September is the month of both my mother and father’s birthdays. I honor them with the announcement of the publication of a book I wrote about a chapter in our family’s life: My Fading Father: An End of Life journey.
Dad walking me down the aisle
This is the story of how our family lived together with Dad in his last years and our final earthly goodbye. It was compiled from diaries I wrote during this season. It is a book for all of us — caregivers, care receivers, grievers— all of us who will face our decline and death, or that of a loved one. So, the story is for everybody. Dad’s end of life journey came with cognitive decline, likely Alzheimer’s, and that presented a special challenge and opportunity for us.
Dad and I at Plasters Grove cemetery where he was laid to rest
If you know of anyone who might benefit from a book like this, please let them know about it. If you would like to order it, it is available on Amazon. https://a.co/d/7BkDQ4R
I have started humming this Beetles song lately: “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64.” I remember sitting in church when I was in Junior High school figuring out how old I would be in the year 2000—because that seemed so far in the future—like the Jetsons! I would be 40! Nearly ready for the nursing home, I thought at the time.
My Jr. High days
I recently went to the funeral of our pastor from my teenage years. What a legacy he had! Brother Delbert Wells (and his wife Beverly) were such a gift to me and so many more that God put in their path. He was like the pastor in the Jesus Revolution movie. In my hometown of Springfield, IL he opened his little church of Bethel to the hippies of the day. I was a Jr. hippie 🙂 ; old enough to wear bell bottoms and say, “Make love not war”, and have “Flower Power” written on my school notebooks and buy my blacklight posters from our local headshop called “Penny Lane”. Others in our church, and at our downtown Christian coffeehouse named LSD (for Lighter Side of Darkness), were “major” hippies just saved from the world of drugs and deep darkness. Brother and Sister Wells gave us respect, grace, a place in God’s Church and nurtured our individual callings. Their surrendered lives led us closer to God’s loving and perfect plan for our lives.
My early teen years
On the way home from Brother Wells’ funeral, I listened to The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. The following is my journal writing as I contemplated legacy and end of life, time passages, the final judgement and heaven:
“On the way down today, I listened to The Great Divorce. The last time I read it, I could barely understand the symbolism. Today it was rich. I thought of how clever of CS to illustrate all of us and thought that an evaluation of certain questions as the book is being read would be helpful: “Who are you in the story?” and “Which characters are your significant others in the story?” and “How can this work inform you on how to live and not live?”
I recall:
The inexplicable addiction to the Red Lizard of Lust which turned to a White Stallion of Desire after a difficult death to lust, bringing a rose brightness up the Mountain of Light.
The woman full of other-love that was really self-love in disguise, supposed love for son trumping love for God. (Is this me?)
The theologian not wanting to let go of the questioning, the philosophizing, the open-endedness even after arrival in the surety of heaven. (Is this me?)
The teacher needing to teach for identity.
The painter wanting to paint heaven, but not to capture heaven’s radiance, but for his own reputation. (Is this me as poet/journaler/blogger/writer? Will I lay down my pen in heaven?)
The tragedian/disappearing dwarf chained and “their” wife—all glorious and exalted coming to them humbly beginning with apology but with the challenge to give up a quest for pity which only squelches joy.
The wife who always wanted her husband just to dominate/control/chide him.
George McDonald as CS’ guide—mentor—like Virgil & Beatrice for Dante.
The solidity of heavenly things and transparency of our un-surrendered selves.
Help me not to love learning most, but to love learning about YOU! Help me to lay down my search once you are found. Help me to lay down my “Religion” once I am in Your arms—Your sight—Your presence fully and eternally.
Help me now, Lord, to live a life so pleasing that I will have let go of all of “me” that is not under your Lordship. Help me to examen—examine—and give me courage to let go—to hold on only to You and Your ways and Your will and desire for You!! I know that is where peace is and truth and life and Light. That is my only place of True Safety—True Love.”
And so, now that I’m turning 64, I continue praying this journal prayer. I pray that I will live well. I pray that I will serve well. I pray that I will age well. I pray that I will end well!
Not all of us–the outsides stay whether they want to or not.
The insides stone up, wall up, shut down.
They’re like Addison…”What the…?” or less sophisticated, “Ouch!”
When or whether we reappear is up for grabs. Sometimes the healing necessitates, or dictates, staying inside the shell. Changing routine, changing bandages, changing hope–they all cost and our insides pay a high price–often more than what is in the wallet.
But God is there. And He has the extra we need. We need only ask…if we can keep from walling up on Him.
There are places, spaces, where it is easier to open to Him:
walking the woods or pasture,
standing near a mossy log,
counting dew drops on soft plant leaves,
revisiting a field full of memories,
smelling mist, hearing trees, admiring all He has made.
When we first acquired our Jessamine farmstead, the house, shed, and fences could all have been marketed as being in “as is” condition. This is typically realtor-speak meaning “somewhat run down and probably lots of things will need to be repaired or replaced.”
We were not daunted. Our thrill was with the land and location. When friends and family came to visit they often commented on the shack–a leaning structure with bowed out barn wood on the sides and two small low-slung entrances on front and side. Indeed we discovered in the first winter that snow was easily blown through the boards so that its contents were only slightly protected from the elements.
All this is reality and yet I’m enchanted by the beauty of this little deteriorating historic structure in our backyard. It serves as trellis to vines of colored leaves in the fall and supports pink peonies likely planted about the time of its construction every spring. In the winter it shelters stacks of wood that Hule splits in just the right size for our wood stove and in the summer it holds our mowers, garden tools, and a bird nest or two.
A few years ago I was introduced to a series of words that are conjectured by some as “untranslatable” from other languages into English. So many of these words intrigue me and challenge me to appreciate the cultures that nurtured and created them. One such word is wabi-sabi from the Japanese. Wabi-sabi is said to refer to an appreciation of a beauty inherent in objects of transience and a respect of imperfection and admiration toward an essentially natural cycle of decay or deterioration. While I believe that one must study a culture more thoroughly to truly know the full meaning of such words, what I read of this concept reminds me of how I feel about our little lean-to. In fact I have now named it our wabi-sabi shed.
Maybe it is our stage or season of life that gives me this perspective. In my 2nd half of life I am choosing to focus on the value of an unfading beauty of the inner spirit rather than the fleeting beauty of my outer form. A few years ago when at the beach I looked down at my hands and hardly recognized them…age spots, crinkled skin, protruding veins…these were not the hands of my youth.
When I was dating my Mississippi boyfriend (later to become my husband, Hule) and he held my hand for the first time he said, “Wooo! Your skin is softer than a catfish’s belly!” At first, this Illinois girl wondered if that was a slam, but pretty quickly I discovered it was indeed high praise. Remembering that, I considered the history that each scar and spot and rough patch represented. A new perspective valued my hands’ natural decay to reveal a sort of beauty.
With this perspective, which now I might call a wabi-sabi perspective, I wrote this poem to my husband:
Our Jessamine Farm 