Oz is a Cockatiel, about 15 years old. Every day for the past few weeks, Ed and Oz have had running conversation. Ed can always get Oz to dance, sing or whistle. They would talk back and forth with one another for hours until late last week.
Then Ed got quiet and Oz got quiet. I haven’t heard a sound from him all week, nor has Ed talked back to him and started a conversation. I thought it was time you all met him. I think Oz’s world is turning upside down.
I received this Facebook message Wednesday night from Kate Idleman Gulley, Carol and Ed’s daughter in law, when we got home:
“Just wanted to say we are enjoying corn, green beans and peaches for part of our dinner tonight courtesy of your kindness. Thanks. From Chad, Kaylah, Jordan and myself, thank you for truly caring. Although my family has not always understood the relationship you have with Ed and Carol we now see just how deeply you and Maria care for them. For that I just say thank you.”
It was kind and thoughtful of Kate to send that letter, I see her often now, and enjoy her wit and humor and energy, she is often working on the farm when I am visiting Ed and Carol. I wrote back a note of thanks, and I said I didn’t understand our friendship with Ed and Carol either.
i think friendship has a mind of its own, it happens when it wants to happen and runs and hides when it doesn’t.
Maria and I could hardly be more different from the Gulley’s if were programmed to be that way, yet from the first, we all felt an instant and powerful connection with each other.
I believe it was the creative parts of each of us that recognized one another – Carol with her writing, Ed with his art – and then the rest was nature and heart and pure dumb luck.
We always seemed to get one another, we always laughed with other, we never ran out of things to talk to with each other. It’s still true, we chat with Carol every day now, sometimes for hours. We still laugh and we never run out of things to talk about.
Soul connections are just soul connections, we have them with each other, and we have them with Ed and Carol.
Thanks to you Kate. Ed and Carol are fortunate in being surrounded by people who love them.
“Don’t walk in front of me…I may not follow.
Don’t walk behind me…I may not lead.
Walk beside me…just be my friend.”
I told Kate that families like hers were a mystery to Maria and I, we have no families anywhere around us, not really. We rarely hear from any of them.
Carol is always talking about her large and devoted family, we are almost never talking about ours. Carol feels sorry for us, and always invites us to her family functions. We dread family functions.
I think Ed and Carol became family to us, and us to them. Family is natural to them, not really to us. It is a pleasure to get to know Kate and Chad and Jesse and Maggie and their families, it is rich experience to see them and be with them.
C.S.Lewis said a friend is born at the moment when one man says to another, “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself…” That was always the way it was with Ed and me.
I know now that when you walk away from someone wondering what just happened, what did that mean, ponder and stew, he said, she said, that a friendship is not real or never was. That never happened with Ed, or with Carol.
We may be different, but we are closely bound to the Gulleys through this wrenching time, there is no place we would rather be. Maria and i – or one or the other of us – are with Carol just about every afternoon, and we have only grown more comfortable with one another as this new reality has unfolded. Sometimes we help.
I love the image of this exhausted and worried family eating and love the fresh fruit and vegetables we brought.
This is the testing time for Carol, the hard time, she needs to see familiar faces she trusts and can talk to.
In my early hospice work, I always noticed a point when my dogs would turn away from the sick person and give their attention instead to the living.
It was almost as if the dogs knew, they probably did sense it, that there was nothing they could do for the dying, who gather themselves at the end of their days and have no need of dogs any longer.
I’ve learned this lesson, it is time for us to train our help on Carol, in one way, Ed is already gone.
When people begin the process of dying, they almost visibly gather themselves, they no longer have the energy to pay any attention to the dogs or other animals around them. They just don’t have the strength.
But the people who love them have a need that is greater and the dogs turn to them to offer love and comfort. In the Gulley house, all of their big lumbering dogs – four of them – have moved from Ed’s room to the kitchen to be with Carol. They do not surround his bed any longer.
Ed’s Cocaktiel Oz has stopped singing to him. Ed can no longer pay attention to them, and that is the cue of the therapy dog to come, they don’t really understand sickness and death.
Carol is the one in need now, she is the one very much alive and struggling very hard through physical and emotional pain. It is almost unbearable for Carol to think of a life without Ed, but she is also coming to accept the reality around her, and the extent of his suffering.
