Wednesday, February 24, 2010

My mother's death

My mom died peacefully in a local hospital on Christmas eve, after being hospitalized for about 3 weeks. I called 911 when she complained of feeling like she was be sick. I asked her where it hurt. She pointed to her chest and I was on the phone. The medic said her vitals were not bad. I said she has low blood pressure and she doesn't complain. They agreed to take  her in - long story short - she ended up in the ICU once they got her heart enzymes from her blood work.
So she didn't suffer because of early intervention.
In JAN 2005 I wrote the next two poems.

GREAT

That it didn't go on forever
That it was as good as it was
That I tried and didn't give up
And I love finally because

You chose to see the world my way
With your life you entrusted me
I'm grateful we found love together
And I will always be

Grateful and amazed
And graceful because of you
And all I came to know and trust
While we saw it through

To its painful resolution
Loss most always implies pain
Grateful I can say
I'd do it all again

PFK
1/o5


Gentle snowfall
Hope reborn
Quiet beauty
If you're warm

Nature's swirling
Flakes of down
Gently fall 
And settle down

Just like hope
As it settles in
Changing your vision
Of everything

PFK
1/05

Saturday, February 20, 2010

One and a half years after Taco's death, I still had not found another dog. But when I had to call 911 when my mom passed out, I though to myself - "I want a puppy."  I went out the next day to look. I ended up bringing home a mini, long-haired, chocolate brown dachshund. I called him Sami.
I had always thought when I first got Taco that she would help me through my mom's decline. Instead, she helped me understand grief - which helped me face my mom's eventual passing. But it was Sami who saw me through the sad inevitability.
He was and is a perfect companion for me. But I call him "handsome but headstrong".
I  wrote this poem about Taco right before I got Sami.

It's hard to let it fall away
Whatever was the norm
The changes life can put you through
As you your new life form

The landscape's less familiar
Until you accept it's not the same
New options feel peculiar
What once was will never be again

Unless your memory holds it clear
In some secret place within your heart
Where love burns like the eternal flame
A light within your present dark

Just as darkness precedes the day
Your life will lighten once again
Your life will soon recommence
New vantages to gain

At some point  memories arise
And sweet the past does seem
And you recall that life again
As if it was a pleasant dream

PFK
9/04

introduction + death and beyond grief

INTRODUCTION:

I have struggled with depression all my adult life. I worked in mental health hospitals (2) helping others while I did my own individual therapy. Over 20 years, I was in weekly therapy for 12 years with 3 different and very helpful therapists.
I learned to journal seeing my 3rd and last therapist (1992-1999). The journaling turned into poetry. I left therapy at the age of 52 - just before I retired early to care for my mom.
I continue to cope and grow by expressing myself through words. I refer to it as EMOTIONAL POETRY.  It comes from more consciously feeling my way through my life. I'm learning to nurture as well as listen to myself in the moment. I'm finishing my second decade of poetry.

ABOUT ME:
I began in earnest - my spiritual journey - when I retired early.  My efforts in therapy helped me make the leap to leave a paycheck and take care of my m0m.  It felt like such a risk. But I knew if I didn't - I'd be like my father - controlled by fear and never willing to take a risk.
I leapt and I've been fine.  It wasn't easy or quick - but it has been very instructive. Late in life I have learned to love myself and the people in my life.

BEGINNING:
After two years of care taking my mom, she would say to me, "Peter, we need some enthusiasm." Sadly she was right. Then I heard about a litter of puppies and I asked for a female. I called her Taco. She was part mini-dachshund and part King Charles spaniel - weighing about 14 lbs.  She was irrepressibly sweet and affectionate with everyone. Taco became our enthusiasm.
For three years she helped me understand a lot about love and joy. When she was killed  by a car, I learned about grief. My mom and I helped each other through it. 
I wrote the next 4 poems about Taco:

I feel life has left me
At the wayside on a road
Which heads off to the distance
But I've put down my load

Momentarily crippled
My mind has gone quite numb
A loss has cleaved my heart in two
And I have now become

An ache adrift without a place
Where life feels not the same
My mind keeps drifting backwards
I weep at the mention of her name

I know I need to figure out
A way to carry on
But I am lost in memories
Of days I felt were halcyon

Grief is a path and if I'm wise
I follow where it leads
Another sunrise come and gone
And yet my heart still bleeds

Into the coming sunset
My fragile hope sets with the sun
The pain is less than yesterday
But my loss goes on and on and on

PFK
6/03

Sunset is on the horizon
The nascent moon is in the east
I am somewhere in between
Reflecting at the very least

That life can change within a blink
And I can be a different way
The morning starts without a clue
Where I will be at the end of my day

I've learned to daily dream a dream
Which illuminates my heart
But to open each day to what happens
And see it as the unseen part

Which helps me figure more precisely
Where I ultimately need to be
And it's not always where I think
But I have come to see

The subtext which lies beneath
The one I call my own
Is my litany: Thy will not mine
Until thy will be done

It takes such faith to feel my way
Between my ego and God's will
I pray to understand and go
Beyond the beyond and until the until

PFK
8/03

I am left to wander
The devastation of this day
Recalling all the memories
I wish would go away

And not remind me of my loss
A thought too hard to bear
What consoles a broken heart
With painful memories everywhere

I have the thought to wish my mind
Would go completely numb
Today is like a new frontier
A landscape with no sun 

I am left to find my way
Down a road with broken glass
Shards of shattered memories
Of a life that didn't last

I am daunted by the journey
But I cannot stay here
Where my loss is haunting me
My love replace by fear

And I walk with no protection
I have the soul but not the shoes
But I move forward anyway
Sure I've nothing left to lose

PFK
1/04

From here I can't see but I've been to
The dark side of the moon
The other half that life can hide
In dark forbidding gloom

Where secrets and the shameful past
Are hidden and ignored
But I sought it out and looked around
The slab with its cold corpse

So I know I can determine
How the rest of my life can bloom
Because I've been there and back again
To the dark side of the moon

PFK
1/04