courage

Throughout the past year and a half, few concepts have provoked more thought in me than the concept of courage. My mother-in-law, who is showing some good improvement (she has regained her speech and use of both arms and legs after a small stroke like event, and some seizures), is on the oncology ward at a local hospital. I was nervous about setting foot on the oncology ward...too many reminders there for me. On my first visit, the gentleman in the next room was noisily vomitting again and again for about an hour. It was quite distressing...not just feeling badly for him, but re-living my experience with simultaneously undergoing chemo, radiation, and stomach infection from the implanted feeding tube last August. Oh, but I felt awful. I was thinking about courage back then, and lamenting my absence of that noble trait. Then, over time, I reconsidered. Courage was not, I concluded, an absence of fear...rather, courage was more perservering through one's trials in the face of fear. Perhaps I gained a little courage along the way this past year. But being on the oncology ward this past week frightened me. Just seeing the sign "oncology center" while waiting for the elevator up to the fifth floor frightened me. Seeing elderly patients, hooked up to IV's, barely conscious, frail and fragie...I couldn't detach like I have in the past. The thought that I "know" what could await me...more cancer, aging, alzheimers... (my father's demise)...perhaps all three simultaneously... is different from the abstract concepts these things once where. Perhaps alzheimers is still abstract, but I had some pretty strong glimpses of disorientation and confusion when I was liberally self-medicating with narcotics, sleeping pills, anti-nausea meds, and a handful of other assorted pills, along with sleep deprivation and dehydration during the worst of my days last year. I was dazed and confused!

Anyway, back to the idea of courage... visiting my mother-in-law on the oncology ward made me feel envious of those who perish due to a sudden coronary event, fatal gunshot, plane crash,etc. It takes such courage to die well while dying slowly. To endure with acceptance and patience the slow decline. Amazing courage. When the time comes, I want to go quickly, and I see in this, again, the absence of courage. When the time comes for me to take that final ride, I pray it will be on a super-speed bullet train. Yet, truth be told, I also have learned a little to trust God to get me home even if it must be on the local commuter train that stops to let passengers on and off every mile or two. To die slowly in discomfort, then, must make the final arrival ever so overwhelmingly joyful.

Another thing. I saw nurses and nurses aids last week who were so comforting and careful with patients...gentle smiles and soft voices while helping clean up messes with reassurance and compassion. How much do they pay these nurses aids? Not enough, not enough. I felt so much appreciation for what I saw them do. They have courage and compassion in doing their job so well. Day after day, month after month. I tell you, I fought back tears. It brings to mind the hug I got from Ethel, the woman who opened the door at Methodist hospital and arranged valet parking for those too ill to walk from the parking lot. Every day, as I got sicker and sicker during my treatment, Ethel greeted me with warmth and compassion. Now, when I return for three month check-ups to the oncology center in Omaha, Ethel still greets me like I was her only son returning from the battlefield! She practically suffocates me with her hug.

so...here is a poem by Marianne Moore...I posted it last year, but it is worthy of another post. It's a little more complicated than the usual poems I post, but I like it. The idea of a captive bird, steeling itself up and singing with all its might, in the face of its captivity... that's what I want to think about doing in the face of a slow dying. Courage.

What Are Years?

What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are
naked, none is safe. And whence
is courage: the unanswered question,
the resolute doubt, -
dumbly calling, deafly listening-that
in misfortune, even death,
encourage others
and in it's defeat, stirs

the soul to be strong? He
sees deep and is glad, who
accedes to mortality
and in his imprisonment rises
upon himself as
the sea in a chasm, struggling to be
free and unable to be,
in its surrendering
finds its continuing.

So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
this is eternity.


Marianne Moore