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Sunday, January 31, 2010

A LITTLE MORE...

At age 93, poet Gladys Lawler wrote that with her years have come:

“...the fortitude that it often takes
To laugh at my own absurd mistakes.
A little more love from family and friends
And a feeling of joy that each day sends.
A little more pleasure from April sun,
More time to finish what I’ve begun.
A little more wonder at rising moon,
At morning freshness, at blazing noon.
A little more sleep and a time to dream,
To ponder on life and on things unseen.”

Thursday, January 28, 2010

WHEN A HUSBAND DIES

“Staring at my ceiling,
counting dreams of you at midnight...”
Marilyn Houston, poet


I haven’t written in a while because it’s been a hard time. My good friend, Suzanne, lost her husband to the horrors in Haiti. He was a kind, warm, tall 60 year old Texan who had a calling to help those in need through the United Methodist Church Board of Global Ministries. Clint Rabb spent more than 55 hours buried in the rumble until they could release him by amputating parts of both legs. He lived long enough to be airlifted to a hospital in Miami where he died with his wife close by his side. It’s left me thinking about how I would respond to such a heart wrenching personal tragedy.

In Evenings at Five, author Gail Godwin wrote, “It was so quiet after he was gone; there was no music, and that voice wasn’t there.” As I read that passage I felt a stinging sadness. Although I deeply crave solitude and quiet, the absence of sound would be the hardest part of losing my husband.

Acceptance is difficult. My client, Andrea recalled the night after her husband’s funeral. “I couldn’t sleep, so I spent half the night cleaning the kitchen. I said the word “widow” out loud to myself, tasting it’s bitter sound in my mouth. Even though I’d been preparing to say this word for the two years since his leukemia was diagnosed, it was still a challenge to say it.” Brenda, a 61 year old client told me that for the first year and a half after her husband died she couldn’t concentrate enough to read a full paragraph at one sitting. “I couldn’t focus.” she explained. “When someone you love dies a part of you dies too. It’s almost three years now, and I feel as if I am just now beginning to think.”

Grieving is the hardest work you will ever do. Even though you may spend years caring for a chronically ill husband, you may not be emotionally unequipped for his death. When the final event happens, we are rarely, if ever ready. We hope for a miracle.

About 85% of wives outlive their husbands. Although loss of a spouse is one of the most stressful life events one can experience, in the longer term, most older women find that widowhood is accompanied by a positive shift into a new life phase. They want to take back control of their lives, test out skills they learned over a lifetime, exercise new feelings of strength and self-confidence that maturity can bring. Proust once said that “Happiness is good for the body, but it is grief which develops strengths of mind.” There are literally millions of women who no longer have husbands, yet most of them eventually do quite well.

The death of your husband, as hard as it is to think about, can ultimately present an opportunity for great learning---to do things one never did before. Barbara told me, “My husband’s death was, and continues to be, the most defining moment in my life. I’m the same person I was before but now I know who I am.”

Many women begin to enjoy their single life as soon as the sharp edges of grief have worn off. 72 year old Liz related her story. “My husband died of a heart attack. We were married for 41 years and he was my first love. I’m still lonely at times, but I’ve made some new single friends which is nice. I’m starting to enjoy life again.”

There is real danger in adopting grief as a way of life. If you do, you’re still making your husband responsible for your well-being. Another danger lies in putting your deceased husband on a pedestal which makes it easy to remember only the good so that going forward, no one else can measure up. You may be using this view as an excuse to prevent yourself from renewing your life and loving another person. Not everyone who is bereaved will experience the same things. The key task is to accept the reality of the death, experience the pain of grief, adjust to life without the deceased, and memorialize the loved one in order to move on.

When Suzanne is ready to hear it, I might read her this paragraph from one of my favorite authors, Natalie Goldberg. In her book, Long Quiet Highway she wrote:

“Whether we know it or not, we transmit the presence of everyone we have ever known, as though by being in each other’s presence we exchange our cells, pass on some of our life force, and then we go on carrying that other person in our body, not unlike springtime when certain plants in fields we walk through attach their seeds in the form of small burrs to our socks, our pants, our caps...This is how we survive long after we are dead.”

The word “widow” comes from the Sanskrit meaning “empty” and there is no doubt that Suzanne, Clint’s wife, will feel empty for some time. I can only cry with her, walk with her, and comfort her the best I know how. And when she’s ready to smile, I will smile with her and encourage her to fill up on what life has yet to offer.

What are your thoughts and feelings about this?

