As expected

If you haven't read the previous post titled, "My way or the highway," then STOP here and go read it. This is an addendum.

For those of you touched by the story of a man choosing to time his own life to his dying wife's life, know that only two days afterher husband passed away, as expected our lady from the last post, Wilma, died peacefully this morning.

No doubt it will be very difficult on their children to lose both parents within a few days; however, I can totally understand their desire to "go" together. My wife and I have joked about, as well as talked seriously about, dying together knowing just how difficult it would be to go on living without the other in our lives.

This is a messy situation, to which all kinds of emotions are surely attached. I wonder how those of you reading this are responding. Care to share your thoughts?

My way or the high way

A man died the other day. Peacefully, he lay in his bed, which was pulled up next to his wife’s bed in the assisted living facility (ALF) where they have both been patients for quite some time. Both are hospice patients. We’ll call them Fred and Wilma.

Wilma has not spoken a word in years because of severe dementia that has held her mind captive. Daily they puttered around the ALF, and Fred saw to her every need and acted as her voice since they’d been married longer than many people live. Fred was considerably healthier than Wilma.

Fred was a retired colonel in the military and has a gift for stubbornness and is used to getting things his own way. “My way or the highway,” was a frequent phrase used to describe him. Wilma had been nearing death for quite some time. In talking with Fred I learned just how afraid this formerly very powerful officer was. He was afraid of being alone when his bride passed away. So afraid, he expressed to me that if it weren’t for the insurance problems it was cause, he would “expedite his own process.” They had been living together most of their lives, Fred wanted to die together as well.

A few days after our conversation, Wilma took a down-turn and stopped eating or drinking. The next day, Fred decided not to eat or drink as well. He would accompany his wife in every way he was able. Like a race to the finish these two declined together and stubborn Fred seemed to be moving more quickly toward his last breaths.

On his third day without food or water Fred died. As he preferred, he died either before or alongside his now unresponsive wife. I have no way of knowing her level of awareness; however, I hold on to the romantic idea that when his body and spirit are removed from that room she will know something is missing.

I can’t imagine Wilma holding on much longer. I’ve heard numerous stories of people being so connected that when one dies, the other doesn’t last much longer. But this was the clearest case I’ve ever witnessed. It has served to change some of my assumptions about life and our innate instinct to stay alive. Fred went against that instinct by choosing to time his life to his wife’s.

In talking with one of their daughters at the time of death, she showed me the last birthday card all her siblings had gotten Fred that was taped up in the room. On it were two arrows pointing in diverging directions. Above one arrow was the caption “Dad’s way,” and above the other read, “Highway.” That sure was the case through his dying breath.

Alaska with Robert & Anna, part 1: Denali

Sorry, Robert and Anna, for taking so incredibly long to blog about your visit.

Our best friends came to Alaska! They are our best friends, because they are our friends, and...well...they are the best.

In early-mid July they arrived for their first time in the wild state, Alaska. Our main adventure with them was to visit Denali National Park and Preserve, which is a 4.5 hour drive north.

If you don't know, Denali National Park is so named for it's tallest mountain also named Denali by Alaska's Natives, which in their language means, "the big one." In school, we learned about Denali as the tallest mountain in North America, only my teacher called it Mt. McKinley.

Denali National Park isn't all about the mountain, it's about wildlife and the wilderness too. Of course, we wanted to see the mountain, but there's so much else to see as well. But to see Mount McKinley, one must, after entering the park, pay to ride a bus far into the park. It's about a two-hour ride to the first spot where the mountain is visible. But there's plenty to see along the way.

For instance, check out the side of this mountain and crappy dirt road our large busses were driving on and passing each other.



We spotted this little fox guy trotting along the road. He went right past our bus like we weren't even there. Cutie.


Yogi the bear decided to show his face to us. He was the first of about four brown bear sightings during the day. This pic was taken from far away with Anna's stellar zoom lens.






According to our tour guide/bus driver, only about 30% of the visitors to the park get to see Mt. McKinley, because the mountain is so tall that it has it's own weather system in the higher altitudes that often hides the mountain. Plus, this area of the state is simply prone to cloudiness. The day we went into the park, it was grey, completely overcast and drizzly. We didn't get our hopes up to see the mountain.

However, As we drove further into the park, the clouds began to break up a little. Then a little more. Until, we came around a bed in the road and saw this...

