UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Have been thinking quite a bit lately about a wide range of unintended consequences.  A lot of times, those consequences are none too pretty.  Sometimes, they are wondrous. 

This past Monday is a prime example of a bright, shining unintended consequence.  The Presbyterian chaplain at a grannie client's senior residence has made a significant difference in her life.  She enjoys his Bible study class & takes special interest in his series on comparative religion.   She always has a lighter step & a beaming smile after one of Chaplain Tom's presentations.

On behalf of my grannie client, I arranged a tour of the church we both attend.  Two recently retired (semi, in Jeremy's case) church leaders accepted our invitation to join us.   The three ministers & both of us enjoyed the tour, which was capped off by lunch at the nearby Be Well Café.  

What had been intended to be special thank you to a gifted minister turned out to be a special gift to my grannie client.  Since entering the senior residence, she's been wistfully regretful about living in two different, unconnected worlds - - her longtime hometown, where she still goes to church, and the very nice senior residence. 

When I first suggested arranging the tour & lunch, it hadn't dawned on me that the two would serve as a bridge between her two worlds.  What a wonder it was, experiencing her in the presence of three men she knew so very well - her pastor & bishop & the minister currently most present in her life - enjoying each other, sharing life experiences & playful banter & some truly awful jokes. 

Building a bridge between my grannie client's two worlds - now forever connected - wasn't my plan, but it's right up there with the top three unintended consequences in my life!!

NOTHING VENTURED....

As a thank you from a grannie client for a terrific series on comparative religion, I invited the chaplain of her senior residence to a tour of our cathedral.  Then, being a big believer in "nothing ventured, nothing gained, I asked both the recently retired executive bishop of our church and the recently retired pastor of our local congregation  if he'd be interested in joining us.  The Presbyterian chaplain accepted & the other two said, YES!

This morning - a pearl of a day, with the countryside bathed in autumn colors, my grannie client & I had a grand time with all three!  The two of us tagged along as Rt. Rev. Tom Kline, Rev. Jeremy Simons (now cathedral chaplain) & Rev. Tom Summers traipsed around first the cathedral nave et al, then walked the grounds around it. 

Will go to my grave unsure which held the greatest delight for my beaming grannie client et moi - the cathedral tour or lunch afterwards at Be Well Bakery & Cafe.   Both of us enjoyed ourselves to the hilt, listening to the three ministers enjoy each other's company over a delectable meal. 

As the two of us drove back to her senior residence, my grannie client asked, "HOW did you make this wonderful time happen?"  It was as simple as could be - I asked.  And the three gentlemen came through, BIG time, creating a moment my grannie client will forever hold in her heart.  

To each of them - thanks, thanks & more thanks!

BEAU IDEAL

Friends of ours recently visited their London-based daughter & son-in-law.  Dave's truly older parents went with them, as well as their son & daughter-in-law & toddlerish son. 

Four generations, visiting loved ones in England before heading to France. 

 

The Z's - - my very beau ideal of wondrous eldering!

UNLIVED LIVES

One thing I will never lay claim to is being any sort of pseudo-psychologist or counselor, a giver of deeply personal advice & explorer of hidden issues.  That's because I've been blessed to know people who are gifted & trained in such matters ~ ~ Mark Carlson, Kevyn Malloy, Kim Vargas, to name a few ~ ~ and recognize the chasm between them & an interested friend.

So, I am left contemplating if it's commonplace for the truly older to look back with curiosity at earlier moments in their life, at roads not take, at choices made.  It's something I've experienced with some grannie clients, something I experienced with my own mother.  Not a matter of regrets for their lives, just a realization that things could have turned out so very different from the way they did, a desire to consider the sweet "What if..?"  rather than harbor a regretful "If only..."

