Day: April 27, 2018

“From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

a light from the shadows shall spring;

renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.”

• J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship Of The Ring.

It was a challenging week, sometimes heavy. Our friend Mary Kellogg is in an adult home recovering from a  broken hip, Ed Gulley was diagnosed with a brain  tumor, I set off to start my own small refugee and immigrant support group, i was bitten by a spider and experienced great discomfort.

At week’s end, joy and hope. We bought a used van to help some of the refugees and immigrants coming to America who are in great need.

I learned again that joy comes from sorrow and light after dark. This is what it means to be human, no one escapes life or runs from it. I face it squarely or not at all. I was challenged on many levels this week, some I wrote about, some I couldn’t share. And here i am, standing tall and proud and ready for another week.

I am spent, but at peace.

The Bog was a perfect place to go to end the week, it was a cold, rainy Friday. I love to watch the pool players there, the sound of the stick hitting those balls is calming to me. So is our friend Kelly. I used to play pool and love it, the sound of the game and it’s pace still ground me.

Several weeks ago, we gave Diane, a Mansion resident, a realistic doll. It has worked out beautifully for her, giving her an object to love, care for and look after. I often ask the staff who else might benefit from a similar gift. We all came up with Ellen’s name one day, she loves stuffed animals and at our weekly Bingo games, I’ve seen her love the dogs and other stuffed animals that some of the residents have.

So I asked the staff about getting her a rabbit or dog and they agreed it would be useful to her. She keeps to herself at the Mansion and sometimes seems lonely. I found this very soft stuffed rabbit the other day and got it for Ellen. I gave it to  her tonight before the Bingo game.

She clutched it to her chest and held it tight and her face was transformed, it  had a look of great satisfaction. and also of love and gratitude. Before going to the Bingo game, she took the rabbit – she called it “Ginger” – down to  her room so it would not be lost or displaced.

I’m still working to understand the power stuffed animals and realistic dolls sometimes have on the elderly  and those  residents with memory problems.

One thing I have seen is how much the residents being touched. Except for being changed and occasionally hugged, few of the residents are ever touched at all. And they miss it.

Another is that these realistic dolls and animals are almost like having a real dog, in a way. The residents project great love and loyalty on them. They are seen as protective, unconditionally loving and absolutely dedicated, words are not needed for this instantly deep and loving relationship.

And they are clearly an antidote to loneliness, another hazard of asisted living.

After the Bingo game, Ellen rushed back to her room to see Ginger, with whom she would sleep tonight. Seeing Ellen’s face was a great lift for me, that is the look I wait and hope to see in my work there. “My God,” she asked, over and over to me.
“Can I keep her?”

One of my projects is to put a realistic doll or stuffed animal in the hands of every resident might need one, from the observations of the staff and my own observations. I’ve seen that Diane’s life has been transformed by her baby Sue. Ellen showed the same depth of passion and need for Ginger. We’ll know more in a day or two.

You can write Ellen by sending your letter c/o Ellen, The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge N.Y., 12816. If you wish to support my Mansion work,  you can send a contribution to the Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or to me via Paypal.

You can also contribute to the Mansion directly, via the new Mansion Amazon Wish List. There are only ten items left.

Ali and are overjoyed to report that our intense search for a new van is over, Ali picked up the van near Albany, today.

He owns it now, and in a way, so do the refugees and immigrants of the Albany, N.Y., area.  This will greatly deepen our ability to help needy refugee and immigrant families directly and quickly, and at any time.

The van will be used exclusively to help refugees and immigrants. It will transport the soccer team, now called the Albany Warriors,  bring groceries to hungry families, shoes and other clothes to families that need them, students who need tutoring to their tutors, take people who need transportation shopping.

Many of these families do not have cars of their own.

The van’s first stop was to pick up the Albany Warriors and bring them to a soccer game, but the van marks a  kind of liberation for me and for Ali, a much wider and more focused effort to help the soccer team and their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and other refugees and immigrants.

Until now, we have been dependent on the use of other people’s vans.

Ali wanted to send me a photograph right away so I could put it up on the blog.

The Army of Good is the sole sponsor of the soccer team, and has been all along.

The team isn’t and hasn’t been funded by any other source. Recently, we lost the use of the vans used to transport these children.

So rather than cancel the many activities we had planned, we set out to form our own support group and work on our own. It is always better to do good rather than argue about what good is.

This week,  we went out and got our own van.

The van offers many new opportunities for us, and Ali and I both are elated at this turn. It really is what we want and need. It’s about time.

Thanks to Ali, I have met and spoken with a number of refugee families, and also gotten to know the soccer players well. we have a keen sense of who needs help, and we found many people who need help badly and are not getting any. We will continue to pursue small acts of great kindness.

Next week, we begin our tutoring programs and will resume our grocery project.

The van was purchased for $2,500 with my own money. i will pay another $1,000 to the owner over the next month.

I’m not looking for credit, I mention this only because I did not fund-raise for its purchase, and I only use donated money for the purpose it was intended for. Since I didn’t ask for money for the van, I won’t use any other money than mine for its purchase.

This van is a 2006 Odyssey, it has passed inspection, has new tires, is clean and well maintained.

Ali and I met recently at our secret office in a convenience store in  Schaghticoke, N.Y. a small town halfway between Albany and Cambridge. We call it our “office.” Until yesterday we hadn’t really grasped the symbolism of a Muslim and a Jew working together to help these kids and their families.

I think a lot of the farmers and truck drivers sitting around us did notice – we got quite a few stares – and that made us think about the beauty of it. If we can do it, anyone can do it. We like to think we are making a statement against hate without even realizing it. Ali and I are quite close, we never thought about the symbolism of that.

I’m thrilled about this van. It is central to this work the Army of Good is doing. I am asking for your support. The best is yet to come. You can donate to this program via the Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816 or to me via Paypal, [email protected]. Please mark your contribution “refugees.” Thank  you.

 

Ed and Carol, Thursday

Ed understands what I have learned in my hospice and therapy work.

Serious illness and death is often harder for the healthy and the left behind.

Carol has devoted her life to the man she calls “my farmer,” she is fiercely loyal to Ed and their family.  Life without Ed would be profound. She continues to amaze me with her powerful and authentic writing. Everything is a gift.

I tell my class almost every week that real writers must be authentic and show their vulnerability, but very few people can do it. Most people are terrified of sharing their weakness.

The two of them have made it a mission to chronicle the next chapter of their lives, they are buying a new laptop and also I am recommending some voice recognition software. I’m recommending an Apple MacBook Pro.

Carol and i will go and purchase it together. I’m still researching the best voice recognition programs.

My mission, with their permission, is to chronicle Ed’s journey in photographs and words.

They are planning to blog every day, for as long as Ed can, and beyond. They have found a purpose in the pain – to help other people by sharing their experience fully and honest. He wants me to come to Montana with them, but I said that is not possible really, I’m not a big rodeo guy.

I might come along to Maryland with him when he goes to pick up his giant wooden gorilla, who he wishes to bring back to Bejosh Farm so he can sit out with him in the morning while he shouts “I’m Still Here!”

Carol is plenty tough, but this reality is very new, and she doesn’t embrace fate in the way Ed does.

His heart is breaking.  “…today,” she wrote on her blog, ” the dread seems to be sneaking in and taking over.  My farmer is taking all of this with grace and a courage that I have never seen  in him before. He is calm and collected, so to speak…as much as someone in his position can be…”

Carol added “I ask the good Lord to watch over my Farmer and me  in the coming days and months. Keep us in your care and guide us (me) to acceptance in what is ahead…I am struggling.”

I was relieved to see Carol write those words, it is very necessary for her to acknowledge those feelings. Ed knows how to cry when he needs to, he is full of emotion.

Carol told me Ed feels calm in our farmhouse, and they came over to share some pizza with us last night.

Ed was in good and  strong spirits, Carol look exhausted but steady. I can see the pain and sorrow in her eyes.

The news they received Saturday – that Ed has inoperable tumors in his brain – was the last thing Carol expected to hear. I don’t think Ed was as surprised, he knows  his body as well as he knows his cows.

Ed’s daughter had taken him to a beauty parlor to get his hair trimmed yesterday, to shed the big bear and Mountain Man look.

“My God,” I said, “you are even uglier than  you were yesterday.” We had fun with his clean-cut and bald look, I said he looked like a giant Easter egg. He told me Carol was writing faster than I was and just as well. This is true.

It was my turn to be taken aback when Ed asked Maria and I how we were handling the news. I don’t think anyone has asked me that, and I was touched again by Ed’s thoughtfulness. “I was crying all day,” Maria said.

I said I was also taking it hard. I’ve seen a lot of sickness and death in recent years. But not with anyone this close to me. I am working to get a handle on it. Writing is never hard for me, but writing about Ed now is hard for me.

I told Maria that it just hit me that one day we could no longer just drop over to Bejosh Farm, drink some coffee – farm people always make you eat something – and see Ed stalking around in his camouflage shirts and pants, pulling a calf out of a cow or banging away on his latest sculpture. I can’t imagine anyone else to call when a bear comes into our pasture and dies.

The evening was lovely, as all of our time with Ed and Carol is. Ed is not into self-pity or indecision. He is very clear on not wanting extreme treatments, he is very eager to hit the road, a family member is loaning them an RV for their trek to Montana. He has invited the world to come along.

Next Tuesday will be a monumental day in Ed’s life and the life of any dairy farmer, he is selling his dairy cows, keeping some Swiss Steers. A 65 year old chapter of the farm is ending, but the farm will continue. Ed’s oldest son Chad is running the farm now with the help of his sister Maggie and brother Jess. The younger cows are leaving but Ed’s beloved Brown Swiss are remaining.

The family intends to keep the farm operating.

When a dairy farmer sells his cows, his farm life is over. Ed is resolute and clear about how he wishes to spend his time. It will not be in a hospital getting surgery or chemo.

He says he plans to make a video every day and post it on their blog. This is a good move. Somewhere inside of Ed – or maybe also on the outside – is a performer. He loves an audience. And he loves to tell stories.

And to add to that mix, he has a strong creative ego. He believes his story is important and he wants to tell it. He is not one of those people who says nobody will care about what they write. He believes everyone will care. He has a very powerful story to tell. There is no false modesty, or for that matter, any modesty.

He and Carol received more than 1,700 messages yesterday from people all over the world when they learned of his tumors,

He soaks up attention, and that will comfort and inspire him.

All of his life, the creative part of him has been suppressed or ignored, and now, in this painful way,  it is coming out in many different ways, and is being recognized. This is our true connection to him, I believe, we want the same things he wants.

We’ve offered Carol and Ed our farmhouse anytime he needs calm or quiet. He loved that idea. After reading my blog yesterday Ali called me up and said he told the refugee boys about Ed’s illness – they visited the farm a few months ago – and they want to come and see him next Saturday at Bejosh Farm.

I love these kids for wanting to do that.

Ed  said he would be delighted to see them again, and have them visit.

 

 

Another sign of Spring. This concrete head we bought impulsively in Provincetown a few years ago on vacation usually lives in my study. In the Spring he goes outside. I’m not sure what he is supposed to represent, we just call him the Provincetown Head.