Winning Life Lotto

From Richard Rohr, via Kris Girrell ~ ~ "The flow of grace through us is largely blocked when we are living inside a worldview of scarcity, a feeling that there’s just not enough: enough of God, enough of me, enough food, enough health care to go around, enough mercy to include and forgive all faults."

For me, among the countless wonderful things about being 65+ is the ability to look over the arc of years & see the magnificent flow of blessings that came from being born with a deep sense of the possible, rooted in an unwavering abundance pov.  Which is weird, since scarcity was commonplace in my family.  Not of money or resources, although we were most certainly one of the poorest families in an exceedingly wealthy community.  Scarcity of connection & emotional support, scarcity of any core sense of belonging. 

It was the flow of grace within & through me that stayed my course forward under invisibly spectacular deprivation, unseen but powerfully felt.  It makes no sense to me, being graced with that firm grounding while standing atop an utterly crumbled emotional terrain.

It seems to me that relationships of every sort call on us to hold an unwavering faith in there being enough of the Divine, of myself, of emotional intellectual affectional resources.  It feels to me that every relationship in our lives is a microcosm of our relationship with All That Is.  How well we bring to each the abundant resources all around us, even in the midst of harshness & hard times, builds our emotional/spiritual muscle & makes it easier, more natural to enjoy a tender, mutually satisfying relationship with the Divine that surrounds & is infused within us. 

The #1 thing that helped me see the abundance in my pre-John years was the knowledge that everyone did what they could with what they had - if they failed at times, so did I.  And what a blessing to have been taught from my earliest days that while we can judge a person's actions as mean or lacking, we cannot see their intentions!

Some people seem to feel that whether we are blessed or bogged down or even blasted by life is a matter of chance.  There may be some truth in that - it feels like I was born pre-disposed to look for the lesson in tough times & the beauty in each moment.  If we are born with a lottery ticket, then I make no bones about having come up a winner!


So, from my perch of 65+, let me rephrase the opening statement to one that reflects my wildest joy & deepest hope for EVERYONE - - The flow of grace through us is unfettered when we live infilled with a personal sense & worldview of boundless abundance, the knowledge that no matter what circumstances of deprivation might attend us, in the ways that matter most there will always be enough for all - enough: enough of God, enough of us, enough of community, enough of what nurtures, enough health & wholeness for all, enough mercy to celebrate inclusion & enough humility to forgive all faults - beginning with ours.

New day dawning

It appears that I’ve come to a parting of ways – giving up the person I am for the one that awaits being called into being.  They are both, as my Australian nephew might say, bonza Sheilas, but only one can stick around. 

It’s weird, because I like the person who’s evolved over the span of 65 years, but must bid adieu to her if my big vision is ever going to happen.  She’s just too easily sidetracked by things that feel like they matter matter matter, but really don’t.  She’d be the first to admit feeling boxed in by consistent focus, by following game plans & knowing ahead of time what is on next week’s month’s year’s agenda.

She is not sad – it was an ab fab six years.  And she’s the first to confess there are things even SHE'd like me to do, things she knows her time- & energy-consuming ways keep me from making so.

So, we part.  Maybe for a season, a year, or forever.  The parting is laden with good wishes, bright hopes for big doings, and hopes we reconnect down the road. 

For now, the Sheila coming to the fore takes a lot from her dear friend – a desire to rumble with destiny, a bold sense of pinning her manifesto on the door of anyone reducing oldsters elders ancients to “the aging population,” a deep love of play, a freedom fighter & gleeful liberator.  A new day dawns.

Holding Australia Fair in my heart

Downer of a day.  Lunch with a room-stranded older friend.  If he was living back  in the sweet place that was his home & multi-layered communities, he’d have friends dropping by his senior residence.  His church & neighbors would have set up relays of people to help him get back on his feet after a relatively minor stumble left his bedridden for several weeks, weakening his leg muscles.  As it is, though, while we’d love to take him out on a drive,  it is almost impossible to move him from the bed to his wheelchair because, months later,  his legs are still jello. 