Today, Lo Ann Sanders, a guiding spirit of the Army Of Good, came over with a huge tray of sandwiches and four giant pies. She sat with Maria and Carol in the kitchen while I sat with Ed.
Ed was up for much of the night afraid and in pain, and Carol spoke with the hospice staff and it was decided to start some Morphine with Ed today, it will calm him and help him sleep. And it did.
I well understand the meaning of Morphine in hospice work, it is the hospice promise to make the dying as comfortable as possible and give them comfort and rest as they move into the next and final chapter. Hospice is not about helping people to die, it is about helping them to be comfortable and safe.
But there are choices to make. As the patient gets more and more uncomfortable, they are given medication to help them to sleep. Morphine is a huge turning point for any patient.
Carol understands this as well as anyone, she has no good choices to make, only hard and painful ones. She has some of the darkest days just ahead of her, and some of the most profound and meaningful.
We will be there with her, even as she is enveloped by a dedicated and committed family. She has another choice to make also, that is whether or not to have surgery for herself to torn ligaments and when.
That is not an easy choice now, either.
It was painful for us to see the pain she is in, even as she sits up with Ed all night, night after night. She is working to see her life beyond this time.
I sat with Ed for an hour, Maria talked with Carol, i love the sound of their voices, they talk so easily with one another. Carol and I are close, but I know she will never be as easy with me as she is with Maria or other women.
Men are like that, even when they are loved, it is hard for some women to be completely at ease around them. That is part of the sad story of men.
Ed and I were always so easy with one another. I feel we still are, bound in the silence. I am not easy with too many people.
I ask nothing, I just listen.
I read a book while Ed slept, he opened his eyes once and asked how I was, then fell back into a deep sleep. When we left I said goodbye, as i always did, he said something I couldn’t hear and we left.
I admit I am going a little crazy waiting for Bud, who is undergoing heartworm treatment in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. He has been in antibiotics and is about to get the first of several toxic injections to kill the heartworm bacteria. They are powerful and dangerous, so he’s not coming up here until those shots are completed.
I wish I could get him up here and treat him here, but that would be dangerous.
It will be about two months before he comes here to live.
Carol Johnson, the gracious fosterer who has been caring for Bud for Friends Of Homeless Animals/RI, tells me Bud is really coming around. He is getting cuddly, playing with some energy, and sleeping in bed on during most of this hot Southern summer.
“He’s really a great and sweet dog,” Carol told me (I call her regularly to check up on Bud), “I will really miss him.” At first, she said, Bud shook and hid for much of the day. He is beginning to come out of shell, he seems both loving and solid.
He does seem to like the Pee Pad Carol uses in her home, I will want to get him off of that quickly once he gets up here. The more I hear about Bud, the more I think he has real potential as a therapy dog. He is calm and loving.
We’ll see. In the meantime, I just have to work on being patient, not my strong point. But we are excited.
Maria has kicked off a low-yield controversy (me too, I guess) by announcing the creation and imminent sales of her latest potholder series, she calls it the Flying Vulva Potholder, and they just went on sale on her Etsy page.
When I wrote about the Flying Fulvas – I love to scoop Maria on her new creations, not that I’m competitive- one of the first responses on my comments page was a one-word outburst from Lynda, a long-time blog reader.
In short order, there were four or five comments in different places, all using the same words. It was “disgusting” for some women to see the image of the vulva on the potholder.
“Disgusting,” was all Lynda had to say about it, she wouldn’t even talk about it.
Another women posted a longer and thoughtful message suggesting they were offensive to her also, she saw no reason why Maria or I needed to celebrate the public discussion of human genitals in the form of art (she probably had the Penis Potholder series in mind last year.)
I will say right up front that it saddens and surprises me to hear women talk about this most important and female body part in this way. I am not much for talking about my sex life on the blog, but I want to say that that I love vulvas, especially their softness and sensuality and feeling.
Vulvas have been central to my life with Maria and my sex life. I am about to be 71 years old, and I will come out and talk about something important to me. When I first made love to Maria eight or nine years ago, I was stunned and horrified to learn that I could not do the things I once did when it came to sex.
