We have to watch Fate on very hot days, like many border collies, she has no sense about taking it easy in heat and humidity. We keep plastic pools filled with water around, and plenty of fresh cool drinking water an when he tongue hangs out to the ground, she goes right inside the house.
In about three minutes, she’s ready to go out again, but in this heat, she only gets one or two short runs a day.
I knew a day or so ago that my friend Ed is mostly gone already.
He is different, struggling, exhausted, his cancer is chewing him up day by day, it is all over his face. He seems spend. The Ed I knew isn’t there much of the time. I have been saying goodbye to him for awhile.
When a friend is dying, it seems to be a great responsibility to help him in any way he wishes.
We and the Gulleys are important to one another, we have changed each other’s lives in many ways, Maria and I will not walk away from Ed or Carol. My afternoons with him and with Carol are quiet, peaceful and spiritual, and today Ed and I were able to talk honestly and openly for a a few minutes.
Maria was in the kitchen talking with Carol, they have become close friends.
This kind of real conversation was hard for Ed and I to do in recent days. Most of the time, I just sit and read and let Carol nap or do some chores or pay some bills.
I knew we didn’t have long to talk today.
But it was important.
Today, Ed’s daughter Maggie published one of his poems on their blog, the Bejosh Farm Journal, earlier today.
“Why do the millionaires get to walk?,” asked Ed in his poem.
“I’m just a poor farmer.
Why can’t I walk?”
Like several of Ed’s recent poems, I recognized this a cry of anguish and frustration. In a very literal sense, it was the cancer speaking, not Ed. I didn’t recognize Ed in it.
“Ed,” I asked while we were talking to one another this afternoon, “do you really believe that millionaires don’t get cancer?”
He smiled and looked up at me.
“No, I know better than that, he said, I’m not that big of an asshole.”
Why did you write it?, I asked. “I don’t know,”he said, “sometimes there’s someone or something else in my mind”
I nodded, I said I understood and I do understand.
He said his great frustration and torment comes from asking others to do things for him that he has always done for himself. He feels ashamed and at night mostly, believes the cancer is punishment for failing to do good in his life.
We talked about that, and I don’t need to repeat those words here.
Ed asked me if I thought he would be able to walk again. I said I didn’t know, it wasn’t for me to say. But I saw the anguished look in his face, and I knew I had to speak honestly to him.
I said we had never lied to one another, I was not about to start now.
“Listen,” I said, the kind of cancer you have doesn’t give things back, it takes them away. It doesn’t go backwards, it keeps moving forward, it is ferocious. I don’t believe you can bull your way through it. I can’t say you won’t walk again, I can only hope you aren’t fighting the reality of this. I wish for you to find some peace and I have the sense you are fighting the cancer every minute, trying to outsmart and outmaneuver it. You keep saying it’s like chess. Your left leg isn’t working any longer, and that makes it hard to walk. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, you should do whatever you want to do.”
But you know by now, I said, that you can’t outthink it or outfight this kind of cancer. It isn’t really like chess.
I reminded him that we both talked about this the other day, “it isn’t a war,” I said, “your home is not a battleground. The cancer will do what it will do, I just wish that you have some peace at this time, I hope you make peace with yourself rather than prepare for battle. You deserve it.”
He said he is most peaceful when he is sketching or drawing.
I recalled a poem of Ed’s that Carol published the other day, “mind power is of the utmost importance,” Ed wrote, “you must face it with your mind, you must pass this test…”
I asked Ed if he thought this cancer was a test he had to pass, a battle of the mind, and he said yes, sometimes, that was the way he had always looked at life. He had to be strong, he had to be tough. He had to figure it out, and for himself.
Maybe, I suggested, he could think of a gentler story for himself.
I told him I was going to be honest with him, as he had asked me to be. I reminded him he had asked me to shout loudly if he showed self-pity. I said I knew he wished to be open about his cancer, and that he had asked Carol to do the same.
But I said I didn’t recognize him in some of those poems, I had never heard him utter an envious or angry or self-pitying word. I knew the cancer put some thoughts and emotions in his head, but I am not comfortable quoting or writing about or photographing a different Ed Gulley than the one I know and love.
I just wanted him to know that.
I would only take portraits of his face in repose or thought, I didn’t think it proper to do any more videos together, and I wasn’t comfortable publishing or quoting from poems or pieces that I knew did not reflect him and what he has always believed.
The truth is that there is no envy or self-pity in you, I said, I need to point that out.
