Recently in Grieving Category

I had this long post all prepared yesterday to talk about Julie and my weekend in Napa, but that is going to have to wait. Tonight at 11pm, we had to put Tomo to sleep. But let me start at the beginning. About a week and a half ago, while I was away with Eli at a cub scout overnight, Julie was at home with Isaac and the pets, and Tomo started barfing repeatedly all night long, and got really sick. We'd seen her do something like this once before several weeks prior, but she got over it, so we didn't think anything of it. However, this time, Tomo was really weak and wasn't getting any better. We took her in to the emergency vet, and after a fairly expensive test battery, they determined/surmised that she had a stomach torsion - which is when the belly flips over on itself inside the abdominal cavity, cutting off the ins and outs of the stomach, and evidently the only treatment is surgery or it can be fatal. We opted for the surgery, and Tomo has been recovering all week long. A few days ago, however, she started looking really bad, and we took her into the vet, who did another set of highly expensive tests that were ultimately inconclusive. We brought her home, and earlier today she slipped back into looking really bad, so Julie brought her into the emergency vet, and they took a look at her. They did a battery of tests, and all the while her condition rapidly worsened, including very labored breathing. As it turns out, she had fluid inside and around the lungs, and they determined the most likely cause was cancer, and this was probably related to / the cause of the bloating that led to the stomach torsion. The condition is terminal (I'm not up to doggie chemo), and her condition was really really bad, so we opted to say goodbye and let her go in dignity, with both her mommy and daddy with her, giving her love. She was in a lot of pain, so they had her doped up and sadly she wasn't all that present, but perhaps that's also for the best.

I'm still a little numb around it all, and feeling the loss deep inside but I'm not letting it overwhelm me just yet. We spent almost a dozen years with that puppy, and it's a lot to grapple with in saying goodbye. Memories, regrets, happy times and hard ones - she was a joy and a pain in the butt, so very smart and so very dumb at the same time, but always loving. Right now I just miss the way she'd follow me around the house and lay down near where I was at any given time, just to be near her alpha male. I'll never hear her snore or watch her bark at dream doggies ever again. No more face licks and stinky breath. No more tug-of-wars, and tripping over her all the time. And now, when food hits the floor - I have to clean it up by hand.

My only wish is that these last few days weren't so very hard on her, with shoving pills down her throat, watching her be in pain and lose control of her bladder, and really to have her fall apart in such a short and dramatic way. At least she didn't suffer over too long a period.

Tomo, we'll miss you.

Today and tonight have definitely been thought provoking in the philosophical moral arena, revolving around the concepts of moral culpability, redemption and forgiveness, and the sources/causes/reasons for 'evil' action.

I began my day with an intense gaming session with my good friends Jason and Bryce, playing one of our long-standing favorite revolving around the lives of two young men in the knightly service of their lord (now king). Without going into too much detail (because there are others out there that play the same game with Jason, and I don't want to give away too much of the plot points), we found ourselves performing as part of our duties field trials for those who had committed crimes, some of them capital offenses, for which we were expected to carry out punishment. In the abstract, it is very easy to think in egalitarian terms, but when faced with real crime and real victims with which you have to get up close and personal, it evokes emotions of anger and righteous vengeance that can play heavily into your decisions as judge. Let's just say I was deep in character and had moments when I was living the moment, and I was not merciful. Crimes of violence are easy to punish when you take the side of the victim.

After wrapping up a very satisfying gaming session, with a feeling of moral (if not medieval) authority, I had the pleasure and fortune to go out to theater with Julie after a lovely Sushi dinner at Kamakaze, one of our local haunts, and what is the subject of our evening's entertainment? The psychology of criminal behavior and the exploration of the possibility of compassion for the criminal, even when that criminal is guilty of capital offenses. The play we went to see was Frozen, put on by the Marin Theatre Company, written by Bryony Lavery and Directed by Amy Glazer, which to quote the copy from the web page is "a haunting play about three people whose lives are connected by the disappearance and murder of a little girl" -- in specific, the mother of the child, the murderer of the child, and the psychologist who is studying the murderer as part of a thesis she is advocating that the violent criminal behavior exhibited by serial killers is based in brain structure and is outside of morality -- is a compulsion that the killer is incapable of mediating or avoiding. Throughout the play we are introduced to a horrific act of child molestation and murder (of course occurring off-screen and off-time) and then left with the aftermath, as a mother tries to cope with the loss of her daughter, and finally with forgiveness and release, as a psychologist tries to discover the root causes of this violent behavior and ultimately gives strong evidence to the claim of brain trauma and early childhood abuse and neglect leaving the murderer incapable of attachment and identification with others, and with the murderer himself, who through contact with the psychologist and ultimately the mother, comes to understand the seemingly obvious but to him completely incomprehensible reality that when he raped and murdered this girl, he actually hurt her.

