Category: ruminations

Everything Dies

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During the last few weeks I followed the last travels of a Jeff Parker. Jeff was a BMW rider and was part of the internet BMW riding community. He’s well known to many of the long-time denizens of that eclectic and curmudgeonly group.

A few weeks ago, Parker announced he was diagnosed with Stage 3 pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is bad. Stage 3 means it’s time to bend over and kiss it goodbye. There is nothing to do but be comfortable and meet one’s end.

Parker elected to give things one last go. He decided to do a four-corners ride. That’s long-distance rider slang for the four corners of the lower 48 states of the U.S. It’s not a ride to be taken lightly. It’s certainly not a ride to be taken lightly when one is dying from pancreatic cancer.

But ride it he did. He posted to the list a couple-three times with updates on progress. A few days ago, somewhere in Arizona, he could not go on. The pain was sufficient that he was no longer fit to ride. He called a few folks from the BMW Anonymous Book (a publication with contact information of BMW riders but no names), met them for supper, and asked if any of them could/would help him finish the ride.

One of them could. So, Parker rode second seat the remainder of the way to the last corner of his ride. He then put his benefactor on an airplane, went home, and went under hospice care. He was comfortable and calm when he posted his last message to the IBMWR mailing list.

I don’t think anyone minded that there was not much of the obligatory BMW content. Parker wrote to say he finished his ride, literally and figuratively. It was his last post.

His daughter posted to the group yesterday late that Jeff Parker died from his cancer.

So what, one might think… people die everyday. It is true that everything dies, at least everything living. We all come to an end sometime.

The cancer is rather close to home. I lost Wife to cancer last January. But I am impressed by Parker’s approach. He saw his end coming and did something deliberate. He decided to go for a motorcycle ride. It wasn’t just any motorcycle ride, but a four-corners ride to all four corners of the continental U.S. It’s about a 10,000-mile ride.

It’s not something to be undertaken lightly. It’s physically and mentally challenging. Parker decided to do it while dying from pancreatic cancer. That’s both deliberate and ballsy.

He finished the ride before the cancer finished him. He had help at the end, but it still counts. He had the courage to take on a thing he wanted to do, but had not done. That courage speaks volumes to me and I hope to others.

Godspeed, Jeff Parker.

From This Valley

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Sunset Wave CloudThe trip to Lubbock was hard both physically and emotionally. The physical part is easy to deal with. It’s a mental game. So long as I don’t get so tired to be dangerous (to myself and others), it’s just something to overcome. The emotional part, though, is not so easy.

Some might say just deal with it. If they did, I would be tempted to tell them to “stick it where the sun don’t shine.”

I’m not sure what I expected of this process of grieving. I’ve never experienced this kind of loss. Yes, I lost my mom and dad years ago. That was plenty hard, but neither unexpected nor handled alone. Wife was there with me through that process. I was secure. This time, though, I lost the person I’d spent nearly 45 years with. The depth of that relationship was substantial. Although I tried to prepare myself for this time, my preparations were horribly insufficient.

Wife so loved road trips. Neither of us enjoyed the preparations, wherein Wife’s tendency to obsessive-compulsive behavior was brought out. (Everything that could have been done since the last trip but wasn’t now has to be done before we leave for this trip.) But once that was all dealt with and we actually left, we enjoyed seeing things, stopping to putter a bit, and trying new places to eat. But mostly we enjoyed talking and listening to music.

Those last two things defined our relationship. We loved words and music.

I don’t know why, but for some reason this trip was particularly hard. I brought my iPod along this time, instead of just listening to satellite radio. I recently discovered The Civil Wars from their track on Phil Madiera’s Mercyland. The refrain from that song haunts me:

Oh won’t you take me from this valley
To that mountain high above
Oh I will pray, pray, pray till I see your smiling face
I will pray, pray, pray to the one that I love.

I was singing along, trying to learn the lyric, and hit the phrase till I see your smiling face… and I lost it. The wave of grief rose up and buried me, leaving me sobbing as I drove.

While Wife was in her Summer 2012 chemotherapy testing to determine whether her lymphoma remained chemo-sensitive, I captured a couple of informal portraits of her. They were good enough to print and frame. They are on the wall of my house, now, where I can look at her smiling face. When I get a beer, or a whiskey, or even just a coffee, I raise my cup to her portrait in salute and remember her, remember us, remember the good times and the hard.