I said what Carol did about this was her business, not mine, and I knew she was honoring his wishes to be forthcoming and not sugar coat the truth. That was up to her, of course, I said. She is profoundly faithful to Ed, she loves him so dearly.
And one thing I believe: There is no right way or wrong way to deal with this, we each have to find our own best way. We do the best we can for as long as we can.
There are ethics to be a friend and witness to someone’s death, especially someone you care about. I’m not really sure what they are, but I am struggling to figure it out. I’m getting an idea. Death this close is new territory for me too.
I felt I had an obligation as Ed’s friend to protect him from the cancer that was in his head, and that was sometimes coming out in his words and thoughts, at least in terms of what I wrote. I also believe in being open, and I also believe that openness need not be absolute and all encompassing.
I share much of my life, but I also don’t share much of my life.
I told Ed I owed him that, it was perhaps one of the last things I could do for him, and I was certain the Ed Gulley I was talking to today was my friend, and that he was listening and could understand me. I am learning that sometimes, protecting a friend means protecting him from himself.
He looked at me for a long time, and I was not clear what he was thinking. Usually, he would have told me by now. He nodded, and said he wanted to think more about what I had said. “Thanks,” he said, “you are a brother.”
I hope so.
Ed turned away, started sketching. He did two sketches, including the one above.
Then his eyes closed, and he fell back to sleep.
Maria and I were watching the powerful HBO documentary on the remarkable life of the comedian Robin Williams, and David Letterman talked about meeting Williams when he was young and just starting out as a comic.
For a long time, I wanted to be a stand up comic, i still sometimes wish I had gone for it. I might yet.
Letterman was nostalgic about those old days, when the young comics gathered together every night at different bars to gossip, support each other plot their careers and their lives.
I was surprised to hear Letterman say “those were the best days of my life,” when it seemed to me that he had experienced so many good days in his life. And what about now?
What is it we expect from life, after all is said and gone? Eternal youth? A life of no suffering? No disappointment? I have love in my life, work that I love, I have health and meaning, I am doing good almost every day. Isn’t that enough?
I know better than to presume to think I understand what is going on inside the lives of other people.
I often hear older people say what Letterman said, that the best days of their lives were long gone and far in the past. That always seems sad to me. There is this idea embedded deeply in our culture that getting older is, by definition, a time of diminishment and lament.
I am grateful for every day of my life,
I am uneasy hearing the comments of older people about being older. It has caused me to avoid long conversations with older friends. I don’t really want to talk about medicines and sore elbows. I don’t discuss my health with other people.
I missed the lessons where I was taught that a good life was a perfect life. That people and dogs never get sick or die. That we only mourn lives, but never celebrate them.
That I will never suffer or know disappointment. Like you, I have known a lot of suffering and disappointment. That only makes my gratitude and appreciation stronger.
My faith now is to do good, and that is my religion as I begin to get older.
I call talk about aging old talk, and I have never done it and never like it.
it is inevitably denigrating and wistful. Once I start thinking of myself that way, I will be of no use to anyone, me, Maria, friends or others.
To me, a life that was best decades ago is a sad and unfulfilled life. I am responsible for the life I am living, I have never been happier, more self-aware, more confident or more complete.
I am a freak, as usual, out of sync and outside of the tent that almost everyone else seems to live in. I always knew nostalgia was a trap, i don’t care to fall in it.
I don’t know all that much about David Letterman (I did read his biography), but it seemed to me that he had a very good life, and has a very good life still.
I have to say that this is the best time of my life, and although being young was exciting, and sometimes wonderful, it was also hampered by immaturity, inexperience, and a fragile emotional structure.
We tend to view the past fondly, and sometimes unrealistically. As anyone ever said out loud that the present is better than the past?
Nostalgia is part of our cultural zeitgeist, it is a honey trap, rarely connected to reality.
Being young was far from the best time of my life, I just didn’t know enough about myself, or about life. I made too many mistakes to live fully and well.
The future belongs to the young, but the philosophers are correct when they say youth is wasted on the young. They just don’t yet know what life is like, and that is why they can accomplish so much.
At 71, I am just beginning to understand life, I have only recently learned enough about me and about life to begin to live it fully and well. I would like for my legs to be 20 again, but I would never wish to be 20 again.
I think the best time of my life is wherever I am in my life. I hope I leave the world on my knees giving thanks. I am nothing but appreciative of living, however long it lasts. Politics and the news will never take that from me.
Grandma Moses said life is what you make of it, at any age. She was right, I think.