DEATH informs LIFE

Today is a friend's birthday.  She's been posting pictures of her daughter's wedding on Facebook.  What joy & sweet remembrance in seeing those wonderful photos, especially seeing Kim looking so happy & hardly any older than the year we taught 6th grade, than when she was married over a winter wonderland Christmas.  How blessed her children are to have her as their mom, how blessed she is to be sharing these years with them.

Maybe I'm super susceptible to such sentimental meanderings, having just watched (again) Raising Helen.   The plotline about a Manhattan fashionista suddenly handed custody of her nieces & nephew after their parents’ sudden death makes scenes of mothers & adult daughters especially sweet.  And having just reread Erin & Doug Kramp's Living With The End In Mind makes me appreciate anew the young father's wisdom in addressing the unthinkable possibility of their unexpected passing. 
 
The first question in the book's first chapter asks, "Why should you read a book about embracing your mortality when the ultimate goal is to live?"  Their answer ~ "Because death informs life.  We can go about our day-to-day lives, or we can use the knowledge that we all will die to gain perspective on what is important today ~ whether we are healthy or ill."
 
The first personal sense my John had of Mom was the night the two of us first talked about getting married.  When I pulled out the church liturgy to look over wedding-related services & rituals, we discovered a piece of paper acting as a marker for "Funerals."  It was a list of hymns Mom wanted for her memorial service.  At the time, Mom was hale & hearty, on her 6th of 7 trips to Australia.  It was both a chortle & a WOW! moment, making me realize how cool it was of her to have thought ahead, to have written them down, and placed them where, if the need had come up, we would have found them.  And it left John pretty drop-jawed with amazement at the person who jotted down those page numbers.
 
Death informs life.  Did we use those hymns for Mom's memorial celebration?  No, we did not - she took a different route, asking each of her children to pick a favorite.  But having those jotted down numbers opened the door, it started a conversation.  Not only did it make it easier on all of us when the day finally did dawn that we had to organize Mom's memorial celebration, it became an opportunity for her to connect with each of her children, to let them know their participation in that special moment was special to her, to let each of her children feel a direct part of remembering Mom. 
 
How blessed I am to have the friends who post such wonderful moments in their lives.  How blessed I was to have a Mom who always seemed to live with the end in mind, enjoying each moment while preparing herself - and us - for the last.

BE PREPARED

Rewind 16 years. Just around this time, Mom & I were putting the finishing touches on plans for the road trip of her dreams, down to EPCOT, with stops in Williamsburg (which she loved), Charleston (which she longed to visit) & extra special lodgings in Jacksonville.  We had a grand time, from our first stop (for a late breakfast in Philadelphia) to our last nightcap at Wilderness Lodge. 

As we headed back north, little did I suspect that the most wondrous part of the trip was about to unfold!

A hallmark of our coastal route south were the audiotapes we listened to as the miles rolled by - Stephen Covey, Louise Hay, Marianne Williamson, John Bradshaw, Wayne Dwyer, and lots of Willie Nelson.  On the trip back, working our way up the Great Smoky Mountains to the Blue Ridge, the tapes remained tucked away in their carrying case as Mom & I got into lengthy discussions about her memorial celebration.

Yes, that's right - we talked, at great length, about the ways she hoped her family & friends would celebrate her life at her passing.  It was amazing!  Not a smidgen of sadness or gloom touched those talks.  The miles sped by as we spun those highly energized, life-affirming conversations!  We learned a lot about each other - and ourselves - as we considered the ins & outs & 'round abouts of how Mom hoped she'd pass & how she wanted us to experience it as joy, rather than sorrow.

Four years later, those conversations & the ideas that were bandied about made it easy, even uplifting, to deal with Mom's last hospitalizations, her brief hospice, and arranging her memorial celebrations.  There was no wondering which hymns she wanted - Mom had asked each of her children to select a song for the service.  We didn't have to ponder the special music - Mom not only had outlined what she wanted, in at least one case she'd asked friends if they'd sing solos.  Three years before she passed, Mom asked a minister especially dear to her heart if he would do her service.  We'd gone through her photos to pick out which ones she thought would give a good view of what was a most fortunate life. 