I want to be over my grief and I also don’t want to be over it. To be done with it seems to signify that I’m over her death. I don’t want to be over her death. I want her life to have so much significance that I’m never over it. Indeed, her life was that significant, at least to this old man.

I suppose that means I want to complete my grieving so that I can move on to whatever God has for me next. I don’t want to be over her loss, but I need to know what’s next for me. Where am I to put myself to work where I can create meaning for myself and others. That’s where I want to be. That’s what I want to figure out. I do not think it is where I currently am.

I gave myself a year to deal with this process. Everything I read tells me that it takes a year or two to recover (not get over) the loss of a spouse. I’m not very patient, though, sometimes. I long to get through this so that I can get on with whatever is to be next.

Perhaps that’s the clue to the entire thing. Part of the process should be figuring out what’s next. I am accomplishing the things I set out to do after Wife died. My finances are recovering. My initial purge of my house is nearly complete. There needs to be a second purge, but that one will not be nearly as difficult as the first pass. Much of the paperwork that languished is also complete.

That means I’m running out of projects to work on that were set out a year or more ago. It’s time to work up some new things to work on. I think it’s time that some of those things be the things I want to work on. It’s time to think about playing music again, about upping my photography game to the next level, about working on the what’s-next-for-me game and where that is going to be.

I think that’s part of what this roadtrip was about. It was an opportunity to openly grieve (no one was there to watch — men in our culture prefer to grieve privately), to process that grief, and to think about what is complete, what is yet to complete, and what is next for me. I worked on the first two quite a lot. It’s time to give the last element some thought.

I’ll leave you with the lyric to From This Valley. It’s a wonderful song.

Oh the desert dreams of a river
That will run down to the sea
Like my heart longs for an ocean
To wash down over me

Oh won’t you take me from this valley
To that mountain high above
Oh I will pray, pray, pray till I see your smiling face
I will pray, pray, pray to the one that I love

Oh the outcast dreams of acceptance
Just to find pure love’s embrace
Like an orphan longs for its mother
May you hold me in your grace

Oh won’t you take me from this valley
To that mountain high above
Oh I will pray, pray, pray till I see your smiling face
I will pray, pray, pray to the one that I love

Ooh, whoa oh, whoa oh oh
Ooh, whoa oh, whoa oh oh

Oh the caged bird dreams of a strong wind
That will flow beneath her wings
Like a voice longs for a melody
Oh Jesus, carry me

Oh won’t you take me from this valley
To that mountain high above
Oh I will pray, pray, pray till I see your smiling face
I will pray, pray, pray to the one that I love

Oh I will pray, pray, pray till I see your smiling face
I will pray, pray, pray to the one that I love

Moody

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Moody

I almost always carry a camera with me. Even if it’s the puny camera in my iPhone, I have something on my person that will permit a capture of an image, should something present itself. There was something about the interplay of the evening light (before sunset colors appeared) on the clouds and the neighbor’s trees. I had the D300 with me and the Nikkor 24/2.8 lens. So, I made the capture.

It didn’t work in color, so I elected to desaturate the image and play with the contrast and exposure curves a bit. I so much prefer working on the digital darkroom than the wet darkroom! I like what I got. I think it conveys the mood of the scene.

The Girl, of course, didn’t care about sun, dark, light, or shadow. She was “hunting wabbits” and doing doggie things. We’re a good pair, me with my nose in the clouds and she with her nose on the ground. I never tire of watching her energy.

Fall, Clouds, and Sunsets

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Carson Valley SunsetFall arrived a couple of weeks ago. The warm/hot afternoons abated, suddenly. They were replaced with cool, brisk mornings and pleasant afternoons. As evening comes, it’s cool outside again and if the wind is blowing, it’s cold. A cover is required.

Last night I walked the Girl about 1800 or a bit after. Sunset isn’t really until about 1830 these days, but with the Carson Range, we lose the Sun about 1800. If there are any clouds, there is a chance we’ll see some color about formal sunset. Although I love the big blue skies of Nevada, I’m ready for a few clouds and the sunsets (and sunrises) they bring with them. I also love the promise of winter. I love cold mornings and the feel of the Sun on my body when I’m outside.

