Looking Back at Our Life's Journey

A new friend-- who did not know I love, and write, poetry-- lent me a book by Maren C. Tirabassi called The Depth of Wells. She knew I work for hospice, and she thought I'd find some something of worth in these poems.

I am amazed at how many of these poems are so very like my own experiences. One is of a woman who relates having been accidentally shot by her husband, with no lingering damage. “I promised I would never tell,” she says. I've heard similar confessions. Another is of a man dying in a hospital bed in his own living room, surrounded by loved ones on Thanksgiving who were watching the football game. I've urged families to keep their dying in their midst.

The poem that particularly struck me is of an old woman at a senior center, putting jigsaw puzzles together. Onlookers theorize she's enjoying the beautiful scenes and wishing she were there. Instead, she is trying to make sense of her own life. “Finally she remembers to start with the borders.”

Ever since I read that, I’ve been trying to understand what the borders of my life might be. Here are some of the things that came to mind. (Apologies to Kay, who is through with being introspective.)

What are my boundaries, places I would not go outside of, inner rules I would not overstep? Do I always stay within my comfort zone? Or do I push at the growing edge of me, both frightened and attracted by that which I feel most passionate about?

Something I learned from a high school photography class, so many years and so much technology ago, was how to vignette a picture. You could either cut a hole in a piece of cardboard with, say, pinking shears, and shoot the picture through it; or you could actually apply Vaseline to the edges of the lens to soften and blur the parts of the picture that weren’t necessary. Those ideas have always been for me metaphors for how I sometimes look at life, choosing to see only what I want.

How do we focus in on our lives, in reflection; or does it matter if our view is ten degrees off center? Don’t we frame and reframe ourselves, as co-creators of our lives?

The mood I’ve been in too much lately, the worm-eating, poor-me mode, feels like a retreat from my growing edge, much like the brain atrophies within the skull. Now that’s a terrible picture, isn’t it? This is a better one: sometimes when we are in pain, we double up into as small a ball as possible, holding ourselves and literally rocking. When we are comforted enough, we can return to our full stature, resume our activities, prepare again to grow when the time is right.

I do believe that we have to grow, in wisdom or in spirit or love, or we retreat. We can’t hold still for long.

The question is, do we have the courage stretch out toward that growing edge again? Growth is painful. But failure to grow is death.

When I work with the dying, I hope to help them think about their lives: to validate themselves, to teach their families what they've learned, maybe to try to make amends. There isn't much they can do to change the course of their lives, but sometimes they can change the ending, the meaning they leave for others.

We, in the mainstream of our lives, can do even more by pulling back and taking a look at where we're headed. We still have time, maybe, to change, to alter our course.

This is a Lenten theme, and Lent begins next week! Blessings to all of you, and thanks for putting up with my solemn side tonight.