I am specifically referring (you can stop reading if you are delicate) to the strength and utility of my own sex organ, the penis. It was an awful shock.
I rebounded immediately – this is where creativity really counts – and learned that there are many ways to please women sexually, and Maria specifically.
it didn’t have to just be the conventional old in-and-out way. I learned from my therapist and from hurried reading that this wasn’t even the best way if you think about women.
I learned that conventional sex was often unsatisfying to women, strong and young men came to orgasm quickly and often left women unfulfilled and in longing.
I got to work. The vulva was my best friend.
I desperately wanted to make love to Maria, for one thing I knew she wasn’t looking for another sexless relationship in her life. Neither was I, I hadn’t had sex in 20 years until I met Maria. I had given up on it, even though I know how important it is to a connected relationship.
I couldn’t bear to start another sexless relationship, I knew this one wouldn’t last. Besides, I really wanted to have sex.
In this relationship, I discovered the beauty and sensitivity of the vulva. It seemed like a soft rose to me, a thing of extraordinary beauty, grace and feeling. it had quivers and layers and so much feeling, it responded to me in so many ways. It also made Maria happy.
Because of the vulva, I was able to compensate for some of my aging parts, I found new ways to love my wife, and to support my valiant but aging penis.
Is it hard for me to talk about this? Only initially. The more I think about it, the more important it is to talk about this, especially when women tell me their own body is disgusting.
I don’t need to go into further details, but the vulva is about as far from disgusting to me as a body part can get. It is so full of life and feeling, it a symbol of so many elements of femininity. I am grateful to the vulva, and cheer the new potholder.
I don’t speak for Maria, she has written about the Flying Vulva Potholder on her own blog today.
But I will never forget what the vulva has done for me, not only is it a thing of beauty, but it helped give both of us the kind of loving sexual connection that so deepens a loving relationship.
To the disgusted women, I would only say my wish for you is that you re-think where this disgust comes from and what it is really about.
There are many people in our culture who want nothing more than for women to hate their own bodies and sexuality and power – just look at the news. We don’t need to flaunt our genitals anywhere, but a humble and artsy little potholder is not going to harm any woman on the planet.
It is such an integral part of them. Why should it be hidden away in difference to the hoary morals of angry old men.
In a time where millions of women all over the world have their genitals mutilated early in life, I think of the Flying Vulva as a flag, a celebration waving valiantly in the wind (or on the kitchen table) reminding us that there is nothing more beautiful on this earth than the body of a loving woman.
I was surprised by this minor flap, to tell the truth, and a little sad. Why is is any different putting the vulva in a potholder than a bird or head or the body of a donkey? Why is one disgusting and the other cute?
It’s hard for me to believe Lynda was born feeling this way, it was almost certainly something she was taught.
For thousands of years, artists and sculptors and painters have celebrated the vagina and the penis and the rest of the human anatomy, just go to Rome or Florence or any great museum. The Vatican Museum walls are crammed with vaginas and penises, all sizes, ages and colors. The first Olympians all competed nude, nobody seemed disgusted by it.
It was only recently – the 1800’s – that a group of British businessmen, rattled by the very specific anatomical and sexual art archeologists from the British Museum were unearthing in Pompeii, decreed that women were too feeble-minded and weak to endure images of genitalia.
They first coined the term pornography, and their Victorian Culture and our Puritanical culture were happy to climb on board and make women feel repulsed by their own sexual organs and horrified by the sexual organs of men.
Before the invention of pornography artists freely and almost universally explored the art of genitalia, since that part of our bodies is so essential to love, sex, procreation -to human life and connection. Why on earth should we hide it?
Art is not exhibitionism, Maria does not show her vulva to people or walk around naked (except at night in the woods.) Neither do I.
You don’t really need to be a feminist to grasp that this idea – shaming women into hiding their own bodies – was a great conspiracy by men, a powerful way to control women and to make them feel ashamed – even disgusted – by their own bodies, and at the mercy of men to define what is acceptable for them to see and portray, and what it is not.
To me, it is fatuous to compare vaginal art to penis art, mostly because men and women are so different. The vulva is associated in my mind not with filth, but with softness, empathy, compassion, beauty and love.