There is something wonderful about that sensation of cold/warm. Perhaps it’s the hint of danger of cold weather coupled with the feeling of warmth and safety, a juxtaposition of two extremes. I sometimes wonder if there is a deep gestalt wired into our lizard brains about such primal things as hot and cold, ice and fire. Civilized life comes with our central HVAC. These mighty machines are all powered from somewhere and by some means that is unknown to most of us. We scarcely give it a thought, unless the power is out. Then we revert to the primal, seeking warmth against the cold.

For me, fall hints at the coming winter with those cold, sunny days that I love so much. I put up with, perhaps celebrate the snow and the promise of spring runoff that drives agriculture in my region. The snow never lasts very long and it’s beautiful, particularly on the Carson Range and on the Pine Nut Mountains.

I love the yellow of the aspens against the darker greens of the pines. I can see the aspen groves in the valleys along the eastern slope from my house. One fall morning, I first noticed them. I wondered what the color was that I was seeing from my driveway here in suburbia. I called Wife and we got out my binoculars for a look. The eight magnifications of my Nikons brought the aspen groves into view.

Wife and I marveled at that for a bit, remembering our first experiences with aspens in Colorado nearly 30-years ago.

The aspen groves are visible now. I can see them on my travels to and from work. I planned to get the Girl out this morning and drive up to Hope Valley. I don’t know if the aspens are in fall colors or not, but I think the drive might be good. But, I hear rain as I write this. That probably means snow in the mountains. I might get her out and drive up there anyway.

One evening last week the Girl and I went out for evening walkies. I carried my D300 along with me, with the 18-70mm kit lens attached. The kit lens isn’t the best of Nikons optics, but it’s adequate. Of all the frames I shot that evening, there was only one keeper. The remainder were technically adequate, but artistically deficient. The colors just were not that good.

But that’s OK. It is the nature of nature photography… sometimes you get a shot; sometimes not. Mother Nature is not always cooperative.

Grinding A Life

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SunsetThis weekend I really stayed on task and worked through four more boxes of fossil records. There remain only two small cartons of papers that are stowed on the staging table in the garage and a small carton in my living room that I think contains photographs. I will probably break open the photograph carton tomorrow and see what is in it.

I ground cancelled checks, statements, and tax returns dating from 1972. I think Wife kept every bit of paper that came into the house. I threatened several times to just deal with the old records myself. But her fear of losing something that was important overruled my desire to clean up after ourselves and she just became too anxious for me to proceed.

I refused to do it with her, because I knew she would agonize over every decision. I didn’t believe the job warranted that. She knew what I thought. I wasn’t argumentative about it; I just thought it was something that needed to be done.

Well, with her death the job fell to me anyway. I am determined to get through all of that old stuff and deal with it. Most of it (over 90 percent) will go away. A few bits and pieces will be kept and those are mostly things that have her words on them. I do miss her words.

As I worked through all those papers, I recognized a lot of things and places from the past. There were receipts from favorite eating places, records of trips taken, records of work done. As I passed them through the grinder I couldn’t help feeling that I was grinding up the record of our lives. That familiar old feeling of melancholy came over me many times over the weekends as I worked on this humongous project. It felt like I was grinding up not just my life, but our joint lives.

I can say I don’t like how that feels. I already feel the loss of Wife deeply. No day passes when I don’t think of her at least once. When I’m at the office, I expect a text of telephone call asking about my day or when I’m coming home. I honestly think that’s part of the reason I now prefer to work at home. When I’m here at the house I know she won’t be calling or sending me a text. I know that she’s gone and not coming back.

On Saturday, I found myself thinking “I really don’t like feeling this way. I’m going to have to find a way to deal with this and move on.” Heh… I wish it was so simple.

Yet I recall one day during my clinical depression thinking nearly the same thing. That time I got up and started moving around. It marked a watershed in my recovery. I wasn’t done with the depression (or it wasn’t done with me), but I began my recovery that day and moved forward most days after that.

I think new things are coming for me. I’m going to finish this job. I have a few more cartons to deal with after I finish the last three that have unknown contents. But I know the contents of the remaining cartons. For them, it’s a simple matter of opening them and dealing with the contents. It will not be so difficult as the fossils nor will there be the same sense of history associated with the contents.