At the end of the play, I found myself thinking of so many things, and questioning my black and white moral superiority from the game previously in the day -- not that I truly identified with my character's actions directly, but there is part of me which is compassionate of the viewpoint of the simple equation of punishment for crime, and responsibility always laying in the hands of the acting party. The line to walk is difficult, and it is summed up so beautifully in the play, with the quote:

"The difference between evil and illness is the difference between sin and symptom"

If those of us who commit the most heinous of crimes, violence and murder against other humans, are through nature or nurture rendered incapable of knowing the difference between right and wrong action, and are effectively impaired from human reaction, are they ultimately to be held morally responsible for their actions, or are we to look upon them with compassion as incapable of functioning in society as the rest of us do. Do we murder the murderer, or do we help him try to understand and cope with his disability? And if we decide to recognize these severe criminal actions as symptoms of disease, how does that affect our system of justice and our sense of retribution for acts that in their base reality destroy lives and shatter realities?

It leaves me reflecting on the idea that none of us are born with evil in our hearts, and so very often (if not universally) evil action is born from a person's inability to cope with their own childhood abuse and trauma. The evil of the world is born of the evil we inflict on children. And so many children of this world are abused and damaged, so very very many. How are we left to feel about the child who is molested, who grows up and molests other children, or the child who is beaten as a child and grows up to beat other children or worse? Do we feel compassion, anger, hatred, or all of the above? Do we try to reach across the chasm of our own grief and rage and into the reality of the person who is the source of our destroyed world?

The play does not provide an easy question to ponder, nor does it provide and easy answer to the question, and perhaps that's why it has received such tremendously good reviews. One subject matter the play does not even try to address or discuss is the place of faith in a just god in the face of such amazingly tragic reality. Can we believe in a God that allows a world to exist where children are hurt in so many ways?

It's ironic that lately I've been listening to a podcast from UC Berkeley which is the recordings of lectures from a course entitled 'existentialism in film and literature', taught by one of my former professors from Cal, Hubert Dreyfus, and a course I've actually taken before just over thirteen years ago. I've really been enjoying the re-thinking of the questions and problems proposed by Pascal, Kierkegaard and others, but in reference to this question of God the father of an evil world, Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov postulates through the voice of Ivan Karamazov the argument that the world cannot be the creation of a God that allows the torture and gruesome deaths of so many children. While Ivan's motivations in the argument are not altruistic, nor does his argument necessarily hold up to scrutiny, it is a common enough theme in modern theological and moral philosophical thought that it bears taking seriously. How can we as rational and ethical creatures maintain belief in a loving and protective creator God that also created the means of such great suffering of innocents. It appears to be logically inconsistent. Of course, there are ways out of this train of thinking, but I won't muddy the water with those now -- only the synchronicity of events is what is relevant and interesting to me at this point in time.

Also, this whole subject brings up rather personal issues regarding my own childhood and my molestation by my uncle. I've often been a strong believer (as it is backed up by scientific evidence) of the concept that child abuse and molestation doesn't appear in a vacuum, and for every act of reported child abuse or molestation there is an echoing crime committed against the perpetrator as a child. Intellectually, I agree with the idea that a person violated in such a way as a child can suffer damage that compels them to act in like manner to other children. Emotionally, I feel like a fifteen-year-old young man should know better than to abuse a five-year-old boy, no matter what the origin of the compulsion. I haven't fully forgiven my uncle of the damage he's done not only in my own life, but in the lives of my cousins as well, who he lived next to in a townhouse complex for several years. I'm certain while his crime against me was a one-time occasion, those boys got the worst of it on a regular basis, and I just can't bring myself to look at him or to be in his presence, especially since no formal crimes have been reported, and no official justice has been brought to bear against him. While I can possibly bring myself to forgive a man who has been brought before justice to serve his sentence of punishment in retribution for his crime, can I extend that same compassion and forgiveness to a man who is walking the streets free, never required to face the realities of his actions? In a karmic way, he's suffered a great deal already, as it has shattered his life in many ways. But is karmic retribution enough to make me feel compassion for the man? At this point, that is a resounding no. Perhaps one day, but for now I still refuse to associate with him, and have placed him in the past tense of my life, along with so many others of my family. Perhaps I'm missing an opportunity of redemption. Maybe this event I have blocked out of my life because holding it up for inspection is too painful for me even on the best of my days. On those days in which I create a space to meditate and reflect, I allow myself compassion for my uncle and I wonder what happened to him, who hurt him as a little boy, and can I help him to understand his culpability, in the same way that the mother in the play helps the murderer to understand his own. Sometimes you just want your pain acknowledged by the one who caused you pain. Sometimes you just want the person to go away forever. The truth is, although the violence is the fault of the person doing the violence, and they are the source of pain for the victim, the pain that you carry as a victim into your future has everything to do with you, and nothing to do with the perpetrator of that violence. It's your choice to carry that pain, even if it's not your fault that you received it in the first place. Most of the time you're unable to understand that choice, or do anything about it, but sometimes you have moments of clarity and you realize it's within your power to forgive and let go. Your abuser has no power over you that you don't allow them to have. Once the violence is in the past, it belongs to you.

