FootprintsintheWind.com

I think if I were older and unable to move around much, I would want to meet with a spiritual director and probably artists to work on my creativity and open my spirit.

:- Doug.

There is a big difference between working to end life and allowing life and death to take its course without fighting it interminably and pigheadedly. People must be allowed to die their own ways, whether violently and with invasive and intrusive measures, or comfortably and with gentle human touches. More, we must make an effort to help with things like comfort, companionship (no one should have to die alone), and advocacy.

But more than this, and underlying it, we should check at the door our own assumptions about what is a good way to die. We often do not know we have assumptions. Like the woman who made her dying aunt eat her favorite foods when the aunt’s body was shutting down and could no longer tolerate food. Or like the person who remembers the death of his mother and wants or does not want the same thing for his father. We have to have the conversation.

Twice in my life in the last few months young women fell down the steps or crashed their car, and their families were forced to decide to end life support which was not helping. By and large, these situations determine their own decisions.

But what of the chronically ill, frail 90 year old who has pneumonia? Or a gangrene leg? Or whose heart stops? Do we beat on his chest, shock her with so many volts, bring her back with brain damage to suffer seizure after seizure? Or do we let these “old folks’ friends” gently take them where they (and we) are already headed?

“Playing God” is on both sides of this path. Whether we use or do not use modern science to prolong someone’s death (and maybe suffering too), we are intervening in an otherwise natural process. When is it good? How much is good? What is good?

Maybe those are not the ultimate questions. Maybe we could ask: When is love appropriate? How much love can we give? What is loving here and now?

:- Doug.

There is intelligence and loving intention—that is, life intention—permeating the worlds. We work with these all our lives or we work against them, but always within them. The current of this intelligence and intention inexorably draw us along.

:- Doug.

Do we care well in our farewells?

:- Doug.

We are afraid of one another. We don’t even see we are afraid. Yet by nature we are soft and gentle and kind. It is safe to open ourselves to the people around us.

:- Doug.

Squirrels are good mechanical engineers. They know and understand the angles, operations and forces facing them. They can figure out how to overcome a slippery pole barely large enough for them to grasp, overcome gravity and climb to the bird feeder it holds. They can compute the wind speed and gusts and grab hold of the swaying feeder with one paw, hold on to the slippery pole with two others, and reach the fourth in to grab seed to munch. When startled, they know instantaneously where to leap and with what thrust to make their escape.

:- Doug.

Why do I journal every day? I need this journaling to help me elicit insights, to probe and find new things that I assumed were not there. Surprisingly, exploring surprises. It keeps me asking questions. It keeps me lively.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1305

Shot through you are
with divinity capable of meeting
& being met I must
remember when I
see you 

	The surprise
for me is
I am shot through
with God!

	We begin
to see when we realize
our very vulnerability
our need for love
and help is God
coming visible

Please pass it on.

© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/301-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

I’m not often imparting new knowledge. Often I am calling attention to something we all can observe or act upon but usually miss.

:- Doug.

We make up the world as we live it. It is so habitual with us we don’t even notice. In this room there are thirty different worlds—how we relate, what the other means to us and us to them, what pains us and what lifts us up.

:- Doug.

In the theatre of my mind I see some things. You probably see others. I invite you to conspire with me to see third possibilities.

:- Doug.

We can only be human in conversation. If we do not converse, by just that much we lose our humanity.

:- Doug.

I am not a technician. I’m a human-in-conversation.

:- Doug.

Conversation requires not-knowing, uncertainty, and vulnerability.

:- Doug.

You know something I don’t. You care about things I don’t even know. You are important to me.

:- Doug.

We have always faced the risk of dying prematurely—from heart attacks, road accidents, falls, animal attacks. But now we may live too long—with too much medical treatment, too much needless suffering from CPR, respirators, being strapped and tied to beds in confusing, noisy hospitals. We face a real risk of dying not gently and naturally, of dying post-maturely.

:- Doug.

Take Flowers: A friend of mine has a secret for getting good care for her uncle at the nursing home and hospital: she takes flowers and says “Thank you” to the staff who are helping her uncle. She takes cookies every once in a while, and puts them out at the nurse’s station, with a thank you note “From the family of….”

Another friend got a birthday cake from the best local bakery, decorated with “Thanks to Mary, Suzie, Bill, Danny for getting Mom to her 92nd birthday!”

Be inventive. Find ways to recognize good caring people. Especially to their bosses.

:- Doug.

Take Names: When you are advocating for your Dad at the nursing home or doctor’s office, get personal. Find out the names of the people who are providing care.

Not to know whom to sue or complain about, but to be human, to put a human face on Dad and you and them.

Not just the doctors: the nurses, the aides, even the person who mops the floors. All are providing care for your family, all know things you don’t, and all have some ways to help that can surprise you.

Use their names when you speak with them. Write them down so you remember.

As Ira Byock says in The Best Care Possible: A Physician’s Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life, “Befriend them if possible. Tell them about your father—what name he likes to be called, what he did for work, what he loves most in life—and bring in pictures of your father in his prime. Let them know you appreciate their care, and thank them for things they do to engage and pamper your father.”

:- Doug.

For most families you are being a burden if you deny your family the opportunity to care for you in your greatest crisis-time.

:- Doug.

We perhaps need to choose: choose with whom we converse. Just had a call from a polling organization and I chose not to take the call. This would be a surface level conversation, and it would take me off my work for today. Good choosing. But then we need to choose on purpose those with who we will share our deeper, timeless selves. Our spouses, our children, our grandchildren. Our clients as well. With whom do we wish to share delight?

:- Doug.

Is relatedness more of the essence than conversation? It would be easier. But we need to work at it. Conversation is that work. We need to work at it if we are to enjoy its fruits.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1304

Home is where the work is.

Please pass it on.

© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/301-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Depth is timeless
To explore humanness
go beyond the ticks of clocks
lightly hold your eyes
on the mysteries
of relatedness

:- Doug.