thewritingprofessor55

Diversions, Dastardly Deeds, and Directions

Hello from another airport,

I can honestly say in 40 years of flying I had never had a pressurization issue in an airplane. That streak as now ended. We could not reach cruising attitude and they had to divert the plane. The most important thing is they managed the issue professionally and calmly, and while there is some inconvenience, we are all safe and sound. There is so little we actually have control of when we fly. Yet, most of us hop on the plane, walking down that jetway without a second thought. I have probably flown somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 in my life. I have only had two issues: this one and way back when I was only 18 and a tire blew out on landing. That was actually more frightening than today was for me. So now I am in a cab and they are actually taking us to another airport. I think I will be writing American Airlines a very long letter. I know that flying is still more efficient than other modes of travel, but my experience with American and its partners over the past two weeks has been anything but stellar.

As I sat in the various airports today, the continued unfolding of events around Paris and throughout France are mind-blowing to me. How does someone created such hatred within himself or herself that they deem it appropriate to kill another person because their opinions differ? I believe in principle, but how does that principle, or adherence to a particular set of beliefs, create the justification to kill another? I find this particularly egregious when we use our faith in any God or prophet as the rationale for such heinous actions. First, let me note that America has engaged in such behavior, both in the Civil War and in the Japanese Internment Camps in WWII, so we are not blameless. Furthermore, while I do believe in the importance of national security, some of our actions post-911 are currently problematic for me. I don’t care what Former Vice President Cheney says. I was speaking with Marco yesterday – it is now Monday, by the way – and we discussed the various manners in which countries seem to respond to actions such as what occurred in Paris, Boston, or other places. The manner in which governments are responding to terrorists incidences seems to be more strident. BTW, if you have not read Fareed Zakaria’s blog over the weekend, it is an outstanding read.

Having been in Auschwitz barely a week ago, there is little doubt in my mind the extreme consequence of the espousal of hate can be. As I am sitting and listening to NPR this morning a story about another form of human bombing was noted. In Nigeria, the terrorist organization had begun using adolescent girls as bombers. How do you convince a 10 year old that such an action is reasonable, acceptable, or appropriate. I find it incomprehensible that a 10 year old can develop such hate for another culture or group of people. I have written so much about our difference in cultures and how those cultures affect both our identity and our practices. Certainly there are times the difference in culture has to do with daily practice; sometimes those differences have to do with language and how we use words differently. I am pondering some of that even as I write this. My travels during this break and my experience with Lydia and language has once again reminded me how language can open doors, but it can also create barriers. As I sit here in a Starbucks drinking hot tea and trying to overcome what I have found is double pneumonia, I have been working on syllabi all morning, but I have also been pondering what this coming semester will hold for me. Lydia’s presence in my life had more value than most might imagine. Taking care of her and making sure she was cared for in an appropriate manner was a significant part of who I had become. Lydia taught me important things. As I have noted in some previous blogs, she became my mother, and while she was a tough person at times, she had an incredible heart and a goodness to her. At some point, I will write a blog posting about the 10 years I have known her and how she has changed both my life and my perspective on life. She was the victim of, and experienced on a first-hand basis, some of the dastardly deeds that I noted in my title. The fact that her husband was a political prisoner of the Reich is one thing. The fact that she lost members of her immediate family because of the post-Czech issues of the Second World War, it is easier for me to understand why someone could grow to so dislike another that they might actually hate them. Lydia would use that work in her comments toward the Czechs, but her way of managing that extreme emotion was to eliminate them from her existence. I do not think she every again spoke Czech in her lifetime. Is she entitled to such emotion? That is not an easy question. Are we entitled to either love or hate another? There is not entitlement. There is only our human response to our experiences. It seems the more extreme, or more affected we are by the experience, but more likely that experience will be grafted into our DNA if you will. While I am aware of what happened to Lydia’s parents, it is not something she spoke of often. In fact, she only told me of it once, and that was when we were standing in her room at Comforts of Home.