One thing she wished she had done before she was left unable to write was to leave notes note for each of her children & children-of-her-heart.  Other than that, she felt satisfied with how well prepared we'd all be when her time came.

When it came to preparing for her final days & passing, Mom fully lived with the end in mind.  Like a good Boy Scout, she was prepared.

Contrast our happy memories of  Mom's passing - at 91, she wore out, rather than rusted out, just as she'd hoped -  with the experience of friends, whose mother died.  Unlike Mom, she & her family had shied away from discussing end-of-life issues.  As she lay, unconscious, her husband was faced with making enormous, heart-wrenching decisions about her medical care, without any idea of what she wanted because they'd never talked about quality of life issues.  After she passed, her spouse & children had to arrange the many details of her funeral - What type of casket would she want?  Which favorite outfit should she have for the viewing?  Is the church available, the minister?  Should there be a gathering afterwards?  Where?  How to let her friends know she's passed?   - at the freshness of their loss.  After all that, they had to head back to work, where coworkers who'd offered condolences now expected they'd gone through a sufficient grief process.

If only.  If only their parent's had discussed end-of-life issues, if only they'd noted ahead of time what they wanted at a memorial service, if only they'd let others know which friends should be contacted in the event of their passing.  

That might sound sort of...  ghoulish.  Personally, I've never found it in the least disconcerting to discuss such issues.  Maybe that's because an early loss taught me how swiftly death can come, at any age.  Maybe it's because I'm quite practical when it comes to such matters.  Maybe it's because I will always remember John having to deal with intrusive details rather than working through his grief at his own Mom's sudden passing.  Maybe it's because I know first-hand the importance of discussing medical care issues well ahead of time - it turns out that John &  I have radically different ideas on taking extraordinary measures, differences that are so extreme I gave someone else my medical power of attorney.  

There is no 2nd guessing when we are going to pass.  Dad died just around my age.  I know, first hand, the heartache he felt leaving my Mom without the support measures he could have put in place ahead of time.  I remember, as he was getting ready to leave our house for the nursing home where - in less than a month - he ended his days, his stricken face.  Mom put her arms around him & tried to console him with, "Pete, I'll be okay. I have two fine sons to take care of me."  Will never forget him lowering his head, shaking it.  Broke my heart then, breaks it again as I remember it.  He grieved for all he could have set up to protect her in his absence, yet had never thought of because there'd be time enough.

One of the things I want to accomplish through my older2elder efforts is helping people of all ages have those conversations.  It's never too early or too late to start.  Mom was quite an age - 87 - when we had ours.  Up until that trip homeward, I could have made educated guesses about what she wanted, but how much better was it to actually KNOW, to be able to just implement rather than plan her memorial celebration. 

Using Erin & Doug Kramp's incredible book, Living With The End In Mind, will talk a look at the different things we can do to make our here & now life fuller, our final days more bearable, and our passing even uplifting for those we leave behind. 

How can each of us live with the end in mind?  We can do what we can to be prepared.  It might be among our greatest legacies. 

THE END DETERMINES THE MEANS

A few months ago, I read - sorry, can't remember where - that "the end justifies the means" is incorrectly phrased.  The correct wording, per the source, should be "the end determines the means," casting a way different meaning over the adage.

Recently, have been thinking about all the ways that OUR end should determine the means by which we live it.  My life has been more haphazard, free-style experiencing, rather than keeping my eye on the end & living from that awareness.  Being physically active hasn't been part of my life, nor has being financially wise.  Being aware of my end has, until fairly recently, been woefully weak-willed, something to put waaaay to the back of my mind.