Found myself thinking about Mom, who at the same age - 85ish - had a horrific health emergency while on holiday in Australia, put herself into training to get back to the USA to have a serious procedure rather than sticking my brother with the cost of having it Down Under (not covered under her Medicare).  Until seeing how stranded our friend is due to something as basic as loss of muscle tone, didn’t appreciate that while Mom was the one who walked from her bed to a chair in her room, then to the bathroom, then to the kitchen, then did laps around the kitchen island, then onto  laps around the deck, then venturing out to the front gate, then opening it & stepping out onto Dudley Street, then all those hikes up & down Dudley Street … while SHE was the one doing all that training, it was Mike & Kerry & Karen & Mom's Hurstville friends & family-of-the-heart & therapists who helped her literally get back up on her feet, who helped her take those first unsteady steps, who held her around the waist as she navigated to the chair, to the bathroom, who stood by her as she edged out into the hall, to other parts of the house, to the great big world outside her “Bryn Athyn” front door. 

John & I thanked Mike & Kerry & Karen for all they did to take care of their Nan;  am adding in my thanks to ALL who helped get her back on her feet, helped rehab her muscles & restore her energies.  Would our dear friend, living many miles outside his home turf, had a bit of the same.

A hefty portion of my inheritance from Mom

Very early this a.m., in the wisp of dawn, I came across a hefty portion of the inheritance received from my mother, rediscovered tucked into one of the books I was tucking back into their honored place in The Retreat's bookshelves.  

Mom didn’t leave much in the way of well-padded bank accounts or carefully tended stock portfolios.  She was like one of those contests I entered as a kid – you had to be present to win.  Those who were present in Mom’s life won BIG, as I was reminded this morning. 

There is something wonderful about handwritten letters v. typed.  As soon as I saw the stationary – 5.5 x 7.5” – knew who wrote it.  And the handwriting – seeing it brings me immediately into Mom’s presence, writing the letter on the wide arm rest of her big chair with a view out the living room window, the one Brenda always described as “in the Stickley style.”

Background:  Mom usually wrote out copies of important letters she sent as record of what she’d said.  My stomach lurched on the rare occasion when she didn’t; it was a sure sign the letter shouldn’t have been written in the first place.  One time, a short time before the letter next to me was written, she fired one off to “young” Alfred Acton (not the one who married m parents in ’36), who had performed a baptism; Mom wrote him a note, castigating him for it since she believed the person was involved in very public hanky panky - a belief based solely on something heard from someone else, aka back-biting gossip, which she loathed  Will always remember coming home from work to her crowing uncharacteristically about how I'd be proud of how she stood up for principle, how she’d really given him a piece of her mind, had made sure it got off in the afternoon mail – wasn’t I pleased with her standing up for what was right?  No, I was shocked.  And appalled when I asked to see what she’d written & she got sort of quiet & said she hadn’t kept one.  Stars to Mom that she immediately saw what she’d done, was even more horrified than I, sat write down & wrote another note, apologizing for the first, looking back with a shaken confidence at how easily she’d fallen prey to negative thoughts & destructive actions.  I heard from a deeply moved Alfie how the first letter troubled him, the second left him awed with Mom's ability to see the error & right it.  Looking back, it strikes me that she might not have written the letter she sent Peter without that earlier pair.

Back to my inheritance….

For the first time, was struck by the date at the top - - “12-8-2000.”  Did Mom use the non-USA way of dating out of deference for Peter Buss’ Anglo-South African roots?  And noticed the letter is addressed “Dear Peter,” not what I would have expected, not “Dear Bishop Buss” (as in Executive Bishop Peter Buss; the current Rt Rev Peter Buss would have still been spreading his ministerial wings back in ’00).  After rereading the short note, understand why – she wrote to him as a full equal.

12-8-2000

Dear Peter

Is true that you said that questioning ladies were forbidden to use any Church building for their meetings or is that a mistake.

If it is true, I think that everyone has a right to be heard.  If we don’t agree with them, that’s alright, too.  We do need to discuss this, together.

I am one of those ladies, although I don’t believe women should be priests.  That is only my opinion.  I do believe that women could help the priests in their understanding of people in the church.  I think that women could have more of a part in the administration.  (Mom told me the actual letter included “at all levels”).

Take care, Peter.