Denali through the clouds

The mountain was peaking through the dark clouds. Almost as if Denali was creating a little elbow room, "Uh, 'xcuse me fellas, but could ya make some room?"

To give some perspective, the mountains we're driving through as well as the dark gray mountains in front of Denali in this picture are around 4,000 feet tall. Similar to the ones around Anchorage. They themselves are breathtaking and beautiful. Denali's highest peak is just over 20,000 feet tall. The effect was this: as we drove through the park, we were amazed at being surrounded by mountain views in all directions. But when Denali peaked through, suddenly these large gorgeous mountains were dwarfed. It was a cool effect. 

Our trip down the park road continued. Eyeing what parts of the mountain we could make out through the clouds, we found more wildlife as well. We spotted another bear and this elk as well. His antlers were just growing back and were still furry. 

We pressed on. 

The heavens were smiling on our group that day, because the closer we drove toward the mountain, the more the clouds gave way to blue. 

Only a few clouds around it now. 

Eventually, there she was. A crystal clear view of the biggest mountain on our continent. Only on little lone cloud hover over the summit (again, it has it's own loyal weather). Remember, the mountains at the base are about 1/4 the height of Denali and taking this picture, we are closer to those mountains than they are to Denali. 

Only one word could describe it: Massive. 

Enormous. 

Breathtaking. 

Inspiring. 

Humbling. 

Okay, that was 5 words. And I know this is the most over-used word out there, but it was amazing!

Make that 6 words. 

Getting of the bus, we walked to Reflection Pond and got several really neat pictures with the mountain reflecting off the water. 

The mountain was in view for only about two hours before it got tired and decided to cover back up. In this last picture of the four of us, you can see the clouds creeping back in front of and around Denali. 

Our timing was perfect!

Everyone we talk to who's lived here a while tells us how lucky we were and what a treat we got. One friend of mine grew up here and has been several times, but never gotten this good a view. 

Needless to say, we had fun. We were, however, worn out after the bus trip. We were on the bus for about 12 hours that day. And about two hours before the end, I was done and wanted off. It was a long last two hours.

The whole day was majestic. I'm so glad to have shard it with Robert and Anna. We miss you guys already. 

Next time: Part two, Talkeetna, Flat Top and The Coastal Trail. Can you guess what might happen? Will Anna get sick, will Robert fall off a mountain, and who's the fastest biker of us all...? 

Indah

Meet Indah.

She is an absolutely adorable 5-year old girl living in Indonesia. Heather and I have talked for quite some time about sponsoring a child overseas. Well, yesterday we began sponsoring Indah through Compassion International.

From all that I've heard, Compassion Int. is the most prominent and reputable of the companies out there offering relief to underprivileged children around the world. Meaning, more of the dollars you send through Compassion Int. actually make it to the child instead of in administrative costs.

Heather and I are blessed to be in a position to be able to afford sponsorship, but I think many people don't realize that they are also financially able to do this.

We received our water bill in the mail yesterday. Though it was a bit higher than usual, the monthly costs for sending Indah money to help her grow and learn was roughly half the cost of our water bill.

To put it another way, we pay each month almost three times as much for our cell phones each month. And we don't even have the smart phones with the Wi-fis that get on the internets.

Compassion Int. asks for $38 each month to sponsor one child. How many of us spend that much going out to eat on nights we don't feel like cooking? My guess would be, a lot.

I like Compassion Int. also because of their name. In my theology, God is compassion first and foremost before any other trait can be ascribed to God.

Indah's picture is now on our refrigerator, and we look forward to exchanging letters and communications with her in the future.

If you've ever thought about sponsoring a child, let me encourage you to do so. Click here to view children needing sponsorship right now.

Best.

Strength

In my time as a chaplain, I don't know how many times I've heard someone say something like this, "I just have to be strong."

His wife is slipping away, death is near, a husband is in shambles and the words and outlook he chooses are, "I must be strong through this."

A woman sobs over the now lifeless body of her beloved cousin. After caring for her for so long, and after sitting quietly and frightened at her bedside as her cousin died, her response to me is that she must be strong through this.

Time and time again I've heard this. Be strong for momma. Be strong, don't cry. Strength, apparently, is how we're taught to manage our grief.

What I interpret these words to mean is, "I don't want to cry." Strength = no tears. "I'm afraid to cry." "I'm embarrassed to cry."  That's the message.  Tears = weakness.

