The Experience of Death and Dying

A wave starting far out at sea, building and growing and crashing down and at that moment, you are wiped out, taken out of context, removed from reality. It ends, you come up for air, reorient yourself and start all over again. You look out on the horizon to try to find the origin of this wave... where does it actually start, what concrete thing makes it happen that you can see or touch? But, like so many things in nature, this, too, is a mystery?

Experiencing death and dying feels a little bit like the above. You know it is inevitable, it will happen and in some deep recess of ourselves, we prepare for it, brace ourselves, get ready. But, how do you get ready for something this mysterious, this subjective, this subtle or shocking?

I wanted to try to dig into this place - a space no one really wants to go and get comfortable in. Be present, experience and actually find it all beautiful. After my father died, I related the experience to my best friend who shook her head, gave a little giggle and said, "Patty, I knew you were an optimist, a pollyanna of sorts, but only you could come out of your dad's death and say it was so beautiful".

Now, I know there are a lot of people out there that know this to be true. They have experienced it themselves. This beauty, a beauty surrounded by sadness, pain, loss, finality and mystery. But, fear and anger and regret usually rear its ugly head and snuff out any of the beauty.

I think I am one of those lucky humans. My heart is an open book, so visible, no dark corners to hide in. This capacity allows me to move thru the dark side of life fairly quickly and leaves room for the silver linings of any situation. I know, I know� how can death have an upside. The person you love is lost forever. You can never get them back. It is so final.

Solitude and Death

Real grief with death can only be in solitude. Living, loving and dying are the ultimate, simple reasons for humans to exist. It has been said that living and loving need company but dying. You are on your own buddy! You might be surrounded by loved ones but it is you who takes the last gasp, it is you who thinks the last thought and it is you who must face this final moment. No one can go with you. No one can understand that actual moment. No one can really relate with what is going thru your mind.

Aging

Patient. Slow. Quiet. Simple.
Patient. Honor. Listen. Wait.
Patient. Watching. Letting. Being.
Patient. Accepting. Being. Alone.

The depths of Alone
Me. Myself. And I.
You. Yourself. And You.
Parallel. On Different Tracks.
On Different Journeys.
Curious. What does it Feel like?
As much as I wonder, ask, imagine.
I will never know until I get there.
Acceptance. Being. As they say,
It is the Way
The Truth
and The Light

I say goodnight and go into my room
My lonely room
A room with no husband
A room with no children
A room with no friends
I say goodnight and go into my room
A room to think about Alone
A room to think of my mother Alone
She is just with herself
Sometimes by choice and most times not
I ache for her Alone
By herself with only herself
To think about death, loss, herself
But she accepts and is resigned
She just wants to be left Alone
Her feelings, that is

Old

What is old?
Wrinkles
Tired Bones
Battle scars of surgeries
Medicine jars lined up
Canes, Walkers, and finally, Wheelchairs
Falls that came from Nowhere
A different kind of Forgetfulness
Complaining, Comparing, Comatose
Isn't Old Subjective?

Bed and Books

I notice I sleep with books in my bed
A poor replacement for my husband
I love crawling into bed with my piles of books
The quiet, the facts, the stories that fill my head
Giving me something to munch on
During the night. Instead of cookies and calories.
I wake up satisfied� almost, my brain that is,
But not my body.

Alone

A feeling of dread
Of isolation. Of Loneliness.
A negative feeling. One I want to run away from.
But, wait. Isn�t the Alone time when I create?
As Ed says. My Creative Wonderland
Which is oh so juicy and delicious.
So how can Alone be Desperate and Wonderful
At the same time? Ah, that is the question?
To ask Einstein, Picasso, my Teenage Children -
Who I think are all Genius.
For that matter, all teenage Children
And how they are genius at using Alone
One must go to the depts of Alone to get
To the Juicy and Delicious stuff.

The Hierarchy in a Nursing Home Dining Room

It is subtle
Some call it High School all over again
Some call it Survival of the Fittest
My son calls it Practical.
Who to sit with at Dinner?
One you can�t understand?
One reminding you of how you can end up?
One on a scooter because you can�t walk anymore?
One with a sense of humor?
One who is just sweet?
Which one suits your fancy tonight?
Which one makes you feel good?
Which one makes you want to go
Down to dinner the next night? And the next?