So was Albert Einstein when he said there are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
So much in my life is a miracle. Maria. Red. My farm. The Army Of Good. Ali. The Mansion. The Immigrants. My photography. My blog. The flowers that surround our farmhouse.
My daughter My granddaughter. My friends. My patched up heart. Bud, our new dog. The heroic boys on the soccer team. The heroic refugee mothers.
I am not going backwards a half century to find the best days of my life.
I hope they are yet to come.
An impressive thunderstorm swept over the farm this morning, I did grab my camera and rushed out to see how the birdbath was taking it.
I’ve given my fund raising for the Gus Fund some rest over the past few weeks.
I hate to keep asking people for money, and I was also distracted by some personal obligations. I always try to give the Army Of Good a rest, this is not a wealthy army, it consists of good people who share small amounts of money.
But if I don’t ask for help, then we can’t help anyone. That’s just the hard reality of it.
We have done a staggering amount of good since we started work in 216, it would take me all day to list everything. The Gus Fund supports my work with the Mansion residents and the refugees and immigrants living in New York State and struggling to survive.
We also support and sponsor the Albany Warriors, that wonderful group of young refugee men (and some women) who play soccer in the Albany area and also build character and community. This money is very well spent, every member of the team is on their school Honor Roll, that is a profound achievement for them, and for Ali.
The fund is very low right now, $750 and I’d like to get it up to $2,000 or $3,000 again. My philosophy is to get rid of the money as quickly as it comes in, it should be going to good use, not sitting in its own special bank account.
I spent more than $1,000 getting Lisa and her two sons established (they have new clothes and toys) and also helping Hawah and also helped Sifa get to a safe and clean and decent apartment. I had to give Hawah’s landlord nearly $1,000 this week to secure her new apartment, the county welfare department hasn’t sent him a check yet.
The landlord promised me that that money will come back to me. He is a good and honorable man, he has helped us more than once.
I promised to back her up, and I will keep my promise.
I also learned that one of the refugees that I helped – I gave her money for a down payment on an apartment – did not use the money to pay her landlord, but spent it instead for personal reasons. She came back to ask us for more, we said no.
I don’t intend to try to get the money back, I’m sure she doesn’t have it, but it was disheartening to me, the first time that has happened.
It hurt the heart, our fund will be fine. I suppose this is inevitable.
We screen the people we are helping carefully. I’ve never had anyone use the money for anything other than what they asked for and needed. I also bought two more air conditioners for the Mansion residents this month, they suffered greatly in the heat wave.
Everyone who needs an air conditioner has one.
The Army Of Good has been more than generous. My idea is large numbers of people sending small amounts of money. You all know precisely where it goes, I document everything I do in words and pictures.
When I get the funds, I use them and then pause and then ask for more help, and then use the money. I believe this is working well. We don’t work miracles, we don’t spend lots of money, we don’t take over lives.
We just offer a hand to the poor, the needy and the vulnerable. Get them to some stability, give them hope and promise.
It was wonderful to help Said, the Iraqi gentlemen who had lost everything after the war and was nearly homeless. He loves his new apartment, his TV with Arabic channels, has some clothes, loves his new cellphone. He has a part-time job, he is taking good care of himself, making friends, living an independent and safe life.
We are giving the soccer team some fun and healthy activities this summer – museums, animal parks, we would like to send them on a one day trip to New York City to ride a bus around town and have lunch. I would also like to get them to the Great Adventure Amusement and Water Park in Lake George.
You did that for him. We are keeping good alive.
I am sorry to say there are not a lot of people out there doing this for the elderly and the refugees, you are quite special and you matter.
We don’t do big things, we commit small acts of great kindness. The money goes a long way, it changes lives.
The soccer team will need to pay for its new uniforms shortly and I am eager to continue to support refugees who need some short-term assistance in getting their feet on the ground, in getting to the open field that is America, or should be.
The Mansion residents all have summer clothes, and air conditioners for their hot rooms if needed or wanted.
The Mansion also needs a new wheelchair scale, the old one is too small and is falling apart, and that will cost close to $400. This is important, the scale is the only way the residents can be weighed.
Some of the residents need underwear and shoes. I got a bunch of summer pajamas for them.
I want to shore up some summer activities for the soccer team when summer school gets out.
So this is the pitch I have been avoiding. I’d like your help in building the fund up for the summer.
Small donations are welcome, so are bigger ones. When I get some money, I stop asking for more until it runs out. So far, the Army Of Good has not failed to help.
If you can or wish, please send your contributions to “The Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected]. And thank you.