This is regrettable.

Our society has given us these ideas that somehow, crying at the time of death or tragedy is negative, bad, weak, undesirable or something we can actually avoid. We learn this at an early age. I can recall attending the death of a woman in her mid-20s with two kids. The older one was about 8 years old and said something like, "I'm not going to cry, I'm going to be strong." I was shocked. What 8-year in the world could withhold tears at losing his mother? This one sure wasn't able to; however, he thought he needed to! 

Here's the truth as I see it. It actually takes more strength, more fortitude and a more robust character to emote and do so publicly. This image of the Alpha-male who never cries and has the emotional capacity of a cinder block is completely unhealthy.

The old adage comes to mind: "It has to hurt to heal." The wisdom in this applies to emotional pain as well as physical. When we lose someone close, the American male way to move forward is typically to bottle things up. Tuck away our feelings, never discuss them, and at all cost remain tear-less. Sadly, this American male is the one who will be found in therapy ten or twenty or thirty years down the road still haunted by unresolved grief from losing someone close (parent, spouse, child, etc). The path toward healing for our American male is through those horrible feelings, not around them.

By moving toward, into, engaging and expressing those feelings, healing comes. By moving away, avoiding, dodging and covering them up, we only stunt our growth as humans. This is where that old adage comes into play. Moving into and through grief is painful. It hurts. One man said to me, "It's the worst feeling int he world." And he's probably right. But we must go this direction, through the path of pain, to find healing.

Here's two examples:

Number 1: Leroy Jethro Gibbs. If you've ever watched NCIS, the main character, Gibbs, has been grieving (or rather avoiding his grief) for eight seasons now. The character lost his wife and daughter tragically when they were gunned down by a Mexican drug lord. Afterwards, Gibbs, a Marine sniper, shot and killed the drug lord exacting his revenge. But Gibbs is still grieving. Sadly, he's an emotional ignoramous. It makes for good television, but bad practice. He is completely unwilling to discuss his family's death nor take a look at the feelings that acompany it. Gibbs is sadly very unhealthy. (Thankfully, he's a fictional character.)

Number 2: Joe's wife died earlier this summer while in hospice care. I've been working at a hospice office as one of the chaplains and spent some considerable time with Joe, both before and after his wife's death. Joe openly admitted that after his traumatic time in WWII as a field medic, he bottled up, avoided and hid his emotions from the war, never dealing with what he saw and experienced. He also admitted that he becomes emotional uncontrollably at times when certain war-related topics are brought up. He's never understood why. Joe and I discussed what things will be like for him when his wife dies. He expected to again bottle up the emotions, lock them away and throw away the mental key. But, it was already clear, from the tears on his face that he couldn't wipe away fast enough, that this method wasn't going to work this time. Since her death, Joe has requested more meetings with me. And Joe is learning to grieve. He openly states, "This is new to me." He's a hardened and successful businessman who is choosing to move toward his feelings rather than away. His progress is so visible that it's inspiring. When his tears come, he embraces them, as hard as it might be. And this takes far more strength than avoiding them.

It takes more strength to cry, than it does to hold it in. Of this, I am thoroughly convinced.

One more example, this time a biblical one. One of Jesus good friends named Lazarus died. When Jesus arrived at his tomb he did the manly thing. He saved the day by raising Lazarus from the tomb, avoiding his own emotions and fixing everybody else's sadness. Right? Itsn't that how the story goes?

No. Well, in the end, yes. But!...

I left out one simple, short and yet powerful verse. When Jesus arrived at the tomb of his friend, he wept (Luke 11:35). He didn't become misty-eyed. He didn't shed a single cinematic tear. Jesus wept, sobbed, broke down. He embraced the ful spectrum of emotion. He laughed when it was time to laugh, he was strong when strength was necessary, and he wept when his heart was broken.

What else can I say? It takes more strength to move toward your tears than way from them. So, how about it guys? All my sterotypicall American emotionally stunted men out there, the next time you feel sad, might we give real strength a try?

American Geography

I totally stole this blog idea and picture from my sister's blog. I sat and laughed at it so long I couldn't deprive you of it. It's hilarious, but also scary because of it proximity to the truth. 

Have a laugh, and enjoy. 

Like a good neighbor...

Here's a short break from all of the recent outdoor and awesomeness of Alaska blogging I've been doing (and not doing).