It is Wednesday of the last week of break and I have actually slept for more than 12 hours in three of the last five days. That is the most I have slept in years, but on the other hand, I think this is the worst I have felt since last spring at the end of school. While I am not generally one to jump on the Alka Seltzer or other sort of cold and flu bandwagon, I do not think I had a choice this time. I do not have time beginning next week to be sick. The last two nights I was in bed before 8:00 p.m. Last night it might have been barely 7:00. I am pretty sure that the travel schedule, which I am realizing had more wear and tear in it than I expected as well as the time I spent in Menomonie, took its toll on a body that already has its own issues. I can honestly say I do not think I have felt this badly since I had to go back into the hospital a little over two years ago because of surgical complications.

It is now Thursday early morning and my alarm went off at 3:45 a.m., and even though I went to bed before 8:00 again last night I fix it sleep very well. I think the largest period of continuous sleep I got before the alarm going off, which I was awake to hear, was maybe an hour. The fog was ridiculous this morning. While I had hoped to get more work done, that did not happen. Even as I sit here on the flight this morning, waiting to depart, I am sweating. With only a t-shirt and sport coat, I feel like I am in a sauna. I guess my body is fighting to the best of its ability. It is amazing mechanism in spite of its current frailties.

As I begin a new semester and a life altered because of the events this past month, I find it necessary to imagine what it is I am called to do and how I will prioritize all I do. I think last year might be seen as an experiment – one with mixed results, but one nonetheless I am glad I tried or one in which I participated. It is also one that I can put away as I have put away other things in the past. I am realizing that I am perhaps more like Lydia than I might have imagined. While I might not be as reclusive and, in the past, I have not knowingly pushed people away as a practice, what I am realizing more clearly is I have too often believed the best in others, leaving myself open to hurt and disappointment. I believed I needed others in my life more significantly than I perhaps do. I will be much more discerning than I have had a penchant for doing. I can only ask as the liturgy notes “Kyrie, Eleison”. It is the name of a Mister Mister song and the only part of the liturgy that remained in Greek rather than moving to Latin. For those not sure of the meaning, it means “Lord, have mercy.” I know there will be things to manage in the coming weeks, in Pennsylvania, both at school and on the home front. There are significant things to manage between Wisconsin, North Carolina, Naperville, and Northern Minnesota. I will work my best to manage as I believe Lydia would have wanted. Ultimately, it is about her desires not what everyone else thinks. I am so grateful for the staff of Comforts of Home. They continue to work with me and help plan things. I did get some of the initial pieces completed this week and I need to work with the monument company this week. One piece at a time. That is moving in a direction and that is what life is about. Moving forward and managing what life throws at you. Lessons experienced and lessons learned are simply what life is. Well, I think I might try to close my eyes and beat my present fever.

Thanks as always for reading my thoughts.

Michael

Why I am not Charlie

What an amazing read – provoking and powerful

a paper bird

There is no “but” about what happened at Charlie Hebdo yesterday. Some people published some cartoons, and some other people killed them for it. Words and pictures can be beautiful or vile, pleasing or enraging, inspiring or offensive; but they exist on a different plane from physical violence, whether you want to call that plane spirit or imagination or culture, and to meet them with violence is an offense against the spirit and imagination and culture that distinguish humans. Nothing mitigates this monstrosity. There will be time to analyze why the killers did it, time to parse their backgrounds, their ideologies, their beliefs, time for sociologists and psychologists to add to understanding. There will be explanations, and the explanations will be important, but explanations aren’t the same as excuses. Words don’t kill, they must not be met by killing, and they will not make the killers’ culpability go away.

To abhor what was done to the victims, though, is not…

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Trying to be Healthy

Good early morning,

It is about 6:00 a.m. MST and I have spent most of the night with the shakes and shivering in my motel room. I think the stress of these last three weeks, the battle of the last seven months and the travel has ganged up on my body. All of this led to a less than ideal sleeping night and though I seldom remember dreams, somehow I dreamt two or three times and the dreams, while related, were a bit bizarre. I keep dreaming about the Green Bay Packers, and the dreams are a bit goofy because they are about impossible scenarios. Perhaps the good part of feeling less than stellar will be i can lose some of this weight that I’ve gained over the last month. I managed to gain back about 15 pounds and it doesn’t make me particularly happy. Of course to be perfectly honest I have not been juicing as I should and I haven’t taken my vitamins as well as I should. Lack of healthy diet probably means lack of health.

