Day: November 6, 2017

About six months ago, I was in the waiting room of our vet and the woman next to me, who was sitting next to a wheezing old glassy-eyed Lab, turned to me and burst into tears. She had come to tell the vet she wanted to put Zeus down, he was blind, deaf, could hardly walk and was now incontinent.

He was 15, she said, she had kept him alive too long, but she could see how painful it was for him to walk, how undignified his life had become.

“I want to end his suffering,” she told me, “it is my final gift to him. I wish I could have done it for my mother.” Later, when she came out crying, she told me it was quick and painless. “One shot, then another, and he was gone. I was so relieved for him, he did so much for us, it was the least we could do for him.”

If you spend much time in a veterinary office, and you get to know people,  then sooner or later, someone  – a tech, vet, receptionist, pet owner – will say, “I am so grateful we can do for dogs and cats what we can’t do for our mothers and fathers, help them to die in peace and comfort.”

Most often I hear this said about mothers. This is, I think, because mothers tend to live longer than fathers and make up the majority of patients in elderly hospital wards, nursing homes and assisted care facilities.

We are a curious species when it comes to death.

Several years ago, working in hospice, I heard a daughter threaten her cancer-stricken and emaciated mother with the threat of a painful and intrusive feeding tube if she didn’t force herself to eat. She was down to 75 pounds and could not eat and she told me every time we were alone how much she simply wanted to be left to die in peace.

Nobody would permit it, she lived for many months.

We are the only living things in the world who know what death is, or that we are going to die, and yet we hide from it all of our natural lives, and when the times comes to face it directly, we don’t, we abandon our mothers to die in ways that are often cruel, painful and without dignity or peace.

I’ve been working around death for more than a decade now, in hospice, nursing homes and assisted care facilities. A friend sent me this message today, and I was struck by the truth of it.

“I was just talking to my neighbor about our elderly mothers and how important it is to respect their wishes,” she said. “Once they are confined in the medical system, its a different pathway to death…”

If you care about the elderly at all, then you will soon come to care about the way they die, and the helplessness and suffering they endure at the end of their lives. It is true that we often give dogs better deaths than our mothers. We happily spare them pain and endless suffering.

Before World War II, most mothers died at home with their families. Today, we have shoved the dying out of sight, confining them to medical institutions, funneling them into rehab centers and hospitals, where they die out of sight. Today, 87 per cent of Americans die in hospitals.

If you work with the elderly, you see the truth of my friends statement, once they enter the vast and often invisible world of medical facilities and institutions, they lose control of their lives and it is most often too late for them to make meaningful decisions about how they wish to leave the world. The system is a sort of mindless eco-system, pushing everyone through.

For years, I have seen this world of bandages, pills, doctor’s visits, nursing home visits, ambulances,  IV’s, bandages, surgeries and procedures, the shuttling from one facility to the other, living at the mercy of administrators and bureaucrats, regulations and insurance companies, pharmaceutical monoliths and fearful and corruptible politicians.

Our medical culture is wonderful at keeping people alive, but indifferent to how they are living. Or how they might wish to die. Hardly any doctors ever wish to have this conversation.  They are data and systems people, they prescribe and treat.

There are countless caretakers of mothers in our country now, most of them women, and they know just what I am talking about, even if the politicians pretend to be deaf, dumb and blind. I hear from them often.

I’ve seen countless families, full of love and good intention, worn out financially, emotionally, spiritually at their powerless and inability to help their mothers, finally surrendering to the vast system that absorbs them.

I should say that within this world I have seen countless and dedicated nurses, aides, caretakers and helpers, full of love and devotion. I know some ferocious family advocates who have made a difference, and some compassionate doctors who try hard.

But it is perhaps our widely shared secret, those of us who know one another,  these stories of suffering and pain, people kept alive without discussion, consideration or consultation, a medical system that is a vast underworld, hidden from sight and consciousness, keeping people alive beyond all reason or meaning. Does anyone really wish to hear these stories?

I have lost count of how many people in these institutions have told me they are prepared to leave the world, but there is no one to listen to them, no way to help them. Perhaps there is just too much money to be made from the illnesses and medications of the elderly.

I am a volunteer, not a politician or health care worker, and I cannot imagine ever having a say in how this system works.