Fred & Greta help shake things up a bit.  What joy, watching them arrive at church on their bikes. In their early 80s & still cycling!  According to their family, the two of them made the conscious decision back in their 40s to pro-actively develop healthy living habits.  Made me think of an elder who, in her later middle age, committed to a yoga practice so she could get down on the floor & play with her grandkids when she hit her older years. In her 80s, she does!  Each of these three elders exemplify "living with the end in mind," an end that determines the means by which they live.

Perhaps no one has expressed the importance of the end determining the means than Erin
Tierney Kramp.  As described on OPRAH, "Erin and her husband Doug were happily married, raising their daughter, Peyton, when out of the blue, Erin was diagnosed with breast cancer. Afraid that Peyton would have to grow up without her, she began working on a legacy of love, recording hours and hours of motherly advice for her only daughter. The videotapes covered everything from how to choose makeup ("Try to find makeup that looks natural, like you're not wearing any") to how to choose a husband ("Pick a very nice guy who has a backbone"). In the midst of grueling treatments, Erin also found the strength to write letters and prepare gifts for Peyton to open every Christmas and birthday after she was gone. ~  Erin also left a special wish for Doug: She hoped he would marry again.  In 2005,  Doug and 13-year-old Peyton visited Oprah's stage and brought a very special person with them—Peyton's stepmother Cheryl, who was expecting her second baby with Doug.

Three older friends & one remarkable young woman I never met - each touched my life, each helped wake me up to the importance of living with the end in mind, of always remembering that the end determines the means - so I better live as if I mean it. 

I like to think it's what Machiavelli would have wanted.


   

INSPIRATION from a COMPOST PILE

Discovered an enjoyable, perspective-changing read today ~ ~ Edward Sylvia's Sermon from the Compost Pile ~ seven steps toward creating an inner garden. 

Had never thought of my mind as a compost pile, all the scraps, the bits & pieces of life not simply decaying, but transforming into rich fertilizer. 

Not all scraps or bits & pieces.  Most people don't bother with composting.    The eensiest weensiest bit of our planet's organic material ends up on a compost pile. Too much time, too much bother, too little space for most people.  Way easier to spin organic material down the garbage disposal. 

What a woeful analogy for the human experience - how many of us take the time to tend the bits & pieces of past experience, putting them in a place where they can transform into rich fertilizer for life rather than just decaying garbage?  

Nature is the master composter.   Plants, like humans, have their life cycles, with essential uses served at every step along the way.  It might not look that way, but they are as useful at the apparent end of their cycle as they are at the start.  When they follow the cycle originally intended, they compost into a rich soil.

Interesting to think of my thoughts, lessons learned, events experienced as composting in mind, ideally serving as rich nutrients for my here & now.  

Am blessed to have remarkable gardeners as friends.  I think of the wonderful compost bins they constructed, material carefully added & moved forward at various stages.  Something that surprised me was learning the importance of turning the collected material so it composts as effectively as possible. 

It's been several hours since my first gander at Edward Sylvia's book, and I find my thoughts keep going back to it.  There's nothing new in seeing ourselves as the caretakers, the "gardeners," of our personal mental & spiritual processes.  What won't let go of my imagination is the image of tending it, giving it the space & time & care to become rich nutrients for future growth.  Not sure if that was the author's intent, but it's stuck. 

In spite of being fairly flinty with available funds, can tell that I'll be heading back to the book center for Sermon from the Compost Pile.  What comes next?  Can tell this is going to be a longtime ponder, especially its implications for my older friends.  

Expect to hear more!

KEEPING CURRENT

Thursday's weekly current events discussion at a local "senior lifestyle" residence zings the minds of the participating olders every bit as soaking in Barbara Trent's jazz vocalizing wows on Wednesday nights.

As expected, today's was especially lively.  It is a small but interested & interesting group.  My only regret is that it doesn't include a broader diversity of political view points.  The discussions are informative, but difference of opinion provides a greater depth, a better understanding of another point of view, a better appreciation of what you really believe & why.  The group illustrates a major problem with our nation's current electorate.  When I grew up, there were lively debates between people holding different points of view, holding different political beliefs.  That is incredibly rare these days - each choir preaches to & within itself.  That is not healthy for American politics.