I’m in Salt Lake City to meet with the founder and the main brain trust behind the company that my students worked with last semester. I’m not sure exactly when I can say about the company right now but I can’t say that I am learning a lot about how to start up companies work. Both Dr. Decker’s classes and my classes worked with the company and now I’m hoping interns and small groups of students will continue that work. I am particularly excited for two reasons. The opportunity for interns to work on the front lines and learn things is especially helpful. Second this might open up additional opportunities for students. While we often talk about preparing students for the real-world, this actually does it. Last night after dinner I have the opportunity to join in on the chat, Skype chat, as the primaries through that of the company work through various issues on their development. It was amazing to see how they used both language and technology to accomplish their tasks. The use of apps and software programming and other technology makes the turnaround time unbelievably fast compared to the past. We’re not talking days, nor talking hours, sometimes it’s minutes. That is the hard thing for students to understand. So over the next day I will be working on this and try to figure out the best way to both help the company and help my students. It might be one part of my position that I enjoy the most.

As I was speaking with my colleague on the way to the airport yesterday, he brought up something I have thought of over the last couple weeks. Is it really interesting and a coincidence or was it planned by Lydia that she would have gone in her battle against dementia, and pass away only a couple weeks after I was notified that I have been granted tenure. In spite of everything, did she somehow knows that yes I would be okay. Knowing her this would not surprise me a bit. Her attorney during our conversation the other day noted that she picked the perfect day as far as taxes to pass away. Again I don’t think I’m surprised. As I’ve noted over the last weeks, she was in charge to the very end. I am certainly fading as I write this: sneezing, coughing, shivering and sniffling; so it seems I have managed to do this full-blown. Hopefully, I can get back on track soon. I am getting some hot water for Emerg-C now and I will be chugging water like crazy to keep hydrated and adding some Chloraseptic spray on the side. As I was thinking about Lydia’s strength, I am still amazed that she held on to her life for almost 13 days after she decided to go to bed. Again, she had one time when she got up (on the 26th) and about 8-10 ounces of water in that time. Yet, she maintained, and according to Nate and Carissa was pretty stable, though weak, until the last 36 hours or so. Our bodies are such astounding instruments. They endure so much and manage to function, serving us remarkably well, and yet they are still quite fragile, but we fail to realize it. I think what I am realizing, again perhaps because I am technically into the year that I begin another decade, that our bodies manage because they are so resilient, but they do not go unaffected. What we do throughout our lives has a consequence. If I were to graph my life in terms of healthy or unhealthy (or in between) habits, I think I might be shocked at what I have put my body through, sometimes knowingly, sometimes somewhat unknowingly, and even sometimes merely because I was subjected to it. I know that last category might seem a bit sketchy, but hear me out. When I was very small, as I have noted, the first two years of my life were under less than idea circumstances, and I am pretty sure from what I have heard, my sister and I were malnutritioned. Add that to my being born at about 17 ounces, and I was fighting an uphill battle from the outset. The next three years with my grandmother, who I do adore, was probably like the Tale of Two Cities. I think there are times we ate very appropriately and nutritionally, but there were the other times because she worked all day and there were other health issues in her own life. When I came to the Martin household at almost 5, I think things probably improved on some level, but my adopted mother was not a good cook, nor did she enjoy it, so there were way too many starches, canned vegetables, and overcooked things. Overcooked can be both damaging to the nutrients, but more importantly, it tasted badly and so eating was not particularly enjoyable. I remember in high school already being diagnosed with ulcers and I had other intestinal issues, I now realize, that were precursors to the Crohn’s that would be an eventual diagnosis. In my twenties, I fluctuated between eating very well and eating fast food garbage. If it were a psychological diagnosis in terms of my eating it would probably be multiple personality disorder. I could go through the entire almost sixty years, but that is not that interesting. To be more concise, I have probably eaten in a honestly healthy manner in a combined total of less than 1/10 of my life. That is not to say there was nothing healthy in what I did the other times, but to be carefully and intentionally nutritious in a systematic way has not been something I have done nearly as carefully, especially as a IBD person, as I should have.

What is perhaps amazing to me now is how not being as intentional in the past month as already taken its toll on me. While I am not back in Bloomsburg until next Thursday, a week from now, I can still do some things while on the road to try to maintain and do a bit better than I have. I did do some of that last night when I had things boxed up and I was more careful about portion control. I guess one of the positives in my current health situation is my body tells me almost immediately if it is happy or not. It has forced me to pay attention and that is probably in my best interest.

