“If you exist, you exist in hope. To cease hoping is to cease existing. We are saved by hope for that which we do not see, and we wait for it with patience.” – Thomas Merton.

I’ve been writing all week about what I’ve learned and discovered in 2021, from aging to health care to contemplation to death to the idea of doing good.

Today I want to write about loss and gain, the twin pillars of human life,  the structure within which we all live, and my life this past year.

We all gain things and lose things all the time; that is the trajectory of life, even though few of us are prepared for it. And how could we be? Real-life is taboo in our culture unless it is on fire or being shot.

We are stunned, often overwhelmed with grief when our people die, when our dogs die, when our bodies begin to fail and break down, when the prices of things arise, which they always do, throughout time.

Our culture is an ostrich culture; our movies, books, and magazines – and yes, Facebook and Twitter and TikTok- and Instagram – shy away from real life; they are too busy selling hatred, ignorance, and fear to people. This year I learned a great deal about loss and gain.

As I age, the boundaries of loss and gain become more apparent, more in focus. I am freeer to live my life than ever before, am more at peace than ever before,  have lost more friends than ever before, and see doctors more than ever before. There it is the cycle of loss and gain that never stops.

As I get older, I appreciate that there is a loss in the way my body functions. My legs are weaker, so are my lungs. I need more rest – naps often – and I have given up on many of the chores and responsibilities I have always loved and are such an essential and beloved part of life on a farm. I am pleased that I still make love and want to make love.

I am grateful for my life and my body. I won’t speak poorly of it or complain about it. I will give it the care, dignity, and respect it deserves.

Maria and I have lost some of the joy of working together every day to feed the animals, clean the barns and roosters, haul out the hay. Sometimes I can, sometimes – when there’s bitter ice cold, or mounds of snow or heavy rain – I just can’t. It took me a long time to accept that. My body is my spirit; it lets me know what I can do, and I listen to it.

I am cautious about fooling and have the best boots for traction and safety. At least once a week in the winter, someone messages me to tell me there are spikes to buy that go over shoes and grip the ice. I try to say to them that those do not work on a farm with mud, manure, and ice; the spikes clot and are just as dangerous as bedroom slippers.

It’s hard for me to imagine messaging a 74-year-old man or woman on a farm to tell them what shoes to wear in the winter. But that’s just me, I suppose.

This year, I lost four friends, one to cancer, one to heart disease, one died in her sleep, one died from Covid-19. Another friend suffered a strike this Monday, yet another buried his wife and is mired in grief and despair. This is more loss than I have encountered so far in my life, and I know it’s a harbinger of things to come.

I am grateful for the Quakers who taught me to celebrate life rather than morning death—no rending of garments or weeks or morning or days of grieving with family and friends. Life is the most precious gift. People have the right to mourn any way they wish or need; I never tell anyone how to grieve.

It might have been the Quakers and my dogs who taught me that the things I love might die, but love itself can never die. That is a new lesson, and much of it came to me in 2021, confronting this loss all around me. I miss my friends, some acutely, but through my hospice work I have learned some things about how to help and comfort the living. That is a gift.

I never tell anyone how to grieve, that would be a travesty, but I understand the loss in a powerful new way for me. It is no longer an abstract or remote idea, it can be as beautiful and moving as it is painful and devastating.

Maria and I are more vital than ever.

We have gained in our connection as she has grown more robust, and I have found other ways to contribute. The elderly can love just as passionately and deeply as any 20-year-old. That is a good thing to finally know.  We switch roles as necessary, but we always keep our own space and independence.

This change means growth and a deepening of our friendship and love for one another.

We never fail to appreciate our time together or how we have matured and grown strong together and held one another’s hand through life. I believe that we will always be together, long after one of us or both of us are gone. I think spirit lives.

Life is wonderful, life is awful. That’s the story of it.

There are many gains as well as losses; one informs the other. I gave up my much-loved Canon camera and all of the lenses I have acquired over the past decade and got in exchange my Leica Monochrome, which in turn challenged me to learn more about my photography and take my photos to another level. The camera provokes me to reach for the beauty inside of me and let it out.

I was never a good pupil, but my Leica deserves a knowledgeable owner and I am exploring the range of the monochrome camera. I love it like a brother, only more.

I now keep track of the money, something Maria did, and something I struggled with all of my life. I do almost all of the shopping and much of the cooking. I support her work in every way that I can and have more time and energy to help the Mansion and its residents, Bishop Maginn High School, and its students.

I’ve raised more money to do more things in the most innovative and most effective ways than ever before. Small acts of great kindness are my policy, my strategy for the Army Of Good. What the body can’t do, the mind often can, in one way or another.

There is no decline in my ability to write every day, sometimes many times a day. I feel my writing is more robust, transparent, and grounded. I am proud of my blog, my creative center, and it continues to grow.

I have never missed my book life, or the control others had on my work and life. I loved writing books and give thanks for the chance to write 26 of them. But that is past, and nostalgia is a big and often deceitful trip, especially for the aging.

People still try to tell me what to write, what to do, and what kind of shoes to wear, but I am free to ignore them and remind them that I’m not looking for another mother; I’m still getting over the first one. And I will always fight for my identity and dignity. In fact, I will never surrender it again.

My work with the Mansion and Bishop Maginn High School and refugee and inner-city children has deepened my sense of empathy and purpose. Doing good is my fuel and nourishment.

My contributions are less physical but more far-reaching and effective in many ways. The sheep don’t need me as much as the elderly residents and the refugee children do.

Maria loves to care for the animals on the farm and does a beautiful job. I help when I can, secure in the knowledge that they are all in the best possible hands.

I do yearn for Red, excellent therapy, and sheep-herding dog. I will always miss working with that beautiful dog and generous spirit.

As my life has changed in some ways, it has grown in others. I have great faith in the idea that we get the dogs we need, and Zinnia is the dog I need at this point in my life, just as Orson was, and Rose was, and Frieda was, and Izzy was.

I can trace the trajectory of my life through the lives of the beautiful dogs, animal spirits who come to guide me and support me and share my trek through life.

I am learning what is important and what isn’t. I am called to shed the anger and frustration in me, to make certain I am never subsumed by the hatred and greed all around me. That is hard work, but good work.j

This year, I understood and accepted my long struggles with friendship. I am what Thomas Merton calls an undeniable loner; making friends easily is not who I am. I am most at ease in the company of Maria or me. My guess is that this is, no more new friends for me in my lifetime.

I have what I have always wanted. That brings incomparable joy and meaning.

The miracle of 2021 for me is the discovery that I have everything I need right here, and for the first time in my life, I want nothing that I don’t have. The panic that almost distinguished my spirit and life is almost entirely gone. It’s true about mental illness. We can recover much of the time if we work hard enough, and I work hard.

If I had a scale and weighed loss versus gain, I’d have to think each balanced the other. For each failure, there was again. For each gain, there was a loss. That is the yin and yang of life, the big secret kept from me for so long.

Photo, our Town Hall, morning.