On the other hand, our weekly discussions are very healthy for my grannie client - they remind her of listening to her parents' political discussions! 

What a blessing, what a mental exercise without peer, for my g.c. and her fellow residents.  They are very kind to let me, a mere kid of 61, sit in.  .

KIM VARGAS, LCSW totally ROCKS!

A zillion thanks to Elizabeth Venart (director & founder of The Resiliency Center in Ambler - and my laughter yoga leader!!) for recommending KIM VARGAS, when I came looking for someone with whom an older friend could talk. What I was looking for was someone who would focus on the promises of growing older, the treasures to be found in saging, the joys waiting to be discovered. Kim is a wonderful match for a delightful older woman who just needs someone to talk to, rather than to work out "issues."

Kim is perfect, at least for this particular senior. Her bio describes Kim's open, engaged style helps promote a warm and nonjudgmental environment" ~ so true. As I write this, am smiling, seeing in my mind's eye the happy greeting she always gives on our arrival, her lit-up face, the gentle sense of friendship that fills the room as I high tail it out for the duration of their talk session. She is a wonder! No matter how my grannie client might feel at the start of a visit with Kim, she always walks out with a lighter step, all smiles and... well - seeming more resilient.

Frankly, it continually shocks me how most people seem unaware of the MEGA value to seniors - especially those who are seriously older - of having someone "safe" to talk with, someone with whom they can share the things once confided to long-gone good friends & beloved family.

Of course, it's a huge advantage that Kim has an info sheet on one of her primary areas of expertise - helping new moms address the challenges & joys of parenthood. That one info sheet helped my grannie client lower her guard & warm to Kim!  Kim seems to bring to their talks the same openness she brings to her new moms, available to discuss whatever comes up.

Writing about Kim - okay, praising her to the skies - is spurring me to consider the WHY behind my longtime advocacy for seniors to have a wise confidant. Seems like 99.99% of us youngers are more or less oblivious to the immense inner challenges faced by olders, especially if they've lost a partner or never married. Throughout their lives, there's been more experienced others to help them adjust & learn to ace a new stage - parents, teachers, employers all helped introduce them to & master whatever new environment they faced. In old age, they often feel rudderless. Having the willing ear of a trained counselor provides someone who can help them navigate the new waters on which they find themselves. This can be true for those living in their own longtime homes, in longtime communities, with friends & family close by, but even more so for the many moved into "senior lifestyle" communities.

Anxiety, depression, loss of a sense of self, family relationships, missing a spouse, transitioning to new & often scary states – Kim deftly navigates each of these. Best of all, she is someone with whom my grannie client feels at ease, her counseling area a space where my older friend feels welcome & safe.

Even if Kim charged twice, three times, the modest rate she bills for the bi-weekly hour, the return on investment would be beyond worth it, providing priceless benefits for both my grannie client & her family.

Wishing all my senior friends had a Kim in their life. She rocks!!


from Kim's professional bio -  Kim Vargas is a Clinical Social Worker licensed in the State of Pennsylvania. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in International Studies from Brown University and graduated from Catholic University with a Masters in Social Work. She has been a psychotherapist for over 12 years working with clients to address a variety of issues, including depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, parenting and relationships. She is trained in both Cognitive-Behavioral and Psychodynamic Therapies, and utilizes techniques from both to promote growth, empowerment, and a greater level of happiness in her clients.  (small wonder i think the world of kim - we share the same basic goals to engage-energize-empower!  ~ deev ~)     

MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRIC

One of the greatest challenges many of my older friends face is what feels like a generational shrinking away from being sad, or from any "negative" feelings.  In talking to them, the sense of keeping your feelings to yourself - better yet, not to feel them in the first place - seems fairly universal, shared by people from a full spectrum of social, economic & spiritual backgrounds.

