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We have some things that might help keep the spouse at home out of poverty, while giving the one in the nursing home the care the family wants, extending it as long as they choose. But notice there is a choice. There are many.

:- Doug.

Last night this question wrestled with me: how do we care for people, do we really need so much nursing home, are we trying to hold back the sea with our hands? In different words, when do we let go, when are we struggling beyond where the heart wants to go, the soul needs to go?

Quality of life is too surface: what is the mystery? There is a mystery of love, yes?, which pulls us to hang on for a long time. But what is the cost to the loved one and to us, in suffering and seeing suffering. Is that pill necessary, the stay in long-term care really a stay in long-term storage? He’s 80, in the nursing home, barely conscious, sleeps with IVs and respirator, she’s 70, waits by his bedside for the minutes a day he wakes. Sure, she could not take care of him this same way at home. Not as long. Where is the life? Where is the life that can be brought to this family? Two children and their spouses come to visit, tease Dad, get a smile. The smile says much. When Dad is in the nursing home, the whole family is in there too. She is not ready to let him go. If she brought him home, off the IVs and the respirator, he might not last but a few days. Where is the life? How can they know? How can anyone know?

Our health care has come to the point that rarely is the rain on one side of the street and not the other. The mist comes in softly, then the light rain, when did the storm come? And so we get used to the wet and stormy. There are no clearcut decision points. If there ever were. When Great Grandpa got kicked in the head by the mule, there was little to do but keep him comfortable for a few days.

Now there are possibilities. But which possibilities ought we chase? After all, There are no 2,000-year-old people. When to let go? Are our possibilities bringing on an elongation not of life but of suffering?

So here is a mystery, a secret we do not want to bring to light of day.

Tomorrow, I may not agree with what I have written today.

:- Doug.

I understand your desire to control your world. How’s that working for you?

:- Doug.

What we need is fresh eyes.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1422

We put more effort in helping people get through old age than enjoying it.

Please pass it on.

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How will you pick your path through these woods?

:- Doug.

The crisis can be good. The crisis in health care of which we are only now catching contours—the slashed budgets, the cost containments—can be good. Someone might (unexpectedly—really?) ask, What are we actually about? Is the only way through, more money, more technology? What if we once took a moment to touch a hand? What if we cooperated?

:- Doug.

Leftovers we want most
You can explain
All the this and all the that
Yet remains the real intrigue
Keeps us coming back
The main course is leftovers:
Mystery!

:- Doug.

What don’t we know?

:- Doug.

Doctor, must I take that pill?

:- Doug.

Why can’t we take care of our elders the way we used to? Is it mistreating if we can’t afford our pills and so go without? Does one choice hasten death, or does the other stretch out our deaths? What would living look like? Do we have worse diseases than our grandparents, or more difficult caring? Or just more people who need our touch?

:- Doug.

After the ‘splaining’s done
Mystery draws us on

:- Doug.

Sometimes the role of the professional is to turn his or her economic gains to losses for the sake of the person in his or her care.

:- Doug.

Maybe not repairing the cosmos
restoring the garden at Eden
rather planting it for the first time

:- Doug.

My neighbor got out her
motorcycle this fine spring day
it’s not just the boys who have toys

:- Doug.

Maybe my contribution is to take this question of conversation deeper than ever before, fiercely chase it to feral unexplored lands where I might cease.

:- Doug.

Participate! Participate!
Dance to the
Light of the silvery
One

:- Doug.

Participation is conversation

:- Doug.

The gist of life
is to engage
to participate with

:- Doug.

If work is the only thing
you can think to do
how shackled!

:- Doug.

If money is the only thing
you can think to give away
how poor!

:- Doug.

Poetry’s higher
calling weaves our attention
bird taps our window

:- Doug.

Want to weave the larger, larger into my hours and minutes. Today I am a weaver.

The weaving is to bring my attention to the whole, the larger, larger. I am weaving my attention, ours. Let us attend, let us hear, let us be aware, conscious. Let us beknow, be alert.

:- Doug.