The Food in a Nursing Home Dining Room

Are you really complaining about the food?
Are you really complaining about the stuffed peppers
Or the size of the portions?<
br> Or the selection on the menu? Is it the food?
Or is it where you live? Where you dine?
Where you have to live? Where you have to dine?
Is it really about Choice and Freedom,
Denial about Aging?
Or is it the food?

Getting Lost

Getting lost, slowing down, a leaf falling, aging
A history of adventure, excitement in our finds, memories
We are two friends who know each other (s) special-ties and souls
And are accepting of them all, like the fall
The coolness, the crispness, the Cold,
Raw, impressive, inevitable. Aging
Oh, how I wished for the sun
The flowers pretty with the last bloom of summer,
The birds singing and dancing from limb to limb,
The grasshopper clicks in the open field A map of the wildness, enough space to get lost in for hours

But I had to wait for a special birth date and that date was forecasted
To be cloudy and chilly. We thought we had dressed
But we just had not been prepared. We were hanging on for dear life. Aging.
And, that life was still in summer mode. A fantasy picnic and painting session.
Bird sightings and animals, too.

Well
Our time was quite different.
The clouds created a monotone.
The wind kept the plethora of birds at bay.
The map challenged our sense of direction.
And we were not going to let it get the better of us.
No, we were not going to get lost.
We were going to stay on course. A lot like life and aging.

We were not going to get lost in feeling older.
Or tired or forgetful or unfit or melancholy.

For us, the day was about Acceptance.
Being open and present.
So, what did we find?
Picking the perfect Oak Leaf to press in a book.
Bending a branch to find a Nest. Spotting a Chickadee and a Wren.
A Pond. A Meadow. A Forest. An Orchard. A Stream. A Stump.
A Slight Hint of Warmth and just enough Sun to eat our Picnic and Chat.
Getting lost, slowing down, another leaf falling. Aging.
Aging. With a Friend.

Homelessness

I had an experience the other day that was an aha! moment. It swept me off my feet because I already thought I understood homelessness.

When I lived in downtown Boston, I witnessed homelessness and even got to know a few of the regulars. When I travel, I witness homelessness. There is not one homeless person I pass that doesn't leave an impression, a tug at my heart, the never-ending question of why? Why them and not me?

Last year I decided to try to answer that question. I volunteered at the Women's Lunch Place on Newbury street in Boston. It is a wet facility meaning the women can come in under the influence so you see a wide spectrum of women. It felt like 90% of the women we served lunch to had emotional or mental problems. I wanted to have more interaction so I then went to Rosie�s Place. It is a dry facility which means the women are more stable and can function in a different way. I do art with these women. What I learned there was that the functional fa�ade many times masks the same underlying emotional and mental issues. But, wherever I volunteer, I am overwhelmed by the strength and courage of these women. As an artist I am so impressed by their minds, their creativity� a creativity that comes out even amidst such tragedy and hardship.

So, from my experience, I thought I understood homelessness and who these women are.

So, what happened? I went on an errand out in Framingham to an art store. Normally you see a lot of suburban women buying supplies for arts and crafts for themselves or their children. I walked in and immediately recognized one of the women from Rosies. I had not seen her in a long time but she recognized me. We had a very nice conversation. And this is where the aha! moment began.

I found myself talking to her as if she was one of my suburban friends. Chatting about art project. She was looking for a T-shirt to paint but it was too expensive. I asked her if she lived out there. I just could not understand why she was so far from town or mass transit. She said she got a ride with some other people. She told me to say hello to everyone at Rosies and I told her it was great to see her. Then I went about my business of shopping. As I was buying what now felt to be frivolous stuff, I decided to go back and ask her if I could buy the T-shirt for her. She said no but thank you. We chatted some more. I bought my stuff and left.