 
It's a challenge, because feelings that are buried away unfortunately don't go away.  But to acknowledge, accept them - that's unimaginable to a vast number of olders.  It's a delicate situation for children & other loved ones to consider.  How to help them realize that mourning is not a weakness, but a healing response to loss? 

 
In my birth faith, the process was further complicated for people of my Mom's age by a teaching about not revealing "secrets of the home."  More heartbreak was perpetuated by spouses & children staying silent about abuses that did unimaginable damage, unspeakable because God meant for them to remain family secrets.  In my situation, that was an actual church teaching, but many other families embracing many other faiths had the same belief.  I know how hard it was for Mom to let go, to feel it was okay to open up about the tragedies & heartbreak in her life.  Mom really double-whammied herself, not talking to friends or even ministers about life challenges, believing their resolution was strictly between herself & God.  That still strikes me as chilling.  And wondering how many of her contemporaries - of all faiths - feel the same.

 
It was a shock to Mom when she discovered - with the help of a remarkably gifted psychologist - that dealing with hurtful moments from the past helped her shift past them, beyond their reach.  She was astonished to realize how often sad past events had served as a foundation for something wonderful.  As she wrote in The Velveteen Grammie - "One key lesson learned over the past few years is that even unhappy events can bring unexpected opportunities. Going back to Margery Williams' book (The Velveteen Rabbit), if the Boy had not gotten sick, if the loved but germ-infested Rabbit was not doomed to be burned, if he had not been able to wriggle a bit to get out the sack, if a real tear had not trickled down his shabby velvet nose, the Rabbit would not have come at that time into the fullness of being REAL. You could say my eyes come close to dropping off (cataract surgery is scheduled this fall) and my physical appearance is certainly getting shabbier."   

 
That understanding took YEARS to achieve & almost Herculean efforts on Mom's part.  It started with her realizing the mourning was a not a denial of God's Providence, but a way to move beyond hidden pain, learning from it instead of denying, shifting from the rigidity of painful past experience to a new flexibility with each fresh present moment.  What was my part in it?  Teeny, but important, letting her know it was okay to be vulnerable, that she was right that God wants to work with us to lessen pain & use it for good, but that it's done through fellow humans, not directly by the Divine Almighty. 

 
It was no mere happenstance that, just around the time her eyes were pened to the possibility that there might be gifts to be unlocked in past pain, she discovered Christ Has No Body, by Teresa of Avila, which includes wondrous imagery:
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours.

 
It was as if her inner eyes flew wide open - it wasn't just that SHE was Christ's hands & feet & eyes, but that others were, too.  For her.  Radical thought, radical acceptance. 

 
The whole concept of how to help olders connect to hidden hurt  & pain is one where I can share my personal experience, but can't give much advice, other than to be aware of the problem many of the Greatest Generation share in dismissing their very real, often deeply buried griefs & heartbreaks. 

One thing I suggest to friends & to families of clients is that they find someone an older loved one can talk to.  Mom's serious challenges called for the expertise of a psychologist, but what's often needed is just another person to talk to, knowing it's confidential.  I personally steer clear of anyone trained in geriatric counseling.  One grannie client has developed an excellent connection with a licensed social worker, a young woman whose primary focus is helping women transition into motherhood!  She focuses on the ALIVE aspects of my friend, not on her age. 

 
Ultimately, on her own, Mom came to realize, to accept that grief was not an offense to God, that sad feelings were normal, that difficult & even deeply hurtful moments might hurt but were not inherently negative.  An analogy that came to me helped Mom get to the place where she finally - on her own, not to please me - called for a counseling appointment.  It was quite simple - to turn over an engine, a car battery needs both negative & positive energies.  We can only strike a healthy balance in our lives by letting it be sparked both the upbeat & heartbreak.  Approached with a wholesome, healing attitude, mourning can indeed become electric, illuminating & empowering life. 

 

 

.    .  .