It is now Thursday evening and I had a great day of meetings. On the other hand my conversation about health is so appropriate at this moment. To say that I feel rotten would be serious understatement. I had chicken noodle soup for a late lunch and I have been doing Emergen-C all day. I can only hope that it starts to make a difference soon. This is a case of where I’m sure that my traveling has taken it’s toll. There’s also been some stress in the day but that’s an entirely different story. None of that stress was unpredicted but dealing with it is an entirely different thing. People continue to amaze me, and yet I guess I shouldn’t be. There are persons who believe that my help that I have given Lydia for 10 years was based on what I would receive from it. Not surprisingly those persons are making themselves known at this point. While these things are stressful there’s little I can do about it. I was simply allow the attorney to do her job.

In the meanwhile to keep my stress down I need to do my schoolwork and prepare for second semester. I’m hoping just keeping a low profile and doing my work over the next few days will give me a chance to get healthy and lower my stress. Life is what it is. I think the people who really know me know that I am a giver not a taker. I guess I just have to let that story come out. In the meanwhile it’s time for more chicken soup.

Thank you as always for reading.

Michael

Life Beyond

Hello from an Airbus 330,

I am sitting in Row 48 in die Flug und im Berlin-Tegel Flughafen. As we leave the gate and taxi toward the runway, my thoughts begin to consider the next days and, it is certainly unfortunate that I must already see Poland as a memory. However, what a wonderful few days it has been. Robert is correct when he noted that I need to come back for at least two weeks and more likely a month. If I am able to accomplish such a study trip, I need to consider going also to Vienna and then to the area in the Sudetenland where Lydia first lived. I probably need to do some other reading about the Polish resistance as well as what the exiled Czech government did to those of German (Austrian) and Hungarian descent. Yesterday at Auschwitz it occurred to me that the Hungarian people have probably suffered as much as single group of people in WWII. Again as I mentioned in my last blog, I am mortified by what we do to each other and supposedly we are the one creature in creation that understands compassion. I am reminded of a book I once used in class titled The Compassionate Beast. Perhaps it is the oxymoron in the title that reveals this ability.

It is now Tuesday morning and I am awake even though it is only 6:00 a.m. My surprise is when I finally crawled into bed about 10:45, my internal clock was at 4:45 a.m. I have to admit the last 30 miles were perhaps the longest 30 miles I have ever driven. I had the sun roof open and the radio cranked up and I am still sure I found that I had closed my eyes a half dozen times. Not good. I ran to the diner for a smaller breakfast (seriously) and now I am going to try to tackle all the things on my plate that need to be managed here in Bloomsburg before I am on a plane again tomorrow; this time for Salt Lake City and two days of meetings. I had to smile wistfully as it is snowing and cold here this morning and on my original calendar, the event for tomorrow that popped up was Republica Dominicana. Last summer it was planned that the Galáns and I would be returning there with a chance for the entire family to go (Melissa and Jordan have not been there since they were very small). For a variety of reasons that trip has been postponed. Tomorrow they are forecasting significantly cold wind chills (-40F) in some areas. At least I think it will be better in SLC. I have to catch up with my colleague and see if he is willing to run me to Philly to catch the plane. Oh yeah, and I think I still have to make a hotel reservation. On Friday night I am flying to Sacramento and then going up to Placerville for a few days. I will use that time to concentrate on my second semester syllabi, continuing to work on my new class prep, and putting things into BOLT. If I can work solid for about 5 days and relax in the Crush Pad, I think it might be just want needs to happen before I continue to try to tackle all the things that are coming in the next days and weeks. All of that being said, being in the Dominican Republic when it is so cold outside my window would have been a nice thing.