It is actually hard to articulate this but for the first time I realized that I had kept homeless men and women on the periphery of society. After all, isn't this where they belong. They sometimes don't have family, housing, income, health care, etc. They are adults and so have the right to live the life they have (notice I did not say choose). Because of their situation or mental illness, or silence, they segment themselves away from the mainstream. Don't they? Or is it we who do the separating? I put them in a nice little niche. I volunteered to help them out because I feel sorry for them. But, what I forgot was that they are human being exactly like the rest of us. Exactly like me.

I went home and started to think about the untouchables of India, the caste system, the cultural rules that keep women or children or aids victims or lepers or prisoners separate from society.

Isn't it all just smoke and mirrors? Isn't it as simple as "we are all human", end of story? Isn't it about the fact that nothing else matters? That women at the art store was my friend, not my homeless friend... just my friend.

Ideas

The Aspen Ideas Festival just ended. I had begged to be taken. I was a sponge that was bone dry, looking for water, looking for new ideas to munch on. You see, I am a wife, a mother a friend, an artist. I am known in my own circles as having ideas, lots of ideas, wild ideas, out of the box ideas, creative ideas. I am respected for it, nurtured by all who know me. I am celebrated.

My experience of Aspen sent me on a wild ride. It is a place filled with big ideas and big people. It is a naturally beautiful setting covering up an intense, jam-packed agenda with not space to process. I soon experienced idea fatigue� like crisis fatigue. It actually felt like a crisis.

My experience quickly dissolved into intimidation and insecurity. Who am I in this kind of space? Where my ideas at home are big, they now look miniscule and unimportant.

What happened? I go into a tailspin. There is a lot of masculine, intellectual energy in those lecture halls and my feminine energy just evaporates as if the intensity of the thoughts burns up the cool, clear centeredness of my spirit.

I am 56 years old. I have lived enough life to know who I am and know my center, but still, my core is pushed and pulled with such speed, that my center is lagging behind my body like the wind behind a roller coaster � just hanging on for dear life. But don't think I was not served:

Elizabeth Alexander, the brilliant blue lupine, the energy of the young social entrepreneurs, Anna Deveare Smith, the Colorado pines, the quest to do good in the world, the "News has No Clothes", the young scholars, Studio 360, Damian Woetzel, The Kids dancing Big Steps with great joy, Saul Griffith, all the "brain" people. The word, the inspiration, and the work.

It is over. I go to sleep in my psychotic crisis of thinking the worst of myself. Ah, alas, it was only based on exhaustion. I get back to myself and realize I do have ideas. They are mine. They are sacred. I will go home and nurture and create them, having been inspired by the bold individuals that have found their bigness and their voice.

Thank you Aspen Ideas Festival.

People

People are the same
People are different
People love
People hate
People are single
People are married
People are poor
People are rich
People are slaves
People are free
People are sick
People are healthy
People laugh
People cry
People are at war
People are at peace
People live
People die

People are different
People wear different clothes
People eat different food
People believe in different gods
People live in different countries
People live in different houses
People speak different languages
People abide by different political systems
People live by different laws
People are different

Even with all the differences in the world
People still want the same things

Foreign

What makes "foreign" frightening?
The unknown The not understanding

Mother's Eulogy

(I enclose this in my essays as it reflects a type of autobiography of myself)

You must know first, that I have 2 siblings who are 10 years older than myself. Their experience of my mother was quite different in many ways, but even with this said, I believe they might agree with what I am about to say. My early life consisted of an intimate time with my mother. I was like an only child. It is in that experience that I talk about my mom, Sara Catherine Windrow McLaughlin.

I actually wrote about Mother a month ago when I flew down thinking the end of her life was near. At the time, I described mother in one word, Beauty. And we used this word to describe Mother in her obituary. But in the last few days, other words have come to mind as well. Courage and Commitment.

Of course, a person�s life is not simple and I have spent a good part of mine thinking about hers, the mother/daughter thing, the adolescent thing, the growing up in the feminist era and being raised by "just a housewife" thing, the only child thing, the mother to mother thing and the artist to artist thing.

As I said, life is actually very complicated but I do know one thing for sure. A life is always about Love and Family. Always.

You have to look back at a person's family of origin to really get to know the person.