First of all, news. About 6 weeks ago, I bought a car, cheap. A 15 year old Chevy Blazer that has 140K miles, and after a few dollars paid to a friend mechanic I met, it runs pretty darn well all things considered. This car is very Dave Ramsey approved--paid cash, no loans, no liens, minimal insurance, runs fine, gets me from A to B. And the best part, Kelly Blue Book values it at just about twice what I paid.

In my apartment complex there are two types of parking spaces: covered and uncovered. Each apartment is assigned one covered parking spot as their very own In the above picture, the new car is in our spot. All of the uncovered spaces are up for grabs. Anyone can park in those. This was made very clear to us when we moved in. But this post is about the uncovered spaces.

The uncovered spaces are not very numerous. There are only four directly in front of our building. Other buildings have different amounts depending on the parking lot layout and what not. Straight out from my front door, across the street is the end of another building in the complex, and in front of the two doors/units on that end are two uncovered parking spaces.


Recently, I parked the Blazer in one of those two spaces for two days and two nights while we went to see Mt. McKinley (see next blog for pics!). When I came home, I found two very pleasant post-it notes on my car's driver's side window. See picture for what they said. 

I won't write verbatim what the notes say if you can't make out every word. But one of my friendly neighbors seems quite upset that I've parked in what s/he has deemed his/her own parking spot. Accompanying the two post-it notes (which are clearly written by two different people) was a handful of mulch quaintly piled on my car's hood, a small piece of trash secured under the driver's side wiper and a wet glob of paper towel or toilet paper or something stuck to the passenger door.

The pile of mulch and trash under the wiper I found very juvenile, like something a 12-year old would think of and have the gall to do. The nasty wet paper here is also extremely immature, but also very gross.

The second post-it note says that the apartment management has been notified and that I'll be towed if I don't quit parking in these two spots. This was obviously a lie and a bluff. If the apartment office wanted to communicate with or threaten to tow me, they certainly wouldn't communicate via a sticky note with bad hand writing. Secondly, if the office was going to tow me, this person wouldn't have needed to threaten me with towing. It would serve them better to remain quiet about the towing and let it happen so that justice is done unto me. Regrettably, it doesn't seem I'm dealing with the sharpest minds humanity has to offer.

Well, wouldn't you know, after driving around my the new car, the very next day as I returned home, the only parking spot available (truly) was one of these two forbidden spots. So, like a good neighbor, I parked there. The next morning I had another gift left on the car door. A glob of mud.

What's funny to me is that someone took the effort to procure this mud and get their hand dirty to put it on my car. Because I'm not intimidated or even angry at the mud, this makes me laugh, and laugh at the person who did this. How is it that an adult, a supposedly matured person, can bring him or herself to doing something so childish and moronic. They must think it is bothering me, but in fact I'm rather enjoying watching the show. However, I need to handle the situation.

We stroll down to the apartment office on Monday morning with our friendly post-it notes and ask the manager about the parking spaces policy. She assures us that uncovered spaces are up for grabs. Before we could tell her our story, she asks, "Do you have the green blazer?" Apparently, the perpetrator left a heated message on the office's answering machine complaining about the car. However, the manager assured us we were not in the wrong, and she would send out a notice about parking space regulations.

It's nice to have the office's backing; however, my experience in relating to these types of people (cowardly bullies) tells me that we need to have a face to face. Knowing from which apartment the dissatisfaction came, I walked up to the door one day after work and knocked.

I'm sorry, I can't tell you that there is a climactic end to this story with edge-of-your-seat drama. However, when the door was answered I introduced myself and said that I'm looking for the person who left a note on my car. The response I got was, "Uh, yeah, I think I was one of them." What kind of crap response is that? You think? The conversation was brief, but I made it clear that these parking spots are for anyone, and I live very close and will continue to park here when needed. I didn't appreciate the crap left on the car. She blamed her neighbor for the crap, and didn't really say much else.

The conversation ended like that. My guess is nothing else shall befall my car even if I continue to park in those spaces when needed, which I am doing. Once you confront someone and make it known that you know the childish and stupid things they are doing, they will be afraid to do anything else.

Frankly, I'm glad the story ends here. There was minimal frustration on my part. A better story (from your point of view) would mean more frustration or heartache on my end. I'm glad I had the courage to simply confront a minor problem before it escalated into potentially a greater one. A lesson, hopefully, I'll take with me through life from here on out.