I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Lydia is no longer terrorizing the poor caregivers at COH, trying to hit them, punch them, bite them, swear at them, or whatever else she might have done. I watched her do this from time to time. I have tried to imagine what my demeanor might be should I be afflicted with dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease. I am hoping that I would be a nice person, but as I have noted Lydia used to tell me I had a shit temper. I must say it does take a lot to get me to respond in anger, but I have learned to do it more appropriately. It is actually Epiphany (and Christmas for Orthodox believers) and the last day of the Christmas season. I think I need an epiphany at times to help me understand how the world works. The last two weeks have been more of a roller coaster than I think I have experienced in a very long time, but I guess that is to be expected. This morning I read one my past (and will still be in the future) student’s blogs and she is such a wise person. Understanding that we are responsible for our own happiness is a wise thing. I am back after some time on the phone with the attorney; there is a lot to work on and manage, but it is merely one step at a time. I heard this song again this morning and in so many ways it expresses what I hope Lydia knows and what I feel (and always will, about, and for, her.

While I am not a resolution maker, I am a reflecting and pondering person. If you have been reading this blog for a while, or if this is your first time, that should not surprise you. While I often say that so many people need to turn their brains on, there are times I wish I could turn mine off. Yet, as Sr. Galán notes, too many people are unwilling to think and allow others to make decisions that affect them without any consideration. He is so correct. The only way we can move beyond things is to reflect and learn from them. If we begin to truly understand and comprehend a situation, then we can actually manage it. Thinking and understanding also keeps us from being victimized (note, I did not say victim). Indeed we are often the victim of circumstances, but if we are to move beyond it and to refuse to allow it to victimize us, we can continue on with our lives. Again, I think of Lydia and George. After visiting Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau this past week, it would have been easy for George to feel victimized by his political incarceration at Dachau, but he did not. In fact, after his escape, rather than go somewhere safe, he returned to Poland to fight Hitler again. George and Lydia could have felt victimized by their immigration to the United States and the consequence of having to begin yet again. Instead, they had no such plan, they set out to create a life for themselves. I know that I wrote about George’s saying, recounted to me by Lydia, “we are too poor to by cheap (sic)”. They knew and dealt with the consequence of coming to this country with not much more than a suitcase, but they never saw it as, nor allowed it to be, a detriment to their moving beyond their situation.

Too often I hear a student blame the professor, or their parent, or (you fill in the blank) for their situation or for their poor performance. There is little realization that their lack of consistency or their waiting until the last minute or their failure to either take notes or even go to class might have some impact on where he or she is. There is the belief that as long as they pass, it is good enough. When they move beyond this place called college, a place where they are still more spoon-fed than they might realize, the reality of not doing their work or putting in a reasonable effort will come back to haunt them. I am thinking of a particular student I had last semester, who was a nice person, but did not come to class, missing more than 7 classes, did not turn in some assignments, and then did not make a portfolio accessible, which is grounds for failure in and of itself, wanted me to justify why I failed him for the course. There are those who believe if they just work hard the last two weeks that should make up for 12 weeks of slacking. I did hear at least to some extent about the grades of the six students, each of them to a greater or lesser degree, I see as my surrogate kids. Four of them were on the dean’s list, one did quite well and the final one got by. I think they are all capable of dean’s list, but 4 out of 6 makes me very happy. Not that they need my approval, that I know, but I am glad to hear things are going so well. The three of the four on dean’s list are seniors and that is a really nice thing to see when employers start considering resumes and potential employees. While it is so easy to think that a particular class (usually a foundational or general education class does not matter, nothing could be more untrue. Not so much because of the particular grade you earn, but rather because of what you did or did not learn. A few blogs ago I noted that I had misplaced a number of items. Well yesterday, after and reordering a new debit card. I found my old one in a jacket pocket. The only think I have not recovered at this point is , of course, the think I most want to find: a second set of car keys. The key is expensive to reorder in the realm of hundreds of dollars. I know if I order it I will find it, but I do not want to spend that money.

It is now Wednesday morning and I was up at 1:00 a.m., once again headed to the airport for a flight to Salt Lake City. I took two extended naps yesterday to try to fight off a sore throat that seems much more prevalent this morning. This is not something I need. Yet, I imagine the past two weeks have taken their toll. As I was driving to the airport, I realized it is my grandmother Louise’s birthday today. She would be 102. Happy Birthday, Grandma. Our flight is a bit delayed, but nothing too terrible. I’m grateful as always for Mark. He got up very early to escort me to the airport. He and I always have great conversations. Last night I had an opportunity to see Shiama. It was wonderful to catch up with her and chat. I had not realized the last time she was by the house was when she and Melissa had dinner together. That seems so long ago and so much has happened. I guess that is the reality of our lives. We are constantly moving, sometimes beyond things and other times into things. Two weeks a go I was holding a vigil at Lydia’s bedside and it was Christmas Eve. Last week, I was in Poland and getting ready to celebrate New Year’s Eve with Robert and Katarzyna. This week, my life had significantly changed again and by the day’s end I will be in Utah and working on projects for the upcoming semester

We are always moving beyond.