I need to make another pass through the books in this house. I can eliminate half of them or more. They should go to someone who will read them and wants the library. I might want to read many of the books, but I no longer want a physical library. I want a lot lighter load.

Furthermore, I want that load to comprise the things I use and will use. That’s a fairly short list and I think I can reduce my material possessions by half or more and still not quite be there. But I can work on it.

I have a target to work towards. That’s a good thing.

The Test

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A few years ago, well many years ago, I moved as the point man (of my family) to Lubbock, Texas. I was a new assistant professor of civil engineering. After I got myself settled in to an apartment, I began searching for a church.

This story (dead link) reminds me of my search. Go read it, then come back.

Did you read it? Good. A long time ago I reflected on my search for a church in Lubbock, Texas. I arrived early in 1993, got myself situated in a small apartment, and got started on my duties. Wife and kids worked in Mississippi to ready for the remainder of the move. As point, I started a search for a church.

My modus operandi was to dress in my not best jeans, an old flannel shirt, and go visit a church on my list from the telephone book. I had a big-ole ponytail and a neatly trimmed beard. I would enter the church a few minutes before the service and watch how people treated me.

Mostly I was ignored. I would find a place near the back to sit and then participate in the service. I was evaluating the teaching and music as well as my reception.

Again, I was mostly an invisible person.

After a few weeks, I visited Lubbock Bible Church. We like Bible churches because they tend to stick pretty close to the Bible. They can be a bit intellectual and a little less practical, but that’s sometimes the risk of solid teaching.

Before I could get out of the church my first visit, I was literally grabbed by the pastor’s wife. I was also greeted by a number of congregants. This was a unusual in my experience and a positive sign.

The pastor’s family took me to lunch and we were acquainted. I found our church. We were there for more than ten years before the pastor retired and things changed, and not for the better. We left soon thereafter and bounced around there in Lubbock and then again once we moved to Carson City.

I haven’t been searching for a church here. I’ve been focused on dealing with the things left undone before Wife’s death. Once I get through all of that, maybe. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

The object lesson of the pastor-as-homeless-man is well-taken. It’s an excellent lesson and needs to be learned by anyone who says they are Christian. I remember.

Jimmy

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Jimmy and AlishaThis is one of my favorite images of one of my favorite people. Jimmy is my friend. He’s intelligent, kind, insightful, gregarious, honest, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things photographic.

His path through life is vastly different than mine. I chose the professional career path. He elected to take a less-constrained lifestyle. Like many artists I know, I respect that choice and often wonder what my life might have been had I elected to take a different road.

Jimmy’s a lot of fun to be around. Saturday afternoons we generally meet for coffee/tea either in Reno or in Carson City. During the summer months, there is a lot of activity in Reno along the Truckee River. There are many opportunities for street photography. I like working the crowd, finding interesting people to capture with the camera.

Comma Coffee in Carson City provides a different kind of interest. The wait staff there have a unique character that reflects the uniqueness of the venue. The patrons vary widely as well and often provide interesting character studies.

So, when I’m not solving the world’s problems with my friend Jimmy, I’m looking through the viewfinder for opportunities to make an interesting capture. As a photographer, I am an opportunist.

I always learn something when we talk. I often am forced to think and examine my thoughts and opinions. This is a good thing.

Equinox Day

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HummingbirdThis evening at 2044 (local time) will be the fall equinox. The days will be shorter than the nights until spring.

The fall equinox marks entry to the cool part of the year. This morning is no exception. It’s cool here this morning, Mother Nature celebrating entry to fall with cooler weather for us. I’m ready.

A couple mornings ago, a hummingbird visited my house. The Rose of Sharon always attracts them and I expect the little birds are migrating to their winter grounds. Wife loved these little birds and always got excited when one (or sometimes two) would visit.

She put out the feeder several times. However, the only creatures that visited the feeders where the wasps. So, I won’t bother. I’ll allow my backyard shrubs to provide for the little birds and keep the bees busy as well.

When I noticed the bird working the bush, I put the Nikkor 300/4.5 on my D300 (new to me) and shot maybe 30 frames. Focusing the 300mm lens is a challenge with the D300 because the lens is not particularly fast and the viewfinder is not very bright (as a result). But, the manual focus lens is far less expensive than the autofocus versions and good optically. So, it makes sense for me.

