was the final spot we visited inside the house. It too can only take three children at a time, plus an adult, and its floor is covered with a thick foam mat. Shoes stay outside the door. A huge mound of large pillows takes up one end of the room, and above them is a “heavy” bag, a long punching bag that is suspended, hanging securely from the ceiling. Little children like to try to climb up on it, we were told, or bury themselves in the pillows. Older ones put on boxing gloves and whap away at it. Outside the house, in a fenced back yard, there are more activities. A wonderful playhouse has been decorated with a fireplace and rugs and chairs, all painted on. A replica of an old panel truck like the one Cork’s Pharmacy used to deliver medicines 70 years ago is a favorite of the kids. The adults almost always have to ride in the back, the social worker said. Cement has been poured for a basketball hoop, and there’s a great sand area with a large scoop shovel. All the painting and the toys and equipment used to furnish this house were donations. It is a community project, and one to be proud of. Our own town will be looking for ways we can offer something similar in the near future, maybe in collaboration with the children’s museum and hospice. |
| Yesterday we went on a field trip, two social workers, the other chaplain and me. We visited Tri-Cities Chaplaincy, which has a hospice program with an outpatient count of about 90, plus a 10-person in-patient house. They are a large agency with many programs, and we wanted particularly to hear about their grief groups. The part of the tour that was entirely new to me (having been on the chaplaincy board and in several of their programs in a previous life—twenty years ago) was Cork’s Place. It is modeled on a house in Portland called the Dougy Center, a place that works with grieving children. Cork’s Place is an average 1980 vintage rancher with a daylight basement. Adults who bring children to the grief group, which runs all during the school year, have a group of their own upstairs. Since the loss is often a parent, sometimes a grandparent or sibling, the person who brings the child usually has their own grief to cope with, in addition to that of the child’s. The Dougy Center began in 1982 as a tribute to Dougy Turno, a 13 year old boy who died of an inoperable brain tumor. Its founder, Beverly Chappell, was a registered nurse who worked in the area of death and dying. She saw that most people were uncomfortable with the subject, and that hospitals, churches, and schools had very little to offer children in their grief. She began to educate herself on grieving by attending seminars and lectures given by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who wrote much about the until-then neglected subject. Dougy wrote a letter to Dr. Kubler-Ross, asking why no one would talk to him about dying, even though he was facing his own death. Dr. Kubler-Ross corresponded with Dougy, and encouraged Beverly Chappell to meet him and his family when they came to the university hospital for treatment. Watching him, Beverly saw how compassionate he was with other children in the unit, and how they helped each other. She grew to have faith in children’s ability to process their own grief in the way they need to, as long as they have the freedom and safety to do so. Children in the grief program at Cork’s Place begin each session by meeting in a downstairs room that is rimmed with stacks of pillows. On one side a huge stuffed gorilla sits, inviting a child to sit in its lap and wrap its arms around him. The group begins by going in a circle, each child stating their name, age, the name and relationship of the person they lost, and how they died. Then they go over the rules, of which there are just a few. After that, the children go to whatever room they want, or outside, to play and maybe talk. The children range in age from three (I think that’s right) to eighteen, and they are divided into four age groups which meet on different nights. Well trained volunteers plus two staff people are there for the children at a one-to-two ratio of adults to the younger kids, a lower ratio for the older groups. The adults are specifically trained not to teach. That isn’t what they’re there for. They aren’t allowed to direct or guide, to criticize, or even to praise or affirm the children. The point is that the children don’t need anyone’s approval, and they don’t learn how to do what they need when they’re trying to please adults. The adults become more of a resource than anything, someone to listen, to help if asked, to play with if invited. The social worker in charge of the program gave this example: if the child wants to bang on the piano, the adult might bang on it too, or might simply reflect, “You’re playing the piano.” One room has all kinds of playthings, doll houses, dress-up clothes, toy kitchens, and, startlingly, a casket that the funeral home would use for a real infant. I asked about that, and the social worker told me that the youngest children like to climb into it and lie down. One ordered her and another adult to pick it up and carry it, and they had a mock funeral procession. Other children will put dolls or stuffed animals in it, and, of course, they often talk while they’re doing this. Mourning, as Dr. Alan Wolfelt refers to it, is the work you do relating to your grief, the talking or writing about it, the visiting of places and memories, the paintings and sculpture, maybe even mud pies, that help you express what you’ve lost and what you’re feeling about it. This is becoming too long, so I'll finish it tomorrow night. I hope it's interesting to you. It certainly was to me. |
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