But it is good to talk about the mothers, to speak for them every now and then, and about how people, die, because most of us love our mothers, even when we can’t agree on much else, and we wish they could die as peacefully and comfortable as most dogs.

 

I believe Maria is living the life she was meant to love, today I thought of her as the Fiber Fairy, I was writing and thought she was in the studio, but she was, in fact, just outside of my window with Gus and Flo in attendance, she was skirting the wool sheared at our Open House in October.

Sunday, we are taking the wool up to Brandon, Vt., to the fiber mill there, and picking up the wool we brought in the Spring. That wool will go on sale next week for $25 a skein plus shipping, details will be on Maria’s website. The wool was especially beautiful this time, as the sheep mature, their wool gets richer in color and soft from the lanolin.

The wool was clean and easy to sort through, she was almost done before I knew she was out there. When I am writing, the world just fades away, I hear and see nothing else. I think writing is the only thing I do well, other than shop for food and talk to dogs. Maria sold two quilts this week and a hanging piece, and agreed to make three more quilts for a mother who wants to give one each to her daughters.

We both are committed to doing what we love, to work only for money is to be a slave in our minds. It was a nasty November day up here today, raining and misting and chilly all day,  Maria was quite at home on the porch, a dog on one side, a barn cat on the other, skirting the wool from her sheep.

My cold is much better, the coughing has slowed, although I still feel somewhat weak and groggy. I’ve got a new history book by Gordon Woods, “Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson,” about the complex friendship between these two remarkable men, both of whom died within an  hour of each other on the same day, July 4th.

Maria is going out with some friends tonight, I’m going to hole up with this book, three dogs and a cozy fire. Sweet. Life is good.

Today, I took some time out to think of the people killed in church in Texas Sunday and their families, I am determined that this never becomes routine for me.

I see that for many, this is just another senseless slaughter. I hope it never becomes that way for me.

Over the past months, a number of people have asked me why I don’t urge people to volunteer in their own communities in facilities for the aged like assisted care. There are several reasons.

One is that most  institutions are not like the Mansion, and I don’t like to recommend anything to anyone that I don’t know and can’t speak for personally. The Mansion is an unusually open place, they have welcomed me and supported me in every way, I know from my own experience that that is not always the case.

Secondly, I have a strong aversion to telling other people what to do.

People don’t need me to tell them they can volunteer locally, it is quite obvious and quite a few people have done it and messaged me about it. It lifts my heart.

I am resistant to social media lecturing and self chest-thumping, but I get letters almost every day from people who are trying to do good in their communities because of our work, and not only in facilities for the aged.

The idea to do good rather than argue about doing good is spreading. I got one such letter today from Elizabeth Garvey, who lives in New Jersey. I believe that love prevails in the end, it is more powerful than anything.

Elizabeth says kindly that Maria and I are both inspirations to her, she reads our blogs every day, and she added a voluntary payment to my blog in her letter.

“Jon,” she wrote, “because of you I now volunteer at a local assisted living facility. I didn’t know how I could help, but things have certainly fallen into place. I read to their book club once a week. We are currently reading a John Grisham novel. And Maria, I have no started a crochet/knitting club. We are in the early stages of a project, but the ladies are excited.”

Elizabeth’s letter is important. I wasn’t sure how I could help either, but I can no longer count the ways in which it is possible. And she didn’t need me to tell her. But I am also keenly aware that everyone is not in a position to volunteer or take time off from work, or have the time to do this kind of therapy work. I am glad the blog is offering them a way to help and a chance to help.

It does feel good.

I believed – and still do – that focusing attention on the Mansion would humanize the issue of aging in America, and also give people in all places and all ages a way to help others.

The focus of the Army of Good has made it possible to change the very nature of life in the Mansion.There is great strength and power in numbers.

Because there are many thousands reading these posts, it is has been possible to help the Mansion buy a new van, take numerous outings, expensive recliner life chairs, air-condition warm rooms and kitchens, and supply books, CD’s, letters, holiday decorations, special food,  personal items like soap and body wash to people who need some help with it.

There is a great advantage to focusing a large number of people on one institution. My idea is one good deed at a time, one person at a time, one day at a time. My role is to fill the holes in the residents lives, not to transform them or change reality.

