Day: July 1, 2018

It was Maria who first saw the artist in Ed, and encouraged him to make his sculptures, and showed him how he could sell them and ship them. It was me who saw he and Carol as natural bloggers with a powerful story to tell.

Unlike most people, who claim to want to change but don’t really, or who find blogging vaguely distasteful, Ed and Carol jumped on these ideas, and their lives changed in ways they both love. Their know their stories are important. The story of Bejosh Farm is the story of the American Family Farm, good and bad.

They are authentic and articulate about their lives. That is always a gift to others.

I told Ed that he has a strong intellect and a number of important things to say and stories to tell, and he knew that this was true, it was just that no one had told him this before in his life.

He said he had never taken the time to act on it.  Although Ed had never been encouraged in his creativity, he has a strong and healthy ego, and he put his work and life right out there. That, of course, connected the two of us to one another.

Carol joined my writing class, but she needed very little teaching, she is a natural writer and story teller. The two of them have created a potent chronicle of life, farming and creativity on their Bejosh Farm Journal.

The two were a natural for a vibrant and honest farm journal. It was instantly successful and Carol intends to keep it going, I think it is a part of her life and neural system now. I’ve urged many people to try blogs like that, very few ever do.

Ed is a very unique personality, there are not many like him. He asked me again today if I would consider writing a book about his experience with cancer after he died, i told him I would do my best. I also told him I don’t think that this would be the right kind of book for me. I don’t have the time to explain modern publishing to Ed.  The blog is my book more and more.

After my next book, I don’t plan to write more books, just the blog. That is where I belong now.

Cancer is never welcome, but it cut down Ed at an especially hard time, when his life as a creative was just coming into focus.

This respect and creative connection was the basis of our friendship. Ed  taught me a lot more than I ever taught him, he taught me about farming, animals, the natural world, the land the forest. He was always there when I needed him, and it turned out that I often needed him. And still do.

He took a dead bear out of our pasture, opened up our woods to us, even gave us a bench to sit on out there, and a bridge to get across the stream.  Now, he has joined with me to share the story of his cancer, hoping it will be a gift to others. I see it already is.

I called the hardy little bridge Ed built us the Gulley Memorial Bridge, an ironic title that makes me squirm a bit. Ed says I should keep the name, he likes it. His wind chimes and farm sculptures are all over our farm.

He loves to show Maria his work, she is a good teacher and a loving one. Ed is sketching every day, no matter how sick he is (Maria writes about this on her blog today). Her comments are very important to him.

This afternoon, she and Ed talked about his strength and the clarity and focus of his sketches. Ed is a true creative, and it is inspiring to me to see his dedication to his poems and sketches, even when he can hardly sit up. Maria is a proud teacher and friend, he told me today his only regret is that he didn’t meet either of us years ago.

Well, I said, we might not have liked each other back then.

“I a tough son-of-a-bitch I be, I got a double row of tits, one on each s-i-i-i-d-e!” – old farmer ditty.

Maria and I were in  Massachusetts Sunday morning, heading for Mass MOCA, a museum in North Adams, when I look on my  phone and saw a post Carol  Gulley on her and Ed’s Blog, the Bejosh Farm Journal.

It was early for a post from Carol, and I read Carol’s news that Ed’s  blood sugar was over 600 and they were struggling to bring it under control. She had called in hospice and sounded frightened.

We thought from the blog that Ed was close to dying. That is a very high blood sugar number.

We turned the car around immediately and cut short our brief anniversary celebration – we had a blast on Saturday and Saturday night – and headed for the Gulley farm. When we got there, we found that hospice and the family were successful in bringing his numbers down. He looked weak and was  exhausted.

Ed is on steroids to shrink the size of his tumors, and steroids wreak havoc with blood sugars. It seemed under control when we got there.

We stayed for a few hours, then went home to check on the farm in this intense heat, then went back with some things Carol needed. When we returned to the farm, Ed look weak but much better. On my visits, I sit in a chair next to Ed, and Carol takes care of things in the rest of the house. Ed talks, then sleeps, then wakes up. On longer visits, I bring a book.

We were all a bit shaken today, Ed was thinking of calling his family together to say goodbye.

Then we just talked, he and I. And got into mischief, as usual.

We talk openly and easily and very comfortably. There is no strain and there are no secrets between us, both of us are direct, open to challenge and ideas and at ease with each other.

Still, we didn’t laugh and smile as much as we normally do, that is to be expected under the circumstances. I thought of a way I knew would get him to wake up.

I reminded Ed, as I often do, of a farm ditty he once told me that cracked me up, it went this way, although I can’t do justice to his presentation of it: “I a tough son-of-a-bitch I be, I got a double row of  tits, one on each s-i-i-i-d-e!” He makes fun of my efforts all the time, suggesting a smart ass like me should be able to remember this simply ditty.

Ed would say it when we were joking about being tough and perhaps it is my Dyslexia, but I just could not remember it. Today, I told Ed he shouldn’t even think of leaving the world without teaching me this ditty, and it lit him right up, his big wide smile came back and we got into it.

I tried, then failed, then he repeated it and then I think I got it. Tomorrow, we may tackle the one about the ten indians.

