Looking Back in Order to Look Forward

"Sometimes you have to look back to be able to look forward."
~ unknown

It's that time of the year when I look back to see where I've been, what I've accomplished, and where I want to head in the coming year.  I've done this every year for the past 35 years except last year.  John had died in November and the best I could do was hope that I'd endure the grief and mourning that overwhelmed me - and I wasn't so sure about that.

So, this year I dared to pull out my private journals from 2018 and 2019 (six in all) and began to read, hesitantly, a few pages at a time.  Knowing I would dredge up painful memories, bittersweet memories, but also, hopefully, memories that could sustain me and buoy up my tentative optimism for the coming year.

 I had so many questions:

• Had I been the compassionate companion I wanted to be?  Did I do enough?
• What help and support meant the most to John, to me, to us?
• What help could I or should I have asked for sooner?
• Why was this past autumn so challenging? Why am I optimistic, even if cautiously, now?
• What have I learned from these past two years?  How have they shaped me?
• What could I accomplish or contribute as a result?  What calls to me?

I've started at both ends of those 26 months, the early months after the diagnosis and the last months immediately preceding and succeeding his death.  And the months of this previous autumn.  It's glaringly obvious that this will take me more than a couple weeks to accomplish, as I write a minimum of two college-lined 8 1/2 x 11 pages every day and many of them are challenging to read.  I've taken on a  project that could well take a few months.

But this much I have learned already:

• This past autumn was so challenging, in part, because the summer flew by with relative ease, and I became complacent.  I was stunned by the impact of darker mornings and earlier dusks and much more anxious than I had anticipated for the impending anniversary of John's death as well as the holidays.  My private journal pages contain more grief and anxiety than is my intention to share here.  Not that I didn't share that with close friends and a counselor, but my intention here is to be helpful and as positive as possible.
• Speaking of intention, I was reminded that we promised each other from the very first week that, whatever came our way, we would handle it together with as much grace and dignity as we could muster.  And my reading to date reaffirms that we did, some days better than others, of course, but we clung to that promise especially in the final weeks of his life.
• In the weeks following John's death, I was overcome with regrets.  Normal, I'm told, but so very painful.  It was, therefore, a gift, and an affirmation of the value of all that journal writing, to come across the passage where I captured one of the last things he said to me - "How was I ever so lucky to have found you?"  He thought I did enough, more than enough.  And today, that's good enough for me.  
• Regarding support,  I learned so much about support - especially about needing it, asking for it and accepting it willingly and graciously when offered.  So much that it will be the topic of my next post(s), maybe eventually, a book.  For me, looking back is helping me to rebuild a bruised sense of self-confidence, to reassure me that I will be ok, maybe stronger than ok, and to point optimistically to a future that holds purpose and satisfaction.  
• I'm back.

Coming Full Circle

"We never know from one day to the next what surprise lurks around the corner."

  ~ Joy Loverde, Who Will Take Care of Me When I'm Old 

I know, heaven knows I know, what Joy is talking about.  From the major surprises like disease, death, or natural disasters to the minor surprises like a garage door that suddenly won't open or a burst water pipe or a flat tire, we never know.  But we also never know when we'll meet someone who will change the course of our lives or pick up a book that gives us the answer we've been looking for for months.  Or, as happened to me last week, the information that I made a difference in someone's life who continues to make a far greater difference than I ever could have made.

Joy is an old friend. We go back over 25 years.  More than a friend, more like a much younger sister or the daughter I never had or would have been proud to have had.  There was a day when she asked to come in for a coaching session as she wanted to talk about a career change.  A change from the marketing career at which she was skilled, experienced and successful.  A change to something that would use those skills for something that made a bigger difference than promoting someone else's product or business.

I remember that conversation as though it happened yesterday.  I've shared the experience of it many times in coachings and trainings in the years that followed.  I asked Joy only one question.  "What issues are you passionate about - in what arena would you like to make a difference?" She answered quickly - "The way children are treated and the way old people are treated."  I then suggested she go home and choose the one she would like to focus on and think about how she could apply her skills and talents to the problems she saw.

It was as simple as that.  She returned shortly saying she had chosen to approach the issue of eldercare and knew exactly how she might carve out a new career.  What followed was her first book, The Complete Elder Care Planner, speaking engagements, workshops,  consulting and ultimately recognition as a major contributor in the growing eldercare advisory industry.

Fast forward to a week ago.  I was searching for a book, any book that might address the overwhelm I was feeling about a future without my husband.  The perfect book appeared, at least the title suggested that it might be.  As though the author could read my mind - Who Will Take Care of Me When I'm Old.  And the author - Joy Loverde, my Joy.  

I downloaded it immediately and started to read it.  Exactly as I expected, it is well-written, well-researched, clear and compassionate.  But what I didn't expect was to find my name in her acknowledgments.  After all these years.  I didn't expect the tears, gratitude, and the profound sense of satisfaction and delight that almost overwhelmed me.  To know that I had influenced someone who now influences so many others and will continue to do so.  And that I am now a recipient of what was set in motion in that simple conversation long ago.  We have come full circle.  And that knowledge, in itself, may be more important to me than anything in the book.

*If you found this helpful or know someone who might, please share and like my page.

Rules for an Old Woman Thriving

A good friend called recently to share news of the wonderful celebration her family surprised her with for her 90th birthday.  A well deserved celebration for a life well lived.  For a woman who continues to live enthusiastically. One of my role models.

Our conversation got me questioning how I am living today, whether I live with the same zest I so respect in my friend.   And it sent me back to a remarkable book I have read twice now.  Rules for Old Men Waiting, by Peter Pouncey, is the fictional story of an old historian and recent widower, who realizing that he is dying, compiles 10 rules by which to live his final days with as much dignity and intention as he can. 

Pouncey's old man, MacIver, is living alone in a cabin that has fallen into disarray and disrepair, as he himself has, while in the midst of overwhelming grief.  So his rules, are, of necessity, very basic.  "Keep personally clean.  Make the bed every morning, and clean house twice a week.  Dress warmly and light fire when necessary, burning least important things first.  Eat regularly.  Play music and read.  Work every morning.  Nap in the afternoon if needed."  Eventually he refines his Rules for Winter Watch/Rules for the Inside Game and settles on writing a novel as his last piece of "work."  And the result, a moving novel within a moving novel.

I am not ill, not dying.  But I am now 76, in the midst of the Age of Distinction as Michael Gurian describes this stage of life in The Wonder of Aging. ( I much prefer his term to "the old old" that many gerontologists now employ for my age group.)  I want to live the rest of my life with as much dignity and intention as I can for as long as I can.  If I make it to 90, I would like to be a role model for someone else behind me in the stream.  I want to thrive, not merely survive, with "passion and compassion and humor and style and generosity and kindness."

Therefore, my "rules", for now, a work in progress:

• Learn something every day - how to use the computer more effectively, something about aging, something about another country, current events (within mental health boundaries) - something.
• Simplify our home or life style in some way - reduce, reorganize, recycle, restrain.
• Prepare one vegetarian meal each day - alright, it's one step in the right direction.
• Read good literature every day.
• Spend at least 30 minutes outdoors each day.
• Do something special and enjoyable with John every day and make contact with one friend  - thank heaven for e-mail.
• Move - as in walk.
• Find a way to laugh - laugh out loud.
• Spend at least 30 minutes a day on an activity that requires creative expression - writing, drawing, decorating. 
• My work - to engage in an activity that contributes to someone other than myself - right now, that's this blog (hopefully this contributes to some folks), coaching, and some day, my own book.

Now, I realize in reviewing this list that there are some things here that I already do with great regularity.  I realize that there will be always be days I don't do all of these things, can't do all these things.  There will be naps and movies and lunch with friends and catchup telephone calls.  There will be doctors' visits and emergencies.  There will be other options, others opportunities.  In six months or a year, I may add something, delete something, or expand something.  But for now, this feels appropriate, and doable and satisfying, a structure for thriving.

  

Out of Crisis Comes...

"Often out of crisis comes this enormous wellspring of generosity and motivation."  

~ Josh Fox

We know from past experience the truth of this quote.  I retain many of the 100+ angels that were sent to me when I had cancer.  Although I am a confirmed agnostic, I do believe that the prayers offered when John battled Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, contributed to his survival, if nothing else, because he knew he was being supported, even by people he did not know.  And that contributed to his will to survive, in spite of a poor prognosis.

Even with our past experiences, we are profoundly touched by the outpouring of concern and offers of assistance we are receiving from across the country.  Many have asked what they can do to help.  I know there is plenty of advice out there that you should just do what you can because people in the midst of crisis often don't know what they need.  We certainly don't know the extent of what we might need yet.  

Some folks have gone through a challenge of their own and have a sense of what might be helpful.  A card from old friends who had heard our news through the grapevine came unexpectedly and that was touching.  Several friends have sent well wishes and prayers - always welcome.  A friend and a family member who have special medical expertise continue to provide translation of medical terms, insight into possible treatment, and research into other options.  Another who knows me well, knows how I tend to think and react, is a good sounding board as I contemplate important decisions.   Sometimes, a simple offer...like "what would make the day easier today and can I get or do that for you", as one dear friend recently queried, may be the sweetest gesture in and of itself, needing no response other than thank you for the offer.  And anything that brings a smile, or better yet a laugh, is a treasure.

But it is more than fine with us that you offer and then wait for our requests.  We are leaving tomorrow for MD Anderson in Houston. We will make more specific requests once we have more information.  For now, your prayers, moral support, positive thoughts and wishes are deeply appreciated.

First Things First...

"Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future."

~ David Whyte

   Consolations

Because I hope you will follow our journey and share our thoughts with others, and because these will be strangers to us, I feel it only fitting to profile who we are and why this chronicle is important to us and, hopefully, to others.

John and I have been married for 33 years (must be comfortable because we both forgot our anniversary this year!)  We met in the summer of 1980 "in a bar in Kansas City."  Just as the song says.  I was an elementary principal at the time, he the Director of Corporate Engineering for a Fortune 500 company.  Both divorced, neither with children, neither intending to marry again.

We were married in Cleveland, Ohio, two and a half years later.  Within a year, John was transferred to Santa Barbara where I created a small boutique training/coaching firm that became my passion for the next 25 years, and he eventually created a small firm specializing in the abatement of asbestos and lead based paint.  That's the raw data.

In some respects, we are quite different.  He loves country and I like - almost anything but. He is a vegetarian, I am not.  He could watch sports all day.  Give me a good mystery.  And then there's politics.  Let's say we cancel each other's vote.  But we are partners, and the medical crises, of which we have experienced our fair share, have forged that partnership. We love each other, yes.  But as important, we like, trust and respect each other.

We have both battled cancer.  Breast cancer for me and non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma for John. The latter was put into remission with a stem cell transplant at MD Anderson 11 years ago. The same MD Anderson we will be visiting next week for further testing, prognosis, and treatment recommendations for the rare blood cancer with which John was diagnosed this week.

We are dedicated to facing this head on as we have faced every other challenge together. With the prayers and assistance of an incredible network of support.  With dignity and a healthy dose of realistic optimism. Learning whatever we can to make the most responsible decisions we can. And with a desire to contribute to each other and to others who are or may be facing a similar challenge.  It is our hope that by writing about our journey as we embark upon it, we can add insight and assistance to others now and in the future.