I love vulvas, I celebrate them, to me they are symbol of nurture, affection, ecstacy sometimes, an antidote to our bloodless, humorless and disconnected world.
My wish for our children is that they grow up in a world where vulvas are loved more than money and war. Perhaps it’s time to be disgusted by greed and violence.
Leave the vulva alone.
I an overwhelmed by the response to yesterday’s call for help in getting Kelly Patrick, a Certified Nurse’s Aide at the Mansion.
I haven’t been able to tally all of the contributions, so many were $5, $10 and $20. A lot were more – $100, $200 even a $500 donation, and the mail donations aren’t here yet.
It’s a guess, but I believe we are just a few dollars short of the $1,600 we need for Kelly to rent her double wide trailer. I am certain the rest is on the way. I can’t wait to tell her that her nightmare is over. She and her family will have a roof over their heads, and a warm place in the winter.
Kelly, I suspect you are reading this, congratulations.
Thanks for asking for help. Help helps.
A number of people have asked whether they can help Kelly’s expenses to move into the trailer, or buy household items for her new home. If there is extra money, it will go to that purpose. One woman is sending a $300 Visa gift card.
I know Kelly needs money for groceries and other household items – linens, towels, kitchen appliances, microwave, air conditioning. I’ll make sure she gets the money meant for her, and any money she gets will be used well.
Many people have asked me to wait for their checks and donations, and I will. They want to contribute. This story struck quite a nerve. I think we all know somebody trapped in this kind of net.
I know Kelly will be grateful for any additional help, and can use it.
This is touching for me to see.
The Army of Good is not a wealthy army, but they have the biggest hearts.The contributions have come in from all over the country, just about every state except Hawaii.
As always, I will be photographing Kelly’s new home, as soon as she signs the lease and moves in.
I think we will have enough, for sure, and maybe some overage. If there is any money beyond what Kelly needs, it will go straight into the Gus Fund, which supports the Mansion and refugee work. But I think Kelly can use what comes.
You can follow Kelly’s story, detailed yesterday here.
I want to say that the Mansion is a good place to work and for the aged residents to live. They care. Red and I have been in many that don’t care. These contributions are a testament to the connection so many of you feel for the Mansion.
Medicaid elderly care facilities do not have much money, unlike private assisted care facilities, and their government payments and subsidies are being slashed all of the time. Wealthy people do not go there.
In America, we want to keep the elderly alive as long as possible so insurance companies and pharmaceuticals can make money off of them, but we don’t want to pay much for their sustenance and care, or give the people who work there the pay they deserve.
The great cliche – the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer – is very true in our country.
It is always a struggle for places like the Mansion, the Army Of Good has made so many things possible there that would otherwise be impossible.
I have been to a lot of assisted care facilities, and the Mansion has the most loving and supportive care I have seen. That does not mean the staff makes a lot of money, there just isn’t a lot of money to spread around. And this doesn’t mean these paid caregivers should not be paid more.
It is a scandal when certified nursing aides who do so much difficult work make less than cashiers at fast food restaurants.
I am fond of Kelly and am excited to help her, but to me, this is a much larger story than Kelly and her tent.
This is the story of many millions of people whose wages have not grown in the new and booming economy, even as the cost of almost everything in our lives is rising.
Kelly has always worked hard, always had a job, she got into some trouble for personal reasons – she has been caring for her daughter and grandson for seven years – and her bills sometimes outrun her income.
There is simply no net for many American workers who run into the bumps and struggles of life. Once your foot gets into the quicksand, it is harder and harder to get out.
Kelly, like many other professional caregivers, is taking care of our mothers, many of whom have been largely abandoned by their families and society at large. She makes a huge difference to them, and there is no way she should be living in a tent with her grandson or daughter.
So thanks so much. I think we’ve done it, or will do it shortly. I’m not sure I ever had a faster or more generous response to a request for help.
Any additional money will be put to good use, and if you wish to donate to Kelly and her struggle to get out of her tent, or to my Mansion work, you can send a contribution to the Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected].
Please mark the donations “Kelly” if that’s where you wish the money to go.
