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Harriet’s last blog post…

Hello-

Harriet and I (daughter Christina) have been enjoying creating these posts. They were her last way of communicating with the wider world, to let all the people she knows in the world, that she loves them and wants them to benefit from her experience of being a hospice patient. She felt strongly that there must be other people ‘out there’ who were on the same journey as she; or that their caregivers could read these few posts and learn something that may help. Now she’s finally starting down the path of death, and can’t share her wisdom with you. I’d like to tell you a little about Mom, for her last post.

Mom has always been a facilitator. “What can I do to help?” has been her mantra. Whether it was bringing together the family for dinners or birthday parties, or taking her dogs to the old folks’ home for visits, or going to the library (before there was an internet) to research an illness or situation for a sick or troubled friend, Mom never allowed life to tell her what to do and how things were going to be! There was always something she could do about a situation, she was convinced. Case in point: three years ago, the doctors told her she had 3-8 months to live after a heart ‘incident’. After being depressed for 2 days, she said she felt something inside her shift- I like to call it, “The hell you yell!” shift- and she began three years of recovery into life, and then her final decline.

Harriet felt that by writing things down, she could control her life, at least a little. Up until a couple days ago, she was writing in one of her many, many notebooks things that she wanted to keep track of- ah, but which notebook was it in?? Mom is a woman of books: pads of paper, magazines, notebooks, journals and diaries and daybooks, cookbooks…And of course literature: biographies, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and especially Buddhist literature. She loves Virginia Woolfe, M. Scott Peck, William Saroyan, Anne Tyler, HH The Dalai Lama. Whereas I read a book and instantly forget who the author is, she can remember the names of authors of books she read decades ago. Why? Because Harriet is an English Literature Major!

And not only is Harriet a woman of books, she’s also a woman of abundance. Mom likes to surround herself with stuff; one could call her a hoarder, but that’s not quite right. Rather, Mom wants to have enough food in her pantry and fridge, enough books, enough little gifts (that she would buy year ’round and say to herself, “Someone would like this, I’ll bet!”) etc., so that she can feed people, educate people and give anyone she knows a little gift when the occasion calls for it.

Mom’s go-to book in the last couple months has been, Advice on Dying by The Dalai Lama. I’m hoping she has internalized his messages, to make her passing easier: meditating while dying, to attain a mind of clear light in the end. Tucked into this book, I found an article by Fort Collins poet and writer Natalie Costanza-Chavez, called ‘Darkest Hours Always Yield to the Light’. She speaks of the “…waitfulness of crisis, void of all but the search for hope or calm or peace.” That’s where we are now, Harriet’s family. Natalie’s says of mourning families and friends, “… if they lean into the dark night, grace will come.”

Thank you, friends, for letting us lean on you, and with you, in our difficult time. Mom told us a couple days ago that she felt “like a ripe fruit, waiting to drop.” Thank you to the tree that grew her and saw her to fruition, thank you to the soil that nourished her and the air that caressed her, and thank you to the Spirit that holds her now, testing her ripeness, ready to bring her Home.

Letting go- arrrgh!

Oh, man- am i having trouble letting go! Why am I here, anyway?

Working on wisdom and compassion, for myself and others. This is what the world needs, compassionate people. Instead of saying, “Oh, this is ugly, this is hard! I think I’ll go fold laundry!” What’s the alternative? Sit with it. I think the Buddha said, “Nobody deserves compassion more than you do.” We all deserve LOVE AND COMPASSION!

I feel that we have a lot to learn from the people who have gone before us- I was talking to someone about my grandmother Muir, having her youngest daughter (my mother) hospitalized with a nervous breakdown when my mother was in her 30’s. And then, moving to California with us once her daughter got out of the hospital, and living with us; and what must it have been like for my father to have his wife hospitalized with mental illness. I remember asking him, after we’d been living in Colorado for a while and he’d come out to visit: “I’m kind of worried that I inherited this tendency for depression.” He responded, “You’re nothing like your mother…” I wish I’d had more time around him as an adult. I wish we’d not moved out here, now; my mother and father were so loving, and I could have had more time with my parents. Ah, regret.

When we went to my brother-in-law Howard’s memorial service, so many people came up to us and told us things we didn’t know about him: what a great golfer and basketball player he was, etc. Howard said to me, “Harriet, we’ve got to stick together!” Neither Howard nor I fit into the Bissell family culture very well. I really admired Howard for reaching out and calling his brothers (all 4 of them!), one brother every month. He called it the “Brother-A-Month-Club.” There’s someone who paid attention!

So, what’s the takeaway? It’s important to share some of our lessons with others, and appreciate the people who are in your life, right now! That’s become very important to me now- writing  “keeper” letters to my children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and my friends who have made such a difference in my life.

From In The Lap of the Buddha by Gavin Harrison:  “The way of spirituality is fundamentally about letting go. This is the opposite of acquisition and accumulation. We let go of all that obscures our Buddha-nature. In spiritual life, there is nothing to achieve, acquire or attain. Spirituality and meditation move against our tendencies toward grasping, holding and accumulating. By actively practicing generosity in our lives, we counteract the selfishness and insularity that are so abundant in our world. Inwardly, letting go is the heart of spiritual practice. Letting go returns us to stillness and peace.”

Musings on End of Life -on Hospice

As I progress through the hospice experience, I find that my priorities keep changing. Things that used to annoy, disturb, irritate me. One of the most important things is to keep my spirits up- try to find things that keep my spirits up. It can be the smallest thing, something new to wear (whether you need it or not).  I was having trouble writing and reading because of my eyes, writing things in a notebook. Reading is very important to me, as is writing. I asked my daughter Cathy to get me some black pens and stationery- it made me feel loved.

You’d better choose the people around you carefully- choose people who lift your spirits! A real gift is someone who wants to come see me! There are people in my life with whom I’ve really connected, people of differing ages- and that’s important, too. Communication in a positive way is so important to me- negative energy can really drag me down.

We are all terminal. You have to pay attention while you’re here, instead of seeking distraction- that can make you lose sight of what’s happening and what’s important. A book I’ve been reading is Advice on Dying by the Dalai Lama, and In the Lap of the Buddha by Gavin Harrison. That’s a great image, to put your head in Buddha’s lap! What was helpful was Harrison’s talk about forgiveness: it’s a “strength, a power, a maturity of heart” that brings healing on many levels. I think I choose mindfulness over meditation- mindfulness can ease the load; in the end, I think I’ve had a good life, and much to be grateful for. My life wasn’t all bad or all good; you have to accept your griefs like losing a child, losing your health. If you’re still here, you have a lot to be grateful for, even regarding people you’ve struggled with. If you talk to people about the past, they see it in a very different way; don’t get too hung up on it! What difference does it make in the end? I have the support of people who have gone before me: my mother and father, my Aunt Zelma who took such pleasure in giving. The art of giving and and art of receiving…

You  think, ‘Ok, I’m in this situation- how can I best approach it?’ You take advantage of all that Hospice has to offer. As my nurse says, it’s a shame, because hospice has so much to offer, and people don’t always take advantage of it.

“The adventure in living becomes almost all the human spirit can abide, when it is recognized that all that separates one life from another is the form”. – Howard Thurman