Ridiculous dog raised to a new level of ridiculousness.
Posts in: Memories
A talk with the ancestors
Hey, ancestors, I want to talk to you about mom. You all know she’s in assisted living and on hospice care now. She knows the end is in sight, though we can’t judge the distance. I think she felt that nearness yesterday after a visit with one of the hospice folks. I called her last night. She’s afraid she’ll die and go to Hell. We know that fear is groundless, but she very much does not.
Thinking back on my phone call with mom last night, how she was cried, worried she would go to Hell. Remembering a line from an old David Bazan song: “I discovered Hell to be the poison in the well.”
The future is always unknowable but sometimes its impenetrability is tangible. As I plan for my mom, I have literally no idea how her life will proceed. My accountant brain wants to lay out the possibilities. Yet at every approach to the granite block of the future, it gently but firmly tells me no.
One week ago, at about this time of day, our lives went topsy-turvy. I took mom to the ER for treatment of a serious fall and it became clear as we’ve stayed with her this week how weak she has become. That, plus several other issues, have resulted in her qualifying for hospice care. We’ll also be moving her into assisted living in the coming days.
I’ve had so many surreal, hard conversations this week. Rachel has been amazing, pushing herself past her comfort zone in physical care and pushing me past my comfort zone in those difficult conversations.
It’s shocking how fast everything has changed. “Trust the unfolding” has become my mantra.
Now that offices have re-opened, it’s been a day of phone calls and a visit to a new doctor for mom. Note-taking, list-making, and plenty of stress. On the way to the doctor I thought, “I’m trusting the strong powers.” At which point I drove past a handmade roadside sign: “We are not alone.”
Godspeed, Gordon
This morning I was watching Gordon White’s tribute to the recently-departed Peter Carroll. I’ve never read any of Carroll’s books and I doubt I ever will. I was watching for the same reason I read or watched nearly everything Gordon produced: you never knew when he would drop some jewel of knowledge or practice. He ended the video with a prayer that Carroll would be seated as an ancestor of practice.
A game no one wins
“The man with an experience is never at the mercy of the man with an argument,” said the Holiness preacher. This line keeps coming back to me this year. It can and did indicate anti-intellectualism. I prefer to frame it, however, in terms of anti-rationalism, the critique of the idea that the rational mode of thought is, or at least ought to be, the clearest path to truth. Fresh out of Holiness churches during my cage stage Lutheranism, my parents, Rachel, and I were having Sunday dinner.
Prophesy, son of man
We were visiting with my in-laws this evening, talking about all sorts of things. Eventually the conversation turned to our worries about caring for my mom. My mother-in-law had been talking about her experience caring for a relative when, at one point, she launched into the most powerful two-minute sermon about trust in God I’ve ever heard. I had tears in my eyes. If she would have made an altar call, I would have responded.
Me and Dad
Me and Darcy
