#42, July 31, 2015, Alive

This is the next in the series of transcriptions from my journal, written during the wonderful sad last year of Dave's life.

Woke up at 3:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep. 

I feel all my bones and the muscles attached to them, my flesh working still, almost strong. I feel all the hungers still and the pleasure of their satisfaction. 

A time will come when there’s no more room for hungers—I know that from being sick even that short time—when pain and trouble of body take up all the room living gives them. But that time is not now. Not for me. Not yet.

Dave is well on his way there—he’s good at not pining over what he does not have, but I remember what he has done for me.

I remember with gratitude that he has let me use him for more than 30 years as a substitute for loving. He let me stir up his intensity and use it as a launching pad for my own until now even the memory---the senses of it, all its touch and smell and taste—is enough to touch off my own.

I am still living even as he is learning how to die.

A breeze stirs the curtains this early morning. I hear a dove. The air brings a slight chill.

I feel alive.

 
Image: theimpactnews.com

#41, July 30, 2015, The Beat of his Heart

This is the next in the series of transcriptions from my journal, written during the sad, wonderful, las year of Dave's life. 

And I thought yesterday’s doc appointment would be routine.

Hardly.

 

Though Dave’s kidney function and indeed every other so far measured system seems stable, he continues to fail. He lost another five pounds and is weaker than before. This doc suggested some kind of heart pump weakness—his heart, which every other doc said worked strong still—and his EKG’s show that. But it turns out that a heart’s electrical beat doesn’t measure its ability to pump, or the efficiency of its valves, or a possible blockage of artery. And it would make sense of his shifting blood pressures and his general weakness.

But to think that his heart, that obedient and faithful muscle, would just slow and tire, then finally just stop—I can’t imagine such a betrayal. I hear it like a dirge just running out of strength and quitting.

Everything in me screams, NO.

Image: reference.com

#40, July 28, 2015, Slow Leak

This is the next in the series of transcription from my journal, written during the wonderful, sad, last year of Dave's life.

I feel myself getting bitter sometimes, a bitterness that steps into the place of disappointed love, of life that has failed. It is the weight of what has passed me by, the pressure of the dissatisfaction that remains the stark necessity of breaths I take in the absence of hope.

I don’t see the purpose in these days. I have to rest to get better and Dave presses me relentlessly to sit down but for all those moments of rest, my life leaks out slowly and without remarking. 

I rail not against the night, but against a porous fog that absorbs all moments and returns no feeling, allows neither elation nor despair. I have no patience for this. I do not aim to. 

So little life remains and I am forced to spend what there is like this.

Image: St. Paul Faucet Repair

#39, July 27, 2015 So Big

This is the next in the series of transcriptions from my journal, written during the wonderful, sad, last year of Dave's life.
 

I am starting to understand that most people don’t care about the same things I do. 

I want to know reasons for things—why life rolls out the way it does. I want to recognize and understand whatever firm ground life can offer. But a lot of people, most people, are satisfied by coping with whatever circumstances come and to wreak out some enjoyment from them. 

Enjoyment is not enough for me. I want understanding and realization of beauty, and the touch of joy. I want to exult, knowing that the exultation comes from God. Life, as good as it is, is not enough. I don’t want just to have it. I want to participate in its glory. 

And I’m convinced that’s possible. There have been too many times where the glory’s been close, so close and I could just fall into it.

This is the way I love God. You, Oh Lord, are the only unfailing connection to glory.

I went outside yesterday and felt the close rays of summer heat. I breathed in and felt the sun come in, like sliding into a bath surrounded by the smell and sight of flowers. Lush.

I am always comfortable in the house now—it is always 72 degrees because otherwise Dave can’t breathe. And I’m glad for it. I rest and sleep easily. 

But life waits beyond the windows—the feel of sun on my back and on my face when I look up. 

Dave doesn’t like open expanses. He wants to be surrounded by trees. Give me wind and sun and the feel of wide oceans. Let me see the horizon from edge to edge uninterrupted. 

So Big.

Image: Shutterstock