But wait, I asked, why would having a “double row of tits” make anyone tougher. He thought the question was hilarious. You just said it, he said, you don’t have to know what it means. I still don’t get it, but I think I do remember it.

I asked Ed again what the ditty meant, and he laughed again and said he had no idea, all the old farmers said it. The Ed I know popped right up, his sense of humor is as powerful as his creativity. Come and see, I loved this video. The laughter in the background is from Carol and Maria. It was sweet to hear all this laughter. I wanted to share it with  you.

Maria and I are happy to share the cover design for our friend the poet Mary Kellogg’s fourth book of poetry, “This Time Of Life.” Mary fell and broke her hip recently, she is recovering in an adult care home in Granville, N.Y. She expects to read from her new book of poems at our Open House In October.

The cover design is by artist and illustrator Abrah  Griggs, who is also designing a new banner for the blog.

Ed has a crow on the farm who followed him everywhere, was always sitting by the barn or by the back door. Since Ed became sick, the crow sits outside of the room where he lies, staying by the back door, staying near Ed.

Crows are known to recognize people, and Ed has always talked to animals, cows, peacocks, chickens and goats. even hawks. This crow is always looking for him now, always near. So he drew him today.

Farmers are the world’s greatest animal lovers, something the animal rights movement has overlooked in its passionate race to remove animals from human lives.

Like most farmers, Ed knows animals in a particular way, he lives with the, helps them birth, sometimes slaughters them, he is with them day and night. I have rarely met any animal lover who loves animals as much or more as a farmer.

Ed is failing, and animals – dogs, cats, a crow, cows, a parrot, a big goat – are all around him.

He is exhausted, and he believes his organs are beginning to shut down. He has moments of clarity and energy, during which he talks to Carol, sits up, eats some ice cream or beans, and then falls back asleep.

But the creative spark in him is powerful, he wants us to do a video every day, he is writing poems for his family and others, he is sketching as often as he can, and as exhausted as he is, that takes extraordinary commitment and focus.

He is in a hospital bed, on a catheter, and can no longer stand up. He is sleeping restlessly much of the day, the sweltering  temperatures don’t help.

As Carol wrote on their blog, the Bejosh Farm Journal, this morning, his blood sugar was up over 600 in the morning, almost certainly the result of the steroids he is taking to reduce the swelling of the tumors in his brain.

Ed says his mind is clear. This morning, he wrote a poem for his daughter Maggie, and  Carol put it up on the blog. The Bejosh Farm Journal has become central to the Gulley’s lives and Ed asked me if I would help the family keep it going after he was gone.

I said I would be happy to help, but the family doesn’t really need any assistance, the blog is vibrant and popular and Carol has evolved into a gifted writer. I am grateful to have her as a student in my writing class. When she came into the class, I kicked Ed out.

He understood, he said, he know he would distract her. Ed says if he has any regrets at all about his life, one is that he didn’t have more time to develop his art. This afternoon, he and Maria went over his sketches together, and I was touched  by the great bond between them.

He was very eager to show her his art and hear her feedback. We have touched Ed’s lives and he has touched ours, and I am only beginning to sense the hole in my life that will soon come to be. Carol is brave and loving and warm, I know she will built a new and meaningful life for herself, I’m not sure that she knows that.

She loves to get messages,  you can e-mail her a [email protected].

Yesterday, Ed and I talked about the fact that death is hidden away from most people.

Not too long  ago, most people – 93 per cent – died at home, Americans saw death all the time,  and were familiar with it. Today, almost no one dies at  home, the sick and dying are  hidden out of sight, and there is almost no discussion or thought given to how we die and where we die.

As a result of this unspoken taboo, many Americans are stunned by death, unprepared for it and horrified by it. So when their time comes, they are rarely ready.

Ed is surrendering to the brain cancer that is chipping away at him hour by hour. Like me, he doesn’t like to portray it is as a fight, or a battle. It is no fight he says, serious cancer is bigger than  we are.

I saw in my hospice work that family members often urged sick loved ones to “fight on,” people are often urged not to be “quitters,” or told that the family isn’t ready to let them go.  In many cases, dying and sick people hang on through great suffering. They are trying to please other people.

Hospice social workers often encouraged family members to tell the dying that it is okay for them to leave. Quite often, they then can let go.

As Ed points out, it isn’t a combat mission, cancer is much more complex than that, and acceptance is, in many cases, a much more humane approach.

Ed and I wanted to break that taboo, the silence that shrouds death, and talk about his imminent death. He hopes to help others who find themselves in his situation.

We are all past looking for miracles and cure, we just want peace and comfort for him.

So we did talk about death in this video. He broke the taboo!

Ed accepts that he is dying and has no wish to hide from the fact. He also wants to retain control of his death, and in my experience, those are the good deaths, the ones who think but it.

It is a rare thing for a man like Ed to talk so openly about death, and it is, I think, a valuable ting.

Death is sad, but not only sad. Come and listen to him talk about his death. As always, I am grateful for Ed’s friendship, honesty and openness at this time. Come and listen to this very special man face his  increasingly certain end.