Thanks for reading, as always.

Michael

Processing Evil

Hello,

It is about 1:00 a.m. in Poland and I am flying back to the United States in the morning, but I wanted to get some things down here in my blog before I leave. Today I went with the group of students from Bloomsburg University and Dr. Polyuha, who was gracious enough to let me tag along, to see Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oswiecim). Oswiecim is the Polish name of this town and it is a town, that unfortunately became the location of the extermination of over 1.3 million people in barely four years. Birkenau has to do with the birch trees that were planted at the edges of the death camp to make such evil seem more serene, if you can imagine such a thing. There were four crematoriums at KL Auschwitz-BIrkenau II, but they could not keep up with the gassing of the thousands of people on a daily basis. In fact, they became to burn bodies in the woods surrounding the camp to try to keep up with the corpses, and in fact they were working on building a third unit to try to manage all the people who were coming to this Ungodly place (and I use that word intentionally). I have visited both Dachau and Buchenwald, and I was stunned by those places, but nothing could have prepared me for the massive scale of genocide that I learned about today in this place. Of the 1.5 million people who came through that gate claiming “Arbeit Macht Frei” at Auschwitz I or on the trains to Auschwitz-Birkenau II, we were told only 144 people escaped. Almost 90% were exterminated immediately. If you were old, infirmed, female or a child, your chances of living more than a day or two were minimal at best. I learned that of the 7,000 prisoners lived at the liberation of the camp, many of them died because they were given too much food in the first days following their liberation. We heard that for the first week one tablespoon of soup a day was all their bodies could manage. As we walked through the camps today, it snowed and the wind was quite bitter. It forced me to imagine working 12 hours a day with no shoes and merely the cotton covering of clothing they had. The inhumanity of this place is beyond words. There was a room where the length of an entire wall (behind glass and probably 15 foot deep 50 yards long and piled three or four feet high) was the hair shorn off of the woman who entered the camp. The hair was actually bagged up into bales and sold. This completely stunned and revolted me. Thousands (which is a mere fraction) of shoes or hairbrushes or cosmetic cases are on display to provide some sense of the horror and the complete dehumanization that occurred in this place. However, that, in spite of its unimaginable nature, is not what is the most staggering to me. The most mind boggling, shocking, astounding, or dastardly thing about this place is how the Nazis worked tirelessly to figure out how to be more efficient in their extermination of those people they deemed of no use or value.

Good morning (it is about 7:15 a.m. and I have been up for an hour getting organized to fly back the states latter this morning. I have been writing lists of things I need to do. It is a bit daunting, but discipline and work and it will get done. It has been good to be away and in another part of the world for a few days. As if often the case, five days in a place gives you a little taste of what it offers. I know that Poland is both a land of beauty, but also of a place where many struggle to get by. However, that is the world in which we live. I think the experience of Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau yesterday merely reminded me of how we justify something to the extreme. Mr. Galan would call it failing to love the other, and I believe that is true, but I think it goes to something more fundamental (again he will argue love is fundamental and I agree, but I am not sure we agree how one expresses that love) for me love is demonstrated through respecting the other. I think respect is the ultimate expression of loving the other. When you fail to value or respect the other you disregard their right to exist or co-exist as a person. Certainly what happened to the Jews, or the Russians, or the Gypsies, or the infirmed, or the gay . . . in all cases, it is the other . . . was because they were deemed without value, they were disrespected. I know that he and I will have more conversations about this idea of love. I think he uses the word love, where I use the word respect or value. To love another, really love them for me means the other person has found their way into your heart and changed your life. That is actually for another blog I imagine.