I have been doing therapy work for years, but usually going from one institution to another, in and out. This time, I decided to make a stand, and I think it was the right decision.  In giving me permission to move freely about the Mansion, and take photos with permission, they made this work possible. We have all learned to know and love and care for these people together, and that is a powerful thing.

I think the photography was and is key. These aren’t remote figures, they are people we get to know and see.

If you wish to write to Mansion residents, or send them photos and letters, their address is The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. I will provide an updated list of residents later in the week. If you wish, please think about sending some Christmas gifts and  decorations. Last year, for the first time, everyone had a present under the tree.  It had an enormous impact.

That would be a wonderful thing to do again. Gifts and favors and decorations would be most appreciated. Same address as above.

 

Patriotism is, for me, a matter of the heart.

As the grandson of desperate immigrants, I always had this image of America as a safe and welcoming and free place, a light unto a cruel world. A country with great heart.

Last November’s election was a gift to me, it jolted me awake and is slowly turning me into a true patriot, I love my country in a new and completely different way. You can fight for your country with guns, you can fight for your country with heart. Both are powerful weapons and tools.

Albert Einstein wrote that blind belief in authority – any authority – is the greatest enemy of truth. I was taught as a reporter and a citizen to never be afraid to raise my voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. That is what patriot’s do, I believe they comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted. If you are neutral about injustice, then you have chosen the side of the oppressors.

Pope Francis challenges us to stand with the vulnerable and the poor, that is the true calling of the faithful. That was the true calling of Christ and almost every great man or woman of faith throughout human history.

How do I love my country? You don’t need to pick up a gun or rifle to do that. I can love my country by living my life.

I love my country by going to see Connie Martell, who is very much alone and at a crossroads in her life.

I do it by helping Devota Nyiraneza pay off the loans that keep her from going to school. I do it by helping Mawulidi Diodone Majaliwa get the tools he needs to resume his carving work, and the refugee children play their soccer games with pride.

I do it by helping the Mansion residents get the soap and body wash and books and air conditioners and clothes and trips to the outside world that they need.

Connie was the first resident of the Mansion that I spoke with and raised money for. She has a strong and very alert mind, and was so eager to find work and do good,  even confined to an assisted care facility and on oxygen. From her, I got the idea of America once again as a generous and caring country.

When I asked people to send her patterns and wool, I had no idea I would be altering my life and hers. This was the first time I turned to the Army of Good for help, and I was astonished at the response. Every time I went into the Manson Connie was busy once more, her days had purpose and meaning, she no longer felt forgotten and less than useful.

This was a revelation, to me and to her. It paved the way for me to be a patriot, to love my country in my own  individual way.

I did not have to join the raging mobs of the left or the right, or turn to cable for my news.  I did not have to argue. All I had to do was do good, and in that way, reveal the soul of the country I love, and fight for that soul. I never imagined having so many loving soldiers right behind me.

My country is the world, wrote Thomas Paine, an my religion is to do good. Out citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in a state or town is only our local distinction. Out great title is Americans.

Whatever is my right as a man or woman is also the right of another, of every other. It becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess. those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, wrote Paine, “must undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”

I learned this year to not fear or flee from conflict., or tremble under the shadow of what they call the news. I learned that belief in a cruel God or a cruel leader makes for cruel men and women. My country is not cruel.

“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason,” wrote Paine, “and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. I love the man or woman that can smile in trouble, that can gather from distress and grow. The patriotic heart does not rise to argument or rage or grievance, but to compassion and justice.

Connie had the right do her work, to knit with her baskets of yarn to pass out her shawls and caps to the staff and to the children in nearby hospitals. I was struck by the clarity of her mind, the honesty of her words, and her commitment to service. Very American to me.

She is the pioneer, she paved the way for the Army Of Good and all of the work it has done.

Now, she enters an uncertain world, and will have to make her own way there. I am no seer, I cannot predict her future, but I sense she is moving on, beyond my reach.

I am grateful to her, because she has shown me the way to be a patriot, to love my country, and so many of you have shown me what that means.

If you wish to write her, you can send your letters and messages to Connie Martell, 2215 Burdett Ave.,  Fifth Floor, Troy, N.Y., 12180. Your letters have the greatest value to here.

I love this farmhouse off of the road. It is evocative and revealing, a part of history, waiting off in the woods. The farmhouse seems to be waiting for its time to return.