So how do we profoundly, strategically, madly let to in a family system? We get hung up over what without question we believe is true. It is not true. What is true? I do not know. You do not know. We’re all, every one of us, every day making it up, guessing, testing what might work. So what if we throw out what’s not working and test out something? Even that we ought to discard.
:- Doug.
Our modern medicine has not made our maladies disappear; it has only made them last longer: made chronic what used to be acute.
:- Doug.
How may we yet
Be about
Rounding our lives together?
:- Doug.
It’s a terrible thing to waste our elders.
:- Doug.
Our elders: a resource we’re wasting.
:- Doug.
We often get stuck in what’s not working, what’s the problem. Let us resolve to turn our heads when lost and see what is working.
In our families, when we are hurt or afraid and want to pull away, we may help this way.
:- Doug.
Yesterday I met with two sisters to converse about care for Mom. The meeting grew heated; one was dog tired.
The sisters have a need to continue as family. Both need to find a way to deal with their emotions.
To do that, they need to see what the emotions are and untangle them, so they can address them. The emotions are serving us, giving us something valuable. The emotions are telling us something needs attention. So we need to bring that attention. But not on the emotion, on what the emotion is telling us: what is important here?
:- Doug.
We do not die alone. We die in the midst of us. In most settings, the person is ripped from the cloth, leaving stretched and torn threads. We all die a bit, we all contract, we might expand. If the death is witnessed, there is an exchange, and often it is good for the witness. Something in us goes away, maybe a familiar touch, a voice on which we depended. What is happening is that between is changed.
:- Doug.
What does it mean to you to have a good death? What does it mean to a family to be part of a good death? Given the people you are given in your family, what might a good death be?
:- Doug.
In families we love to devise ways to play well together. Does more experience with playing together help us? Does more experience with playing well together help us?
:- Doug.
Out of fear some people do not want to have the conversation about care of Mother or Father at end of life. What is the antidote to fear? Love. How can love step in? Firmly? Some other way? What would Mother do?
What if the reason is not fear but something else?
Can we connect with those who do not want to be connected? Can we write them, journal to them, do any good by writing to them then tearing it all up? Do they really want to turn their backs? Do we want to let them?
:- Doug.
If at the start you have to ask what a service will cost, maybe I cannot afford you as a client. Maybe you are so hung up on money that you will be blinded to doing what you need. That could tie my hands—and yours.
:- Doug.
Don’t count on the Veteran’s Administration or even Medicaid for all your Long-Term Care. You still need love: a kind touch, a cold wash cloth.
:- Doug.
Given this—Dad’s dementia or Mom’s decline—how can we fit together, now? What are our special gifts, needs, fears and visions, and what’s possible with us?
:- Doug.
Friends–
Come out and see, without cost, the Indiana premier of the documentary (featuring Mickey Rooney), “Last Will and Embezzlement.”
Wednesday evening, May 30, 2012, at the O’Laughlin Auditorium at Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame, IN. Doors open 6:00 pm, Film begins at 7:00, with panel presentation featuring the film’s writer & producer, Pamela Glasner. A dessert reception starts at 6:00 pm.
It is free, but you must rsvp to 574/239-8364, or email padams@hcc-nd.edu.
This film is about financial exploitation. A trailer is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJCDQpqHPEQ and more info of this event can be found here: http://gcmichiana.com/month9.aspx.
Come and watch!
:- Doug.
Yesterday I saw a writing which suggested that wanting to die at home is looking at things through rose colored glasses, that many families are overwhelmed with caring for someone at home and prefer in the end to have the help of a hospital or other institution. Yet it seems to me the question is more nuanced even than that. It depends on the pictures people hold in their heads. What does dying look like? What do we want it to look like now, for this person we love? What is the role of technology, and for how long? Specifically, do we need beeping machines and computer monitors, wires and tubes to care for this loved one, or are blankets and wash cloths and hugs more important? Is quiet better than machines at whole-making? Are we afraid to touch? Are we afraid to see? Do we see our own mortality, or do we choose to see someone who needs our loving, someone who is loving us?
:- Doug.
What can we find in elder conversation?
:- Doug.