We have two major traditions in our lives as humans relating to our children -- the path of kindness, and the path of cruelty, and each perpetuates themselves with fantastic ease and power. Perhaps one day we'll be able to overcome the latter and give ourselves over to the former. My link in the chain of violence thankfully is shattered with me, and my focus is in propagating kindness. I have two lovely boys that I cherish and protect and shower in affection, and I hope they do the same for their own kids in due time.

This week Julie is in Las Vegas on business (yeah right, what happens in Vegas...) and I'm here playing solo daddy with both boys and all the pets, save Oreo who I opted to have boarded for the time that Julie is gone. Oreo is still hanging on, though we've been administering IV fluids and vitamins twice a day for several months now, she seems to be stable but not getting any better. Her hunger is up, her activity is up, but she's tied to the IV bag, and I just couldn't find the space or energy to handle that aspect of care along with everything else I need to handle. Julie can do it, but she's a wonder chick and I hate needles bad enough as it is, I don't think I have the fortitude right now to repeatedly stick a tiny animal with a sharp metal pointy thing. I'm just getting off this gawdawful sickness (did I praise the merits of Zithromax enough?!) and I just... well I just don't want to do it.

So, there you go. We dropped the kitty off this morning, and tonight in my moving through the motions, I've been noticing all these little rituals that have integrated into my life that I am not needing to do. I am usually the one to feed Oreo, but... she's not here. She usually bugs me and lets me know she's hungry, and I give her a pill pocket treat full of her thyroid and indigestion meds, and a half-can of wet food (special kidney-friendly kind), and I clean her cat box... all that, just missing from my evening. And it hits me -- soon, I won't be doing all those things, but permanently.

Julie and I are at differing stages and opinions around Oreo and her continuing life, the time and the expense involved with keeping her in stasis, and up until now I've really been of the mind that I'm ready for her to pass on. I see how thin she is, and how little energy and strength she has in comparison to 'the old days'. She nearly falls over every time I reach out and try to pet her, and she can't jump up on anything anymore. She's quite literally a wraith of what she used to be. And yet, there's still that Oreo spark in there, and she's still happy to see her family, and she still enjoys eating (and purrs when she gets her food)... so, it doesn't seem like she's done yet. And so, yeah... we're just spending hundreds of dollars a month to keep her in this state.

But tonight, I think I got a taste of the tangible loss that will be coming when she finally checks out and leaves us the bill. Even this thin existence she has right now gives me some sort of value, if not just the completion of a learned habitual behavior, a rounding out of my evening. The brief company she gives is still company. I do love that little kitty. In fact, my affection for her runs deeper than that I have for either of the other animals in the house. I love Tomo and Maxi, but Oreo is definitely my kitty girlfriend, and that old gal is so frail now... it breaks my heart. It's hard for me to watch, and so I keep myself distracted in my everyday life. I have my boys to keep me occupied, and they do an excellent job of that.

I used to help Julie administer the IV (I'd hold the kitty, and she'd stick it), but recently I've stopped because I've expressed to Julie that it's too much for me, and she's willing to do it on her own. In that, I've lost that focused time on just Oreo that I was getting twice a day, and which Julie is still enjoying. Sure, it's a pain in the ass, especially when you're late for work, and the kids are late for school, and you think 'oh great, one MORE thing for me to do!', but if you surrender to the time, you realize what a gift it is.

Oreo, I'm really gonna miss you when you're gone. I'm not gonna miss the meds, and the frail thin you that you've become, but I'm going to miss that unconditional love that you give so uncharacteristically for a cat. How you'd jump up and sleep by my head at night, just purring so loudly and happily that you were close to me. How many times did I boot you off the bed, or toss you away because I was annoyed with how close you'd get, or how loud you'd purr... and now, well that's gone. You can't jump up on the bed anymore, and your purr is so very quiet now. You'd cuddle up on the couch with me whenever I sat down, and I'd toss you off more often than not. Now, you're in the bathroom most of the time and I hardly see you in the day to day of our lives. Girl, you were a great friend, and if you're still happy in your life, then you can have it for a while longer. It's expensive, and it's a pain, but once it's gone, it's gone for good. I can't give it back to you once it's taken away. I won't be able to do this forever, and eventually I may have to say goodbye before you're ready to go. I'm sad about that, and I'd rather you be the one to let go before I have to force your hand. And yet, for now, I'll choose not to think about it. I'll just let you be what you are, in the way that you can. I'll remember to pet you and to love you, and give you your food and clean your litter box. I'll do my best to cherish what's left.

I hope you're warm and safe tonight, and you're not too lonely. I'll see you in a few days.

How many of you are aware that they've closed the 'Where the Wild Things Are' exhibit in the Metreon? Apparently it's been closed since January this year, but Julie and I didn't know that as we took Eli out for Mother's Day to the city to check it out. We were all excited, got ourselves into the elevator, and rode all the way up to the top floor to see... a closed off and curtained area, with signs indicating the attraction was no more.

Man, how can they do that? I hope it's just being restored and not being replaced with some stupid store. I feel like the Metreon contract has been broken, and over time, little by little it's been bitten apart, digested and reconstituted as a really high-priced mall. First we lost the secondary attractions, like 'How things work', then the airtight garage got axed in favor of a more mainstream 'portal one'. We lost the Discovery store a long time ago. Now it's just a big freakin' arcade and movie theater with high-priced toys. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted, I suppose...

I'll miss you, Max.

I'm not sure what it is, but I feel like I'm on the fringe of depression. It's either depression, or it's breakthrough. I'm not sure which. I've been withdrawn and introspective and I've also been centered and grounded, but tonight, for some reason, I feel a sadness. Earlier tonight Julie and I had a rough interaction, and that brought up a lot of things for me, like I haven't been feeling very intimate lately, and I feel somehow distanced from my own life. I have a little baby coming in about a month, and maybe that's making me dig inward. I have all this crap that is floating around me, all these obligations, and so much left unfinished. I'm feeling like I need to put this house in order, but I'm unable to reach out and get help. I'm feeling kinda alone in a strange way, but I also can see how I'm feeling at the same time, and I feel myself moving through it. Mostly, I think I'm afraid and I'm in need of connecting with Julie, but I'm having a hard time articulating it, or letting myself move into that space. My issues have always been with intimacy, and my defense mechanism is to shut off. So my fear makes me cold, distanced, some sort of efficiency machine. And of course, this is when Julie needs me the most. But admitting it is the first step, I suppose. In a sense, the depression I am starting to feel is a good sign -- it means my emotional capacity is starting to reconnect. Tomorrow is a new day. I'll make the most of it.

So last night at 2am Eli wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to 'snuggle' with us, which sounds cute, but really is annoying when you want to get some sleep and you know that all 'snuggling' will end up being is hours of fidgeting and kicking and lost sleep for everyone, so of course we say now. Eli proceeds to throw a tantrum, which causes me to get 'tough' with him and tell him to get to his room. I of course go and spend time with him, and comfort him and give him some love before returning to bed, but it definitely brings up both guilt and sadness in me. Why shouldn't I snuggle up with my boy as much as I possibly can, while I can? I mean, the topic of Julie being 7 months pregnant and needing her sleep aside, how many nights do you have available to you to snuggle up with a cute little child? Not enough, I can tell you that.

So I just recently found out that a friend is very ill. Things are early, and she and her family are finding out tomorrow the scope and depth of what needs to be done when, and so I will find out when they find out. I am in a pretty surreal state about it, feeling lots of love and compassion and anxiety, and really there's nothing I can personally do to make things better but pray to the universe for aid, to send out my own positive energies, and put my faith in the powers that be that all will be well. Some things just don't have answers, like why do good people get sick out of nowhere, or why can't I fix things if I care hard enough?

So I appeal to you, great power of the universe -- give aid to my friend and her family in their time of greatest need. Give as only you know how, and take the pain and the illness from her. Give her and her family comfort and strength to face the days and weeks ahead, and heal her body and make her whole.

That is all I can do, is make this prayer. That, and be there for them when they need me.

Much to my great sadness, the conflict between my parents continues, and I am feeling like I am stuck in a place that is both deeply emotionally involved and yet completely ineffectual. My mother keeps calling me, and trying to ask me for help without asking me. She is petrified that my dad is going to leave HER because of what HE'S done, if she tells me any details. My father is hiding and is acting as if nothing is wrong with me, and in the same breath is threatening my mother not to tell 'the kids' about what he's done. Well guess what dad -- she doesn't have to tell us for us to know.

I need to have a conversation with my parents, both of them in the room, together. I need to tell them how much this is hurting me. It would go something like this:

Mom, Dad. I want you both to know that I love you. I am witness to a situation in your lives that is causing me great pain. I feel pain of compassion for your situation, but I also feel my own pain in relation to your situation. I feel pain when mom calls me on the phone, reaching out for somone to soothe her pains and to solve her problems and to help her reach peace. She asks me for help without asking me. She tells me everything without giving me a single detail. I feel her pain and I am pained by it. I hear that she wants to tell me everything and yet she's afraid that if she does, Dad, you will leave her. She is burdoned by your shame, and is the implement of your secrecy. She calls me because I listen to her, because I love her openly, and because I hold no secrets from her. But the truth is, it isn't me that she wants to be comforted by. It isn't me that she wants to solve her problems. It isn't me that she needs to be told by that everything is going to work out. It's you, Dad. And you are unavailable to her in the same way that you are unavailable to me. I feel pain because I have no ability to make my mother feel any relief from her grief. I feel trapped by her grief. I cannot solve your problems Mom.

Dad, I feel pain because I feel your inability to be available to mom, and to me, and most importantly to yourself. I am in pain because I feel an inability to be real with you -- your deceit and your duplicity is an elephant in the room between us. When I call on the phone and I ask you how you've been, you tell me 'fine', as if you've been cruising along at freeway speeds, open lanes and sunny afternoon. You tell me this when you know full well I'm aware that it's icy road conditions, and you are speeding on bald tires with a bottle of Jack Daniels in your belly, and a deathwish in your head. The evidence is plain on the table that you have not been faithful to mom, and yet you lie to me for no other reason but to save yourself from looking at yourself. You tell mom to keep all of this secret from 'the kids', and you threaten her in the process. This is very painful to me. It is painful that you are so unwilling to admit that you are on the skids. It is painful to me that you cannot be honest with me when all I ask is how you've been. I feel like you do not even tell yourself just how fucked up things are for you. I feel like you are lost to me, even in your life. To me, it is as if you are already dead. I find it impossible to talk to you without feeling the dread of your loss. And thus, I am forced into my own duplicity. To talk to you as if everything is fine with me -- I am telling you now, it is not.

I ask that you both hear me, and you see my pain. I do not want to be between you in your problem. I do not want to be called to solve it, nor do I want to be lied to about it and told that nothing is wrong. I want to be respected and in that respect, I want you to be honest with me and I hope for your own sakes that you can be honest with yourselves, and allow that honesty to feed your agency and allow you to move into directions of resolution. But mostly, I need you to respect me and allow that respect to drive your agency towards honesty and compassion towards me. You cannot keep me from being involved in this -- you have already involved me. You cannot hide the truth from me -- you have already shown me. I am not asking for your details, or your compliance. I do not wish to be your savior or your councilor. In fact, I request specifically that I am not these things. I ask that you allow me to be your son, and in that allow me to love you. I ask you to respect me as a man, and treat me with honesty. If I ask you if you are okay, and you are not -- do not lie to me. If you don't want to tell me the details -- you can say just that. But do not lie to me like a coward afraid of your own feelings and tell me everything is okay. And do not ask me, implicitely or explicitely, to solve your problems. I cannot, and I will not. I will listen to you, and I will feel compassion for you, and I will love you. But I will not be your private investigator, your interrogator, your spy or your thug. You must do your own heavy lifting. If you need an assist, and you ask for it, I will be there to spot you. I will not, however, carry your burdon -- that belongs to you.

I am sad, and I am weary, and I need to be just your son. I wish for you the strength and resolve to find resolution to your issues. I wish for you the self-love to be honest and to allow yourself to be exposed in order to heal.

Know that I love you both, and I will always love you.

Josh