Cordially, Kay Lockhart

That is the sort of thinking that I grew up with –  respectfully hearing out others & expecting to be heard in return.  Not agreed with – heard  I saw that every day in my parents’ relationship.  My sister-in-laws seemed to experience Mom as dominated by Dad; maybe they couldn’t translate what they heard, which were true partners who were crazy in love with each other. 

Sadly, Dad died at 63, when Mom was just a year younger than I am now.  It was the third early, heart-ripping early death to shake her life.  She changed, became sort of a door mat for her children.  A trait she’d always shown with Peter & Mim, even when Dad was alive, took deeper root – she’d change her point of view as others revealed theirs, making sure they were similar.  It worked for my older sibs & s-i-l, but drove me around the bend.  Took Mom almost 25 years, but she finally realized the WHY behind her verbal/emotional “shadow boxing” – on her own, without Dad’s faith in her boosting her confidence, she didn’t have a clue about her WHO. 

Clearly, by the time she wrote her letter to Peter, she’d gotten wise to the ways of Katharine Reynolds Lockhart.  She was ninety.  She was born in 1910, raised in an era where women were politically invisible, then expected to naturally defer to men, where the laity were meant to take the pronouncements of a Divinely-inspired, all-male priesthood as gospel.  And she wrote a letter to the Executive Bishop of her church as if he was a good friend sitting across the kitchen table, sharing a cuppa with her. 

Can you think of a better inheritance to leave a child.  I can’t.

A camel is a horse...

Even as a little girl, I knew that Allan Sherman was one of the most brilliant, creative minds on the face of this & any other planet.  It was his epic appearance with the Boston Pops – debuting his weep-with-laughter, Peter & the Commissar – that first introduced me to the adage, “A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.”

Was reminded of that on Friday, at the tag end of the book-keeping son of our now former client/currently pro bono & forever beloved friend explaining that all decisions related to his elderly mother were made en familia, usually via conference call.  Figuring out next best steps within their well-intentioned yet uninformed circle (aka committee) ~ ~  without benefit of, say, a Michelle Seitzer, someone available for anyone, anywhere to tap into extensive "coaching counseling connecting" knowledge of eldercare issues & solutions. 

Can't find fault with their sincere concern for their mater.  And I feel for their inner turmoil.  Most youngers in our age-atrocious culture ~ with its rampantly ageist, basically clueless aging upward attitudes ~ feel isolated & powerless when it comes to coping with a beloved parent dealing with the challenges of being closer to 100 than fifty. 

Youngers - particularly those in their early forties to middish fifties - tend to see the fragility, the increased dependency on others as a fate worse than death.  As they read my 90+ year old mother's description of experiencing that those very things, they struggle to believe that the more debilitated her body became, the more she realized she was NOT her body, that one day she would take it off as one does an old glove, nothing more.

I gave the sibs Michelle's contact info ~ michelleseitzer.com ~ but didn't come away from the discussion with much hope they'll reach out, open up their little circle of big hearted, limited sight children to in-the-know outside support. 

When I recommend a Michelle Seitzer or one of the wildly gifted elder support friends right here in my little hometown (living treasures!), folks can seem ruffled - what sort of resource am I, if not to DO those things?''

Because I can't.  Never knew any elderly friends or family.  Nor did John.  Mom was 90+ when she was reunited with her O! Best Beloved.  John's was 87 when she slipped from us.  Their close friends, in their 80s & 90s, experienced limitations.  Not a one of them, in our experience - not even "Aunt" Benita, bed-bound by severe osteroporosis - was anything close to decrepit. So, I never experienced helping people who needed high levels of hands-on support.  Even "Aunt" Benita just needed someone to make/serve dinner & clean up, then stick around for a lively discussion. 

But I love ferreting out others who are whiz bang at helping others facing  dependency issues be as INdependent as possible.  My experience is light-weight- super-sized socializing, via out & abouts or online surfing sessions.  Sarah's is in working brilliantly with every level of dementia.  Jency is a gifted soul who brings out the best in everyone blessed to have her support.

