Love and Fear
The aged teach me so much about living every day. Contrasting lessons give me more to consider as I make choices that determine how I am to live, in a way, with one eye on the day, and another on the night, on the end of my own life.
So I'm visiting this couple; they've been married a long time, maybe 40 years or more. They are in their late 70's now. They have no children of their own, but she has, from a previous marriage, and they are distant. Not a wide social circle. I get the feeling that they've had basically only each other for a long time.
They sit apart, on opposite ends of a long sofa, as if thrown like pillows into each of the corners. I sit across from them, on a kitchen chair I've brought into the middle of the room. I wonder about this decision: Am I sitting too close to them? Are they more comfortable with distance.
We are talking about the impact that his learning he has a terminal prognosis has had on their relationship. She worries about the threatened rigors of caregiving. She is a small, slight woman; he, a tall, medium set man. She's right: doing anything too physical would be difficult for her. He worries about becoming increasingly dependent. This is not a lack of confidence in her skills, as much as it is a humiliating erosion in his dignity. He says, "I can't even pull my own pants up now as it is." They both know it is going to get worse this way.
Yet he says, "I hope I live another two years." (It strikes me how people choose an arbitrary number in their hope to live with a terminal prognosis. Two years. What is two years? What would living two more years mean to him? I don't ask.) I just hear her say, "I hope I die before he does." Then she looks right at him and he looks at her, and she says, "I hope I die before you do." He looks pained, and helpless about that, too. It is one of the few times in our conversation they look at each other.
When I leave, I feel profoundly sad. It is a situation in which neither is really going to get what they want. Their fears, their dread, really, that this is what their lives have come to, fill up the space. (It always astounds me that people can live into their 70's and not consider that death is on their horizon.) Their home is very clean, very well-ordered, but their lives have become more disordered than they want to admit. The next world for each of them is growing under the surface, like the cancer that is taking his life. They can't see it, but it is there.
I can sense what is present, but I don't get a handle on what is missing until I visit another of my patients, a 91 y/o woman whose only slim, time-related hope is that she might live until 92 in October. She isn't tied to it; it is more like she wants to live out the year, complete it as it were. Instead what bubbles up within her is gratitude! The light is fading in her eyes, but it is warm, and she is thankful for a great deal. Our conversation turns to the reality of the dwindling numbers of her friends. When one is in one's 90's, one outlives a lot of people one knows-- and loves!
Among the latter is a man who died in his 90's a couple of years ago. They were dance partners. They enjoyed ballroom dancing, both the activity and the society around it. She says, "He said, 'let me call you sweetheart,' so I did! I let him call me 'sweetheart.'" Her eyes twinkle as she remembers, the romance of it still in her heart. I ask her, "Since he died, does anyone but your children say to you, 'I love you'?" She says, "No." We say a few words about what she misses about him being that: he was the last man to say to her, "I love you."
So I say to her, "I love you." She smiles warmly, her face brightened, and she says, "I love you, too." I say, "May I kiss you on the forehead?" She says, "Yes," and I do. We are both grateful for the moment.
When I leave her home, I realize that she has taught me something about the importance of having someone in our lives (besides our family members) to say to us, "I love you!" Not only does it brighten the moment, but her memory of having beeing told "I love you" sustains her days, and keeps alive the gratitude in her heart. It gives her a mooring for her wandering mind to drift to. She doesn't have to remember so far back!
And I remember the other couple: no "I love you's." Neither said, "I love you" to the other. I wondered how much an "I love you" might have dispelled their dread or been an antidote to their fears.
The Apostle Paul wrote that "perfect love casts out fear," but I realized that I do need love to be "perfect." I just need someone to say, "I love you" in whatever imperfect way it comes. And I want to be able to offer "I love you" to others, in my own imperfect way, too.
So I'm visiting this couple; they've been married a long time, maybe 40 years or more. They are in their late 70's now. They have no children of their own, but she has, from a previous marriage, and they are distant. Not a wide social circle. I get the feeling that they've had basically only each other for a long time.
They sit apart, on opposite ends of a long sofa, as if thrown like pillows into each of the corners. I sit across from them, on a kitchen chair I've brought into the middle of the room. I wonder about this decision: Am I sitting too close to them? Are they more comfortable with distance.
We are talking about the impact that his learning he has a terminal prognosis has had on their relationship. She worries about the threatened rigors of caregiving. She is a small, slight woman; he, a tall, medium set man. She's right: doing anything too physical would be difficult for her. He worries about becoming increasingly dependent. This is not a lack of confidence in her skills, as much as it is a humiliating erosion in his dignity. He says, "I can't even pull my own pants up now as it is." They both know it is going to get worse this way.
Yet he says, "I hope I live another two years." (It strikes me how people choose an arbitrary number in their hope to live with a terminal prognosis. Two years. What is two years? What would living two more years mean to him? I don't ask.) I just hear her say, "I hope I die before he does." Then she looks right at him and he looks at her, and she says, "I hope I die before you do." He looks pained, and helpless about that, too. It is one of the few times in our conversation they look at each other.
When I leave, I feel profoundly sad. It is a situation in which neither is really going to get what they want. Their fears, their dread, really, that this is what their lives have come to, fill up the space. (It always astounds me that people can live into their 70's and not consider that death is on their horizon.) Their home is very clean, very well-ordered, but their lives have become more disordered than they want to admit. The next world for each of them is growing under the surface, like the cancer that is taking his life. They can't see it, but it is there.
I can sense what is present, but I don't get a handle on what is missing until I visit another of my patients, a 91 y/o woman whose only slim, time-related hope is that she might live until 92 in October. She isn't tied to it; it is more like she wants to live out the year, complete it as it were. Instead what bubbles up within her is gratitude! The light is fading in her eyes, but it is warm, and she is thankful for a great deal. Our conversation turns to the reality of the dwindling numbers of her friends. When one is in one's 90's, one outlives a lot of people one knows-- and loves!
Among the latter is a man who died in his 90's a couple of years ago. They were dance partners. They enjoyed ballroom dancing, both the activity and the society around it. She says, "He said, 'let me call you sweetheart,' so I did! I let him call me 'sweetheart.'" Her eyes twinkle as she remembers, the romance of it still in her heart. I ask her, "Since he died, does anyone but your children say to you, 'I love you'?" She says, "No." We say a few words about what she misses about him being that: he was the last man to say to her, "I love you."
So I say to her, "I love you." She smiles warmly, her face brightened, and she says, "I love you, too." I say, "May I kiss you on the forehead?" She says, "Yes," and I do. We are both grateful for the moment.
When I leave her home, I realize that she has taught me something about the importance of having someone in our lives (besides our family members) to say to us, "I love you!" Not only does it brighten the moment, but her memory of having beeing told "I love you" sustains her days, and keeps alive the gratitude in her heart. It gives her a mooring for her wandering mind to drift to. She doesn't have to remember so far back!
And I remember the other couple: no "I love you's." Neither said, "I love you" to the other. I wondered how much an "I love you" might have dispelled their dread or been an antidote to their fears.
The Apostle Paul wrote that "perfect love casts out fear," but I realized that I do need love to be "perfect." I just need someone to say, "I love you" in whatever imperfect way it comes. And I want to be able to offer "I love you" to others, in my own imperfect way, too.
posted by TRXTR | 10:17 AM
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