Mother grew up in a big rowdy family on Swiss Avenue living the good life. She was the middle child between an only older brother, a strong-minded older sister and a set of adorable younger twin sisters. She lost her father, who she had a very special bond with, when she was 12. Her mother was amazing. She was a 4 foot 11 inch bundle of joie de vivre, living life Big, energy who never remarried, raised 5 children alone and lived to be 92 years old acting truly as the strong matriarch of the family. And though my mother was the opposite of her mother, shy, sensitive and incredibly artistic, she inherited Mimi's innate sense of beauty, grace and taste that she would embody to the very end. As the years went by, mother would turn into the next matriarch,
outliving all her brother and sisters and spouses and many friends.

Ironically, my mother met my father at the age of 12, the very year she lost her father. I totally understood their attraction to each other. My father had the capacity to adore, and my mother yearned for that adoration. She could have married wealthy, famous young men but she knew the real deal. My father, Joe. Growing up she was waited on by servants in Dallas. With my father, they lived in tiny towns in West Texas, moving 13 times. She had to learn how to do everything herself, cooking, cleaning, and raising their children.
She never looked back and did every move with a smile.

Their marriage was a fairy tale love story between them which lasted their entire lives.
My parents' marriage could not have been a better model of mutual commitment.

In describing who my mother was and her many talents... I have to begin with a confession. My brother and sister embraced her legacy naturally. I came to it in full rebellion. Growing up, I felt somewhat imprisoned by the homes she beautifully decorated from top to bottom. I wanted out, out of the house, anywhere! I wondered, Why didn't she take all that incredible talent and use it in the world, show it off, have a career, use it for the common good, and make a name for herself?

Well, as we all do, I grew up, got married, had kids and started to decorate my own homes and realized the person I am today is based on my mother's beautiful homes. I now know what she gave me, a foundation to build my own life on - a safe place to blossom, dream and create, how to design a beautiful home to welcome the world in, change the world from within and use as a haven for intimacy, celebrating family and learning about the world around us.

But with Mother, it always comes back to beauty.

I think that every person can be represented by a part of their body. For Mother, it was her beautiful skin the kind of beauty that was in the Dallas society pages. She had such a great time back then.

But in her dying, I also saw her beauty. And although her skin was still as smooth as silk, it was her hands that told me everything. We held hands for a long time. I never wanted to let go. She could not speak so it is how we showed our love for one another. I said "holding each others hands" but there is a subtle distinction. She was not holding my hand and I was not holding hers, we were consciously holding each others, preparing each other and helping each other travel down the final road of her life on earth.

I looked down and thought about the monumental significance of her hands. The loving, the cooking, the painting, the sewing, the planting, the wallpapering, the helping, the decorating, the giving, the crafting. She put all that beauty and love into life, into our family, and into the world.

Vietnam

You don't know it but you always bring your past lives to a travel experience. Our trip to Vietnam proved to be one of these experiences. Why Vietnam? Our family had not been to Asia for many years. Dick and I witnessed the Vietnam War and wanted to see this country and the aftermath of the war for ourselves. We had heard it was beautiful and the people so welcoming to Americans. How can that be?

The flight was long. 24 hours to be exact and we were not in business or first class. Boston to San Francisco to Seoul, Korea to Hanoi, Vietnam. We made it! We arrived at midnight which is always very disorienting. I am a visual artist! The drive from the airport was quiet. No one was on the streets.
Little did I know how unusual that is for this country.

I won't bore you with a chronological blow by blow. Here are the highlights:

Motorcycles
Thousands and thousands and probably millions of them, all making for a very polluted city environment which at first, was very claustrophobic (I had been in China in 1985 and the air quality was so bad, I wore a mask outside and I was fighting off an asthma attack.) No traffic rules. No left hand turn lanes. No traffic lights on most street corners. A total free for all both for the drivers and the pedestrians.
Walking across the street is the bravest thing you could do in Hanoi.

OK, go back to the motorcycles. Just think 10 years ago they were probably all bicycles and 10 years from now, they will probably be all cars. Ponder that for awhile. This is truly one of the big indicators of a developing country developing. The air quality so bad that even the locals are all wearing masks themselves.

It was such a deja vu experience for me. China all over again. The smell of fine dust being swept up by the street cleaners, mixed with the fumes of the exhaust from motorcycles, mixed with industrialization in the suburbs which probably has no environmental rules, mixed with the smells of vendors cooking outside, mixed with people spitting to clean out their lungs, mixed with men (only men) smoking as if they are immune to lung cancer, mixed with polluted lakes that are mucky green, mixed with live animals like chickens and pigs being sold at market and garbage on the streets. The garbage was fascinating to me. It was obvious that there was some garbage clean-up and collecting but I was back in a country where one of the great sins of our time is introducing plastic and junk packaging that people don't know what to do with because they can't burn it (lethal smoke) so they just toss it on the ground. I know there was a system for some of it but it was just not enough.

Communism plus Capitalism
This country is a mix of a free market economy and a communist system. The mix is fascinating because in the 80�s I visited both the Soviet Union and China when they were full-blown controlled by communism. This ideology now has learned from past mistakes in underestimating human nature and has now introduced a free market economy allowing the entrepreneur spirit to go wild. What a social experiment, letting millions of people go and watch what happens. Literally walking the streets and markets was like watching life in constant fast-forward mode. Busy, busy, busy. Millions of vendors on the street making a restaurant with 4 plastic chairs, a pot of broth, fresh greens, a chunk of meat and a way of getting it there by bicycle, cart, or a basket on their back or the traditional Asian way, a bamboo rod slung over the shoulder with two balanced loads in front and behind. Millions of vendors using their bicycle as the store with racks made to clip on or hang clothes, barrettes, cell phone cover knock-offs, temporary tatoos, cigarettes, medicine, underwear, perfume, etc. (the mobile department store!).

China as a Neighbor
Try being in the shadow of big brother, China. What happens? The country is saturated with every type of cheap piece of merchandise all coming out of China. Every item is pink, plastic, cheap (oh, did I say cheap?), over-decorated to seduce the buyer. Millions and millions of pieces of merchandise. As a person that prides myself on quality and craftsmanship, I was repulsed by all this stuff that was everywhere. This stuff has infected every niche of Vietnamese society. It was repulsive to me. In the US, China has done the same thing but it is somewhat more subtle because the quality and nuance of color, etc. is controlled. The saddest indicator for me was when we were visiting very rural areas in the northern highlands of ethnic minorities. I could not wait to get to this area to see the unique costume of the locals. I was all ready to buy the beautiful handmade fabrics and clothes that I have found in other cultures. None exists. It has all been replaced by Chinese machine-sewn, sequined, fancy velvets and glittery, shiny fabrics. These groups pride themselves on wearing bright colors that are in such contrast to the land of terraced rice paddies of red clay earth and dramatic karst formations. But, even the color now is fake, neon, polyester. I had to go to the Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi to see the real costume of these people. Why is this happening? Easy answer. You can buy a fake down parka trimmed in fake fur with lots of zippered pockets and applique decoration, all for $5. We bought one for our ethnic guide, Sua, who lead us on a magnificent 20 km trek in the highlands.

Communism as a Political System
This came on in a subtle way. It was not obvious at first. It came on slow. You don't see a lot of policeman or big brother types around. It comes on in this way. First you see a billboard, a typical looking propaganda illustration of happy faces of the people all together for the common good with common goals. Then you drive by a fancy big building painted a distinctive pastel yellow-orange trimmed with dark green or rust. Then you realize you are seeing a lot of Ho Chi Minh everywhere, father of the Vietnamese Communist ideal.

You see it most in the countryside. In far off ethnic minority areas where there are new roads not easy to build, curvy, windy along steep mountains, 100's of km of them. And, in each small town there is a brand new government building with usually a school, market area, a hospital and a joint venture hotel thrown in, very much in contrast to the cement block, thatched or tin roof traditional rural buildings. Oh, you also see fancy skinny three story homes and shops that our guide kept saying were for all the government workers to live in, a stark contrast in the country where you could really see the influence of the government control.