Thursday, January 14, 2010

ACCEPTING CHANGE

“Life is change. It will change around you if you don’t change with it.” Helen Gurley Brown at age 78


I’m more and more aware everyday that everything is in a constant state of change--our bodies, our homes, our families, our spiritual connection---the world around us. Sure we can use lots energy to fight and resist. But there is something bold and strong about surrender---about accepting that hange is inevitable. Resisting it causes our souls great sorrow and pain and as a result we risk missing out on the potential for enormous joy. Once you turn 50, there is clear evidence that your body is changing, your family and friends are changing, your strength and speed of processing are changing, and your priorities are changing. What do you do with these changes? Denial, acceptance?

As for me, if acceptance means “approval”, I say NO---I don’t approve of some of what happens as we age. If acceptance means I will work change into my life, then I say YES. If change means painful loss and disappointment, I say NO---I don’t want any of that! (and do I have a choice?) If change means growth, forward movement, and a refreshed attitude, I say YES. If acceptance means I will let myself go as I age then I say NO. Frances Weaver, author of The Girls with the Grandmother Faces (Hyperion, NY, NY, 1996). tells us it’s our attitude toward all these changes that’s most important. She says, “The sincere desire to lead a productive, interesting life at any age depends upon our own imagination and acceptance of new ideas.”

If you embrace this time of dynamic change chances are you will feel more peaceful. You have an opportunity to approach your life as an adventure. Say YES to feeling peaceful---and say YES to adventure. How do you feel about this? How is your life changing and what are you learning to accpet?

Monday, January 4, 2010

AGING CAN BE FUN?

“It really IS funny to see an adult looking all around the room for her glasses without noticing that they are on top of her head.” Helen Heightsman Gordon, Age is a Laughing Matter

Is it possible that growing older can be fun? Perhaps our negative expectations have something to do with our experiences. Since my friend, Joan, turned forty (at least 18 years ago now) she laments the aging process every chance she gets. She defines it solely as the breakdown of the body and its functions. As a result, she seems to be creating more discomfort for herself all the time---more aches, more pains, more visits to the doctor. She has been, for years, expecting life to be miserable when she came closer to 50. Joan reminds me that letters “F-U-N” are the first three letters of “funeral”!

On the other hand my over 70 friend Tita, talks of what is exciting, fulfilling and fun in her life. If she has aches (and I’m sure she does), she doesn’t focus on them. She travels, she reads, she laughs and she nurtures her relationships with her friends, her children and grandchildren

As for me---I’m looking forward to becoming more and more outrageous, aches and pains and all.. In her book, Be An Outrageous Older Woman, Ruth Harriet Jacobs says, “As I grew older, I learned that if you are outrageous enough, good things happen. You stop being invisible and become validated.” Right on, Ruth!

If I someday need to walk with a cane it won’t be an ordinary one. I’ll paint it red and white to look like a candy cane. If I must use a walker it will be equipped with a bicycle horn. Beep, beep---out of my way! If the arthritis in my hands bothers me, I’ll wear green, polka-dotted mittens in the winter. I think aging can be an outrageously creative experience if we stop focusing on the funeral and focus on the fun instead. What do you think?

Sunday, January 3, 2010

CHANGING TEMPO

“I’m...trying to do too much...I used to be able, as most women are, to do four or five things at once. Do the juggling act. Now, if I can keep one plate in the air, that’s good.” Ursula K. Le Guin as quoted in On Women Turning 60 by Cathleen Rountree

My over 60 year old friend, Anne wonders why she’s tired. As an alcohol abuse counselor, she sees 4 or 5 clients a day, attends training lectures and presents at some of them, keeps her own home and has a wide circle of friends that she has a hard time saying “no” to. She’s tired because she hasn’t learned the fine of art of pacing herself---of dancing to a slower (no less productive) tempo.

Each week we have 168 hours, 10,080 minutes...to work, play and sleep. More than likely, you spend the better part of those 168 hours trying to get too much done---rushing, dashing, scurrying. In the mid-twentieth century, futurists predicted that computers and other labor-saving devices would free up time and transform America into the most leisurely society in history---exactly the opposite happened.

In this age of rapidly expanding technology and consumerism how can one fashion a simple, slower paced life? If you buzz from one chore to the next, from one activity to the next, how can you enjoy your world? For instance, I try not to concern my self with slow moving traffic or traffic jams. I see an opportunity each time to see the world a little more clearly. I consider this my private time to enjoy the quietness of just being, of stopping to look and to feel and to think---and to indulge myself in a changing tempo.

The rule that we must be accomplishing something all the time is broadcast so efficiently and so early in this society that we internalize it. We struggle with a seditious inner voice that says, “You’re wasting time. Get up and do something with your life.” Life is going so fast all around us. We’re expected (or maybe we expect ourselves) to respond to it in the same way we did when were 20. Does age oblige one to keep up with the latest in technological advances in the culture---internet shopping, online services, etc. -- in order not to be out of step? Or, does one have the privilege by virtue of age of opting out or being selective in one’s adoption of this new way of existing? Personally, I prefer pen and paper for personal notes and meandering slowly through a gift shop as opposed to clicking my way around the internet.

Author, Mary C. Morrison (Let Evening Come) believes as children leave home, friends move away and companions die, that we have an opportunity to move into a “discovery-filled solitude” and that we can discover there what our own tempo of living is. Now that my children are out in the world, I’m experiencing this tempo change in my own life. I must admit, I like the new pace. How do you feel about the idea of changing tempo?

Saturday, January 2, 2010

LIVING IN THE PRESENT

“Mid-life is a kind of Janus point in the living of our days...It is a time to reflect and digest, to learn and unlearn, and choose a course for the days to come.” Sarah Smith, Mid-Life: Coming Home, Ragged Edge Press (c) 1999

How often do you find yourself thinking about some event that might happen in the future which causes you to feel anxious and uncomfortable? Doesn’t that kind of fretting keep you from enjoying what’s available to you in the present? Sure, we have to make plans for our financial and health care needs and things of that nature. But once the plans are in place, it’s important to be mindful of how you torture yourself out of the present and the beauty it brings.

I find myself thinking about how I will be as a very old woman and some of what I envision worries me. I wonder how I’ll manage if I’m infirm or unable to walk or see well. In those moments, I work at bringing myself back to the present---which is all we are assured of anyway! I keep reminding myself that every moment stands alone, a presence in its own right, a singular visitation which doesn’t include the future.

Of course we’re getting older every day but we need something else to think about besides long term care insurance and worrying about what our kids are doing when we’re home sitting by ourselves. In Sue Bender’s wonderful book, Everyday Sacred: A Woman’s Journey Home she says that “...the challenge is to find even ten minutes when the world stops and for that moment, there is nothing else. How can we bring that quality to what time we have---making that limited time sacred?”

Now take a moment---right now. As you read this, are you sitting in a chair, or on a train, or flying in a plane? Are you comfortable? Does the chair feel soft or hard? What do you see around the room?  Are you in lovely location? On a beach or a porch? Are you fortunate enough to have a roof overhead and your own cozy bed to sleep in? Pay close attention to the small, the beautiful, the meaningful---live in the present moment---for today, for ten minutes, for an hour. It feels good, doesn’t it? Ask youreself, what have you been overlooking in the present because you’ve been too worried about the future?

Friday, January 1, 2010

MYTHS TO NOT LIVE BY

“Of all the self-fulfilling prophecies in our culture, the assumption that aging means decline and poor health is probably the deadliest.”

Marilyn Ferguson, Philosopher & Writer


Myth: Old women are depressed and lonely.
Truth: Women may get depressed and lonely from time to time, but reliable research shows that the least lonely and depressed women are over seventy-five!

Myth: You become less of a woman as you age.
Truth: Some of the best and brightest women, though past the half-century mark in years, are still climbing the ladder of success in the world.

Myth: Old women have more stress in their lives.
Truth: According to psychologists, older people in general have more stress-free days than younger ones. That’s one of the benefits of aging. The older you get you kind of realize that ‘hey, it’s not worth getting upset about the small things.

Myth: Growing older is synonymous with nothing but the loss of vitality and illness.
Truth: Research, and older women themselves, are demonstrating that one’s later years can be the richest ever in wisdom and spirituality.

Myth: If you are older and reminiscing about the past, or are becoming garrulous about the past, you are exhibiting signs of beginning senility.
Truth: These recollections are natural and appropriate, and their purpose is to resolve some of the conflicts of one’s life and to do a meaningful life review..

Myth: It’s normal to feel useless and sad in old age.
Truth: Millions of older women suffer from depression that can destroy their independence, cause emotional torment and lead to physical deterioration, but this condition isn’t normal and can be successfully prevented and treated.

Myth: The older you get, the faster time passes.
Truth: Mathematically, those proverbial endless summers of your childhood were not even one minute longer than last summer. What’s different now is how you spend your summer---simply put, you have more routines now and routines lend uniformity, which makes it very easy to be oblivious to time passing.

Myth: Everyone wants to, and should be, willing to hear our wisdom and opinions because we are older.
Truth: Even though we’re older and wiser, we don’t necessarily know everything or have all the answers.

Myth: Creativity is only for the gifted few and our talents dim with age.
Truth: Creativity is not just for geniuses. It is the energy that allows us to think a different thought, express ourselves in unique ways, it enables us to view life as an opportunity for exploration and it knows no age.