Am forever grateful to have a best practice experience of a family determining critical next best steps for a declining parent.  In making a particular crucial decision about their mother's care, they gathered the entire family together on conference call, included me & had an eldercare expert lead & guide the call.  Oh, and they included their mother, to get her opinion!  Far from a camel, that family was, to me, the sleekest of thoroughbred horses. 

Down with camels!  Here's to families, loved ones & care partners tossing out isolated decision making, once-entrenched ageist attitudes & "limited elder" expectations, instead embracing engaging, energizing & empowering practices.  Here's to survive & THRIVE!

Adventuring Without a Net

It’s funky, the moments in our lives that throw open doors to remarkable wonders.  They are rarely ones we plan & strategize. 

One choice that I made 25+ years ago & have kept was to live without a net.  Although that was my phrasing, looking back it feels like it meant living with the belief that everything will work out.  And, writing this, it strikes me that it was NOT a choice I made, but an acknowledgement of something that I’ve believed since forever, an essential tool that came with my instruction manual. 

It’s not that I chose to live without a net, but that I had enough grounding to realize I always have.

Okay – THAT is why writing is so vital to my understanding of what makes me tick.  It took writing this posting to realize that long-time truth. 

Which Dorothy Sayers’ book contains the exchange between Peter Wimsey & Harriet Vane about how they viewed life?  Harriet’s view was that as good as things got, she feared they'd come crashing down around her; Peter believed that at bad at things got, better was always waiting in the wings.  I am definitely Wimsy-cal.  When things were financially & professionally dark after Mom died in 2001 & my great corporate job went away, as did my family & even, it felt at times, my heart-center community & John wasn’t getting art commissions but the bills kept coming & the taxes were due - - my thought was that, if we ended up on the streets, THAT might deliver experiences that would become a run-away success, best selling book.  Always use what’s in front of you, put your shoulder to the wheel & move on – constructively. 

Use what’s in front of you, put your shoulder to the wheel & move on – constructively.  Seriously?  I  believe that?  Apparently – yes.  And didn’t realize it until right now.  It goes completely against my nurture, yet sang out so sweet & clear as I wrote it, no doubting it is my nature FINALLY come to surface.  Torn between sheez & WOW – guess both of them describe my feelings coming to this startling new peek into my inner workings.  Use what’s in front of you, put your shoulder to the wheel & move on – constructively. 

Years ago, a manager I thought of as putting in his time until hitting retirement, a couple years down the road, startled me with a radical insight to how I tick.  After what felt like prattling on about something needlessly long, I apologized for my verbosity.  He replied, “No problem.  You need to say something to see it fully, to understand all its angles.”  And he said that like it was totally normal, not irksome or grating.  It was how I processed.  Thanks, person whose name I can’t recall!

The other week, Ron Nelson made a similar observation – I am an external thinker. 

Writing this post brings both those insights home, big time.  Writing helps me process, draw out things I had NO idea were lurking inside me.

Use what’s in front of you, put your shoulder to the wheel & move on – constructively.   Bizarre – in a good way.

This is an interesting how-de-do.  Adventuring Without A Net takes on a whole different meaning than what was intended when I sat down.   The editor in me wants to go back & change the early part of what’s written to make it more in line with where it rambled; better it stays as it is, as it rolled out. 

Use what’s in front of you, put your shoulder to the wheel & move on – constructively.  This is going to get some getting used to. 

Walking the Talk

With one phone call, John & I were given the opportunity to see if our walk matches our talk.  I am pleased to say that it did – 100%.

Ever since I started older2elder, have spouted, “If I’m not putting my job at risk, then I’m not doing my job.”  About a week ago, John & I realized the time had come for me to touch base with a client’s family about some concerns we had with her, concerns that would touch on things arching over a couple years, that was motivated by the parent’s chronic failure to thrive.

It’s a heartbreaking story, one too often told - bustling, active woman in her early 80s, widowed many years, diagnosed with early stage dementia, can’t take her meds so needs support, children are spread around the country, the closest one two hours away in a different state.  The decision is made to move her up to a daughter’s. 

Things did not go well. 

The move intensifies already existing, albeit tucked under the surface, tensions in the daughter’s family.  Within a year, things fall apart.  The parent is moved into a lovely senior residence that has a devoted staff BUT which is hours away from familiar surroundings, from friends of 50+ years, her church & work colleagues, neighbors not far from the house she transformed from falling down to welcoming, sitting on four acres of woods & meadows. 

