Have to laugh?
Have to cry?
Might die
Might not.Chemo Therapy
Radiation
Radical
Surgery.My thoughts
Empathy
Sympathy
Gratitude bowing.
For those who are currently dealing with cancer who are known, and loved, by me and those who are unknown, and loved too.
The Trebus Project aims to capture the memories and insights of people with dementia before their words are lost to history.
Our archive of over 200 carefully assembled stories includes everything from an eyewitness account of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to a unique hangover cure. Many of the storytellers talk openly or in metaphor about their dementia and the problems it has caused. Although the archive is of great importance to academics and researchers, it is also hugely entertaining. Despite the stories being told in trying circumstances, they are often full of life and extremely funny.
This is John’s Story….
I think the trouble is that I’ve been made to sit in this chair day after day. I’m made to sit in it so much with nothing to occupy my mind that I drop off to sleep… I drift in and out of consciousness. It’s like torture. I think for some reason that this chair is conducive to the inputting of hallucinations. The noise is present in all of my environments for the last two years so I’m quite accustomed to noise that would disturb other people… shouting and cries and so on… but what I don’t like is that the call bell itself is so unreliable… I can ring the bell for hours and nobody comes… I’m not sure it works. I’m sure they would come if they heard it… wouldn’t they? Maybe they don’t know that I’m still here… we should give them the benefit of the doubt… they might think that I’m already dead.John’s Story.
Can you imagine?
Wondering
when you call for help
if they think you
are dead!
Thanks to Julius for the links.
My transfer of merit list, which I keep on my altar and read through every day, is soon going to run into a second page. Many of those on the list are dealing with cancer. That’s what you do deal with it or so it seems to me. The other day I spoke on the phone to a chap in a hospice, he volunteered that he was not afraid of death or anything like that. He just wanted to talk to a Buddhist. He seemed quite perky and I found myself reminiscing about my days working with Liverpool kids in the 1970’s. It was an attempt to take him back to the good old bad old days of his childhood. He is not going to live for a whole lot longer.
There is, perhaps, an expectation we have that being so seriously ill and facing possible imminent death people should adopt a grave attitude, err…a sullen and serious attitude. This video Last Laugh presented by comedian Alexei Sayle sails in the face of such assumptions. There’s gallows humour which the terminally ill, and elderly, get a lot out of. There is simple joy there too. I hope it does something for you, ill or not. The video is linked to an organization called Dying Matters which looks like it has some interesting and useful information and advice on it.
Mean while, down at the station the platform serves as a handy table for lunch. A break from oiling, polishing and generally titivating this fine specimin of a steam engine. All ready to go to work tomorrow.
Today I remembered, not only our age of steam heritage but also the late Iain Robinson who died almost a year ago. The railways were his passion.
Warning!! This post is a call to faith. If you have a problem with that term try replacing it with trust and leave out a subject or object of trust. See how you do with that. And read on or not as you feel is good.
Vainglory and curiosity are the two scourges of our soul. The latter leads us to thrust our noses into everything, and the former forbids us to leave anything unresolved and undecided.
-Michel de Montaigne
It fits my usage rather well in actual fact since I was talking to somebody who was, with very good reason, curious about the future and had been doing a goodly bit of on-line research. We all want to be able to predict outcome especially when the outcome does not look so rosy. A potential outcome that is dark. But need that stop us doing our research? I think not. The test is whether or not one is able to then set aside what one has found. Put it on the altar of our hearts, or our physical altar for that matter. This can be done and if on the way to ones altar there are low moments, desperately low moments, then so be it. The light on the altar never goes out no matter what. And can be always found, or even rediscovered, because of that eternal light.
I was talking to somebody yesterday about placing a life situation close to her on the altar and she said, I don’t think there is any more room! Which turned the conversation towards pondering on fundamental emptiness or immaculacy. You could say the fundamental enlightened nature of all existence. There being nothing to add nor taken away from anyone or anything at any time. However to hear that teaching is unlikely to help anybody when they hurt, badly. Not at the time anyway. When the storms are past is more likely to be the time when this teaching and others become true and known deep down.
But as our conversation continued on the phone yesterday I asked, You know that non of this can harm you, the fundamental part of you, don’t you. Her response? A knowing Yes. Yes, our fundamental enlightenment is not a secret kept from us until such time when we get it. Nope not at all. Projecting into the future is vainglory because it misses the shining moment. But don’t let’s allow time back into the equation!
The question is, what or who or where do you go to when the chips are down? There are many twists and turns on the path that brings us back to the altar of our own hearts. Compassion and acceptance are the watch words.
Now I had better get on and cook a meal.