National Debt Food for Thought

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I’m not very political. Well, I am in the sense that I have no use for either politics or politicians. But I noticed in this news article that the wealthiest 400 Americans have a collective net worth of about $2 trillion. That’s a lot of clams!

In comparison, I bopped over to the national debt clock where I see that the national debt is about $16 trillion. Hmm…

So, if the federal government elected to strip the 400 wealthiest Americans of their wealth, it would only amount to about one-eighth the national debt — at this moment.

So, all the talk about soaking the rich for “their fair share” seems like a lot of (ahem) political talk.

As my father-in-law would say, “There ain’t no squirrel up that tree.”

That Was Hard

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Silver Springs Sunset II woke a bit late this morning, having spent the night struggling with my dreams. Twice I woke with a start, knowing that a dream woke me but not remembering the content that startled me awake. So, I rose about 0630, took my morning medications, made some coffee, and retired to my workroom to write in my journal, wake, and pray.

I took care of my Girl and we did a short walk, enjoying the (clearer) air. It was a pleasant morning with most of the smoke off to the east, driven there by the westerly winds.

We returned to the house and I opened the garage door to let in the cool air and light. I am determined to get through all these damned boxes. I want to be able to park my 4Runner in the garage.

There were a few boxes marked that they contained holiday decorations. I pulled one of them over to the staging table and opened it. In it I found more family traditions. I started another box for Daughter because I know she doesn’t want these things to get away. I also know that sometime Older Son and Young Son will establish their own households and traditions and might want some of these things. I selected a few things for myself.

I now have one box of Christmas decorations/things that I want to keep. I will purchase a small tree to celebrate the season about Thanksgiving and spend an hour or two decorating it. It will be a part of my tribute to Wife and her love of that holiday season.

The remaining things I sorted and either packed for Daughter or elected to donate to Goodwill. I then sorted through the fall and other holiday decorations. They were not as challenging because Wife loved Christmas the most. The other holidays were special too, but just not in the same way.

The holiday boxes dealt with and two loads hauled to Goodwill today, I pulled open a box labeled MB Miscellaneous Things, Store. I was unprepared for what I found.

In it were Wife’s high school diploma, a number of her awards and certificates from that time, and her college diploma. I felt the grief rise in me and spent some time weeping and talking to my Girl. She feels the intensity, I know, I can tell by watching her.

How does one deal with such things of the deceased? I have no idea. I found another box from my collection that is better suited to storing these things and carefully stowed them in my bedroom closet. I will want to do something with these things this winter when it’s too cold to do much outside or in the garage. I am also not ready to make decisions about what to do with her things.

The smoke worsened as the day wore on. So, I came inside and began processing another box of old records. In it I found old records of the houses we bought and sold over the years. I found many, many old records of things like utilities. I filled the shredder’s bin twice and emptied it.

These things represent a portion of our history as a family. They should have been discarded years ago, but were not. As I worked through the old files, I was again filled with sadness that so much is past. That is the nature of life, I suppose.

I should be nowhere near the sunset of my life. But one never knows. That’s the uncertainty of living and God gave pretty good instruction about it. So, I try to not dwell on that and to just live right now.

That is my task — to live only in the moment; not the past nor the future. It’s really hard to do, sometimes. I miss Wife so much and dealing with these things reminds me of what is gone. It reminds me that I cannot know what is next — that only God knows what’s next for me. I sure wish I had a peek at what’s coming, though. I’d really like good, simple direction on what I’m supposed to do and where I’m headed.

The truth is, of course, that such direction is not forthcoming and is the antithesis of faith. Yet, I struggle with that.

During my struggle, though, I continue processing the things here that need to be dealt with. I think that’s my task for now. When it’s done, perhaps God will show me a bit of what I’m supposed to be doing next, even if that’s just sitting put. I would like to know.

This weekend has been a lot harder than I expected. The struggle makes me ever more determined to finish what I’ve started, no matter how challenging. I can see that I’m getting closer to being able to park my 4Runner in the garage. I’m also lightening my load substantially with each load that goes out of the house.

These are good things, even if they are hard. Perhaps this is part of my processing of my grief. I’m OK with that.