Two years ago, she was about to take to a "last hurrah" trip abroad with family;  today, she is in a bed/sitting room with bed, 2.5 chairs, a night table, a bureau, her primary lifeline daily visits from her devoted dog.  The nights are all by herself. 

She watches whatever the staff puts on the large screen television, often a show about disclosing paternity or revealing someone is lying to a lover, often a news channel whose views are opposite to hers. 

Staff come in & out without greeting her, which she finds a major invasion of privacy.  The wheelchair she has is too heavy to take her out on drives (a struggle to get it into the trunk), while the walker’s “shelf” is too light-weight for sitting.  A physical therapist confides that for the 1+ years she’s seen our friend, it’s been a  consistent downward spiral, with no evidence of any motivation for improvement.  The family gave up on providing enrichment events – like movies or concerts – because she falls asleep during them.  They see everything she can’t do, don’t seem to understand how much she could – given the right environment & support.

My final straw was the daughter describing her mother as “done for” - - “It may be three months or three years, but Mom is done for.”  With that attitude from her closest care partner, I have no doubt it’s true.

We’d reached the point that had been jabbing at us for months.  So, I wrote a letter, much like letters sent to other families, outlining what we saw, observations & suggestions like it doesn't make sense for them to say, “Mom needs to have more fun” if they aren’t making regular opportunities for it to be had, hopefully every day.  They don’t understand that it is no great joy for their mother, who still has memories of a lively mind, one that’s waiting to bust out, to sit with a bunch of people with white hair & wrinkled skin, some of whom are asleep & only a few of whom are responsive to the event’s presenter. 

Their Mom wants what she remembers experiencing as everyday – a variety of ages & types close by, younger faces looking back at her, making her step livelier, remember better. 

She wants to have her friends at hand, the ones who remember when she was a kid in pre-WWII America, when she & her O Best Beloved were newlyweds, when they went dancing, gardened, entertained their extensive circle of friends with barbeques on the terrace & smore roasts ‘round the fire pit in the summer, with fireside readings in the den & fondue parties in the kitchen/dining room in the winter. 

With her well-being on the line, I wrote, directing the letter at the child who lives closest, with responsibility for her physical care, ccing her sibs.  That was late last week.  Today, was informed by the brother in charge of handing his mother’s finances that due to various factors – of course, NONE of which were related to the letter- they had to let me go.  I’d been working for them for all of six weeks.

And we are okay with it.  Because we’ll just do what we’ve been doing since before Christmas – we will stop by to visit her once, hopefully twice a week.  Watch old movies – especially ones with Fred Astaire &/or Audrey Hepburn, take lunch that she can eat when SHE wants rather than when the senior residence dictates. 

We will even save the family money, walking her beloved pooch.  Because it is what calls out to be done. She is another one of our cherished "starfish" - - we can’t save every older friend from falling prey to loneliness & isolation, but we can do what we can to help the ones who wash up on our beach. 

The unexpected gift we received today was discovering that what I spout & what we feel are one & the same. 

It is a blow to lose the income we got over the past six weeks from our twice-a-week visits, but it could have been a bigger hit because we never billed for all the hours we were there – we kept billing to 2.5 hours per visit, although it was closer to 3 hours, often longer. 

And we will still call her every night at 7:30 with our usual, “Just checking in.  How’s your evening going?  Watched Fred this afternoon in Yolanda & the Thief – did the leading lady, Lucille Bremmer, play the older sister in Meet Me In St. Louis?”   

If a paying client wants the hours we currently dedicate to her, then we will say sad farewells to our dear older friend;  until then, we will continue seeing  her for as long as we can.


And - with John's encouragement - I will continue to put jobs on the line by speaking up for an older friend's well-being.  The families who appreciate, seek those insights gleaned from decades of up close & personal experience will bring us officially on board as care partners. Those who don't, won't.  Okay with us, because we will just keep doing what we do for as long as we have the time & resources to make it so.  And feel bless for the opportunity to walk & talk awhile with cherished older friends, forever in our hearts.