I think what the lack of respect or value for the other does, when exercised in the extreme, is exactly what I saw yesterday. You can exterminate them and justify it because you do not see them as human. I am reminded of the article by Stephen Katz titled “The Ethics of Expediency.” It is an article I use at times in my Technical Writing course. I am not going to say much about it, but in this document, humans are referred to by terms like “load” or “cargo”. When we dehumanize the other, we can justify almost anything. Disrespect for me is always wrong . . . . and when pushed it becomes evil because it devalues one of the most important elements of creation. Trying to process that one culture (and an astounding culture at that) could systemically remove 6,000,000 people in less than four years, at least for me, cannot be done. It was again questioned that how could others not know, perhaps not the scope, but not know the action? What was offered yesterday was thought provoking. It was noted that other countries had different priorities. The priority was to end the war, not about saving people. For me, as I often do, I merely observed people yesterday. It was particularly interesting to observe Maria, who is Polish, and she has relatives who live in this city (Oswiecim). Her body language and the look on her face was particularly moving to me. Perhaps in was heightened because I know her. Perhaps it was heightened because I am here as a guest of her father. She has been through the camp before and noted that most Polish people say you should see it once, but that is enough. Perhaps that is part of her demeanor, but I know that even though I have been to other camps, I do not remember being as moved as I was yesterday. I will have to dig through the pictures. I do not think those pictures were scanned yet. I have pictures from Buchenwald. While the gate at Auschwitz claims “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes You Free), Buchenwald’s gate reads “Jedem Das Sein” (Everyone gets what they deserve). I find this saying even more troubling. It implies that those brought to these camps deserved the inhumanity they had to suffer; that they deserved to be treated with such disrespect, and that somehow God would have said such action was okay. Remember that Germany was a “believing” nation. That was part of the reason that Bonhoeffer, my dissertation topic, chose to get involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler. He claimed that if the church was not going to be “the spoke in the wheel” that stopped things, other measures needed to be taken. One of my other former students and I chatted on the bus yesterday. He was in my class about 4 years ago this coming semester, and is actually going to graduate school in Israel I found out. He is a history major and it was great to speak with him. We talked about the idea of disrespect and how such actions can lead to such atrocity. He is a very thoughtful and intelligent person.

I have continued to try to wrap my head around the other significant change that I will be facing when I return. It is to begin to manage Lydia’s affairs. I am glad she was so organized and clear in what she wanted. While I have struggled with that change, being in Europe pushed some things off until I get back to Bloomsburg and begin to go through all the things I will have to do. I am not sure how it all works, honestly, and I am sure I will be speaking with Bridget at some point today, perhaps tomorrow. I have one entire day in Pennsylvania and then I leave for Salt Lake City. I need to still get some things arranged there too. I think I will probably be in my office most of tomorrow trying to get organized. While coming here did give me some great material for considering the novel, and contacts, amazing people who speak the language, there will need to be other trips. I think coming in the summer would be a good plan and something I might have to do some work on getting a professional travel grant for. I will be traveling some more before the end of the break and I am hoping that hiding away for a few days in one of my favorite places next weekend and beyond will allow me to get second semester organized and ready to go. I have a new prep this semester and I have done some reading and have some things at my disposal from the winter term class last year, but there is much more to do. It is almost 8:00 a.m. here in Krakow and it is important for me to get my ducks-in-a-row for what is immediately necessary, so I think I will sign off.

Understanding or processing evil, as I titled this blog, is something that is a present tense verb for me (in the Greek language sense of the present tense – and I am not trying to merely rhyme here), and certainly the events of Auschwitz-Birkenau are past tense (but, again, in the Greek language sense). Present tense verbs in Greek are much more about continuing action. While I am not sure I can ever understand the evil that prompted such despicable horror toward the other, it is something we as humans need to continue to process. We should never stop considering what evil we might do to another individual. Indeed, the gerund form of continuing to process or ponder is necessary if we are to stop committing such atrocities. It is precisely because we do not continue to do so that I believe such evil continues to occur. I believe that evil is in us and I will not merely blame it on “the devil”. The past tense in the Greek language is called the aorist tense and it means “completed action with continued significance.” There can be no doubt that what the Nazis did during the late 1930s and into the 1940s has significance for us as humans. Yet, we still rain evil down upon each other on a daily basis. Genocide has not stopped; it continues in various parts of our world on a daily basis, but somehow I am afraid we turn our heads and pretend it does not happen. Perhaps I still have too much idealism in me yet. I want to believe that people are predisