Compassion is Grace

It is a completely different day today. Bonnie is showing signs of recovery. The liver and the kidneys are still an issue but I am hopeful for full recovery… hopeful. I’m not so sure the Dr.s are disclosing everything to me… they are sometimes overly cautious in what they tell me and I can’t blame them for that. However, I do get an overall impression that Bonnie has a good chance to fully recover. It could be wishful thinking on my part too so I am prepared for it otherwise. It takes some degree of surrender… accepting the powerlessness but still holding on to that fight to overcome. After all, what is all this business of recovery about anyway?

            I sit at her bedside and hold her hand as she says the same phrases or words over and over again…. as though her brain is on auto-pilot and is going over a flight pattern that is obscure to me. I wonder what is going on in her mind. We hope it is the repairing process… employed after millions of years of evolution… a place where poets and dreamers go… perhaps.

            Medical science: I’m afraid that all this technical equipment is alienating nursing skills away from TLC and redefining them in terms of monitoring computer screens. One older nurse admitted to me… “It is all a numbers game now.” She knew as well as I know that the human touch is becoming alien to the present generation of the practice. That is why it is all the more important for family or friends to be involved with doing things like holding a hand and assuring, with a calm and kind voice, that they are loved and cared for.

           I can tell which ones “get it” when I come back from home from a night of rest and see clean sheets and her bed clothing neatly arranged in the morning. A good example of this happened yesterday. When I returned from running some errands, I asked the nurse, who was fully engaged with the monitor screen, how Bonnie was doing. Her answer was discouraging, saying there was no improvement from when I left… Bonnie still didn’t respond to us and that she didn’t open her eyes or recognize anyone. I simply gave Bonnie a sop of water and told her I love her. She opened her eyes immediately and said I love you too. The nurse was surprised. I was not. It is a sad thing but it told me how important it is that I be there even when it looked like my presence was useless. The Heart of Compassion is there when I am compassionate. Compassion is the Grace of God.

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Watching Bonnie

Another day at the hospital. Watching Bonnie has been hard to do because I feel so helpless to do anything for her. She calls out… pleading… for what??? And then she drifts off into her head… eyes closed mumbling names and places… she sees her mother and calls out to her… I sit and hold her hand… doesn’t know who I am or where she is.

The mind, is it connected to the brain at all? I’m not sure… but I do know this… all the talk about spirituality and consciousness seems nonsense at this time. The computer is no longer connecting in there to anything I can comprehend from out here. These things are beyond anything I can control. We just think we have these things figured out about morality, will and so on… but when that bit of gray matter between our ears gets scrambled or when a simple thing like blood sugar goes haywire… everything we know, and damned near everything we think we are, goes out the window.

So, Dr.’s of Divinity and so called Spiritual Giants, what the fuck do you have to say about that? Where is God in any of this? What does it matter if I am kind and compassionate if it all is but a vapor? Why bother? It isn’t so much that I am mad at God or anything like that… I just don’t believe in God or anything like that. We die and it all goes back to where it came from… this consciousness business. So what if I’m as evil as Adolf Hitler… so what if I am Mahatma fucking Gandhi? Does it matter in the big picture where this biomass of human neurons connected arose from the primordial ooze just a short time ago in the grand scheme of things is? Do you really think so or is it all just a charade for charlatans who… well, might as well as anything else, be charlatans.

Okay, so I admit it freely… I am but one of those fakers… a fakir of sorts. Should I wear the mask of someone who cares, I will wear it the best I can, lay on a bed of nails...because why not? When I ask why, the answer seems to be, why not? Why not be kind as long as I can in this brief and meaningless span between birth and death? Why should I not try my best to find peace and maybe even happiness here and now? Now and then I think it better to believe in something than to believe in nothing at all. So, do I really know that there is a Heart of Compassion beyond the limitations of my own blood pump? Sometimes I am sure of it and at others, like these,… I just wonder.

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The Privacy of Intimate Feelings

Sunday, June 30, 2013 (07:40):

Today is the fifth day Bonnie has been in I.C.U. She is having some tubes taken out at this moment. I am supposing that this is a good thing. You just never know. She was sleeping at this time. That is a good sign too. We will wait patiently and hope for the best.

Now, I sit.

Her MD just let me know that he expects her kidney to recover full function in a couple of days. She is sleeping well and just had a feeding tube put in… that is a good thing because it means she will be eating solid foods soon. She’ll still be in I.C.U. a few more days.

I just want to put this out there. I do love and appreciate everyone’s concern but I have to say this.

Yesterday I went to a meeting in which everyone, with very good intentions, was asking me how Bonnie’s doing and almost insisting that I tell them what I’ve had to tell others what seemed a thousand times. I felt obligated to let them know but I really wanted to attend that meeting for peace of mind. Having to tell people over and over again what I thought was bad news was tiring. I sorta flipped out… just didn’t want to talk… wanted them all to simply let me be. I know that they care but, please, just let me know you care and don’t press me for information I haven’t offered. Phone calls are good but please be patient. I will try to answer the dozen or more messages you kindly left. Thank you, and I do appreciate your concern too.

This has been a valuable lesson about how I would like to treat other people. Treat them as I would like to be treated. Be patient and; if the worried-one, or grieving-one, chooses to volunteer information, just listen. The ones that did that said more to me than all the advice and well-wishing. I know that the intentions were from a good place but respect is so much more important than good intentions. To me, so much of it is about being compassion… empathy more so than sympathy.

I came to appreciate facebook because it puts some distance between those I wish to inform and it allows me the privacy of my more intimate feelings.

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The Faith of Estrangement

This morning I didn’t feel like praying and this is where the faith of estrangement kicks in. I pray out of pure habit because I feel in my heart that there is no one on the other end of my pleas that will answer me. This happens despite all the past experience where I have been humbled enough to surrender to the will of One greater than all of my troubles. It is a hard place to be it but it is in such times that the Heart of Compassion does a strange trick. A hope arises from the center of my being… not so much the kind of hope that believes my prayers will be answered exactly as I wish… rather, it is the kind of hope that tells me she will be alright… that we will get through this no matter what. So I sit or kneel regardless of how I feel or what I think. Doubt… rationality… does it really matter? All that disappears and I resign to it. I have, after all, lived and loved through one catastrophe after another… why not this one?

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Everything Changes

Friday, June 28, 2013:

Reflect on this: The realization of impermanence is paradoxically the only thing we can hold on to, perhaps our only lasting possession. It is like the sky, or the earth. No matter how much everything around us may change or collapse, they endure.

            Say we go through a shattering emotional crises… our whole world seems to be disintegrating… our husband or wife suddenly leaves us without warning. The earth is still there; the sky is still there. Of course, even the earth trembles now and again, just to remind us that we cannot take anything for granted…

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

It is another day at the I.C.U. and I’m headed up there now to see Bon Bon. I’m hoping she’ll be improved enough to be moved to a regular room. Really…

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Surgery

 I don’t have much to say this morning as my Bonnie is now in the O.R. the next 3 – 4 hours for a mitro-valve replacement or repair (i.e., open heart) surgery. She has been in good spirits and is brave. The surgeon has a good reputation and the treatment at Cottage Hospital is way above par compared to any other I’ve had experience with. She will be in intensive care until this evening but won’t be wanting to see anyone… probably even me.

            Surgery is one of those events in life that leaves our lives in the hands of a nearly complete stranger. We trust that the surgeon is good at his/her craft. We trust in that and surrender. Bonnie and I do appreciate your prayers today. May the healing hand of the Heart of Compassion pass over her heart today...

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Before I get Busy

We went to the beach to see the rising of the Super Moon. We stood in awe as it rose above the sea. Within minutes I pulled out a camera to take a picture but, since the camera was unfamiliar to me, I couldn't find the settings in the dark to catch the image properly. I did snap a couple of shots but I eventually gave up and simply held Bonnie’s head close to my chest. It was a moment in time that couldn't be caught on camera. I think now about it and remember the many times in places that I had a camera… took a shot… and moved on as though I had experienced the place or event. The truth is that, most of the time, I look at old pictures of places and people in my past and they don’t hold anything for me if I didn't stop and appreciate them in the now as I took them. However, I have found that I am able to stop and pause to give each moment… each person I make contact with… more than a snap-shot. I can do that with an open heart and mind if I take a few precious moments before I get busy today to take a few deep breaths and be here in the now.

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