Becoming Secondary

Sometimes, there is a downside to working in hospice and it is different than what you might think.  It's not too much death or dying, but a hyper-awareness of time in my normal every-day living.

Nothing brings this home more than when I'm trying to track down my percussionist in the orbit of high school marching band when I can't get him on the phone.

Does that seem like a weird set of circumstances to bring the old sand-filled hourglass center stage?

I'm hoping I can explain, and figure it out for myself at the same time...

I get to meet people in the evening of life on a routine basis.  Very often, they've become secondary to the people in their lives for whom they were primary for a good long while.  Spouses and kids, mostly.  They were wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, and their best years were the same years I'm living now.  But, their people slowly moved on.  They were moved from the center of their lives to the periphery, and became someone to check in on, rather than someone to be included and enjoyed.

My eyes are wide open to this shift.  I'm becoming aware of the people in my life who may feel like they've been dropped in a secondary slot, permanently.  I am still primary for my children because I can drive and grocery shop and facilitate everything that is important to them.  But, I am inching my way to the periphery and every time I'm holding my phone and there is no answer on the other end, I know.

An unscheduled weekend rolls in and feels like a blessing and a curse because time together is so important.  But, finding more than two people who want to do the same thing is a chore and getting all five to agree is nearly impossible.

So, we compromise. 

At the river, a couple of us fished down the bank a little ways, I sat on an uncomfortable rock until my butt hurt and then filled a trash bag with other people's trash, while someone else threw rocks at spiders the size of grapefruits, hoping to pass a few minutes while noting, "this is the-most-redneck-vacation."  It seemed like the best bonding moment was our unanimous relief to be back home, savoring the memory that we created.  Mainly, that we didn't want to go back there any time soon.  No discussion needed.
 
Sunday kept us altogether for breakfast and Mass, but separate for the rest due to attractions that couldn't be resisted and commitments that needed to be kept.  But, fortunately for me, my plans included sitting poolside and holding a baby for a couple of hours which seemed to slow time a bit.  Gratefully.

Unless I am hitting Sonic at Happy Hour, there are few things my boys are interested in joining me for, and doing things as a family is, well, usually a compromise for most of us.  So, I sit on the futon as long as anyone will sit by me, deliver pigs in a blanket to a fort in the woods, change my schedule to steal a lunch date at Subway, and go to the skate park when it's almost dark because "they have lights, you know".

I know I am becoming secondary.  Just in little moments for now, but they are coming more frequently and I know they will keep coming, as they should.  Occasionally, someone will notice a little tear and recognize that I'm not okay and while I'm trying to find the words to explain, they decide they didn't really want an explanation, anyway.  And I'm relieved, because I couldn't really explain it, anyway.

Mr. Al

A friend was laid to rest yesterday.  I learned that he died through a Facebook post by someone I didn't know, shared by someone I did know.  And I wept.  The flood of emotion surprised me, as we never talked on the phone, visited each other's homes, or saw each other very often.

Twelve years ago, we worked in the same place.  He swept and carried donated goods to the back.  I coordinated payment of overdue bills and wrote food and clothing vouchers.  We'd share a meal on the days I brought enough for two, and he would bless it.  Thanking God for it and asking for protection against sickness from it.  

I don't know if he was paid for his work, or if he was just happy to be of service.  But, there was a misunderstanding along the way, and he stopped coming.  From then on, our meetings were a little more happenstance and much less frequent, but always a delight.  He loved my children and I loved him.

More than a decade has passed since our friendship began.  I never understood how he lived and maybe it was that that kept me from realizing that, one day, he would die?

This makes me feel pretty stupid because I work in hospice and yet, Al's death caught me off-guard and knocked me for a loop.  

 I've heard that all grief is selfish and this sentiment has never been more true.

Selfishly, I wish I would have seen him more recently.  I wish I could have been there with him at the end, or at least in the days preceding.  I wish I could have offered him something, or let him know about the place he held in my heart.  But, my loss is my own.  

He was the epitome of one who died as they lived.  He did it his way.  Alone, outside, under a tree.  By all appearances, he just went to sleep.  And I can't feel sorry for that.  That is a good way to go, if that is the way it best suited you to live the last 30 years of your life.  

I will feel blessed if I am able to walk to the place where I lay down for the last time and someone finds me the next day.  It's the dying over months and years that I want to avoid.  But, I wonder.  Did he know he was so near death?  What was he thinking as he prepared to lay down on the hard ground for the last time?  

Certainly, he did not know that the local media would be covering his funeral with full military honors, or informing all about his stint as an IRS attorney, after serving in Vietnam with the Air Force.

What would he say about that?

I can't help but think he wouldn't have a lot to say.  He'd simply be watching quietly from a distance, on a bench tucked away in the shade.

"...part of the secret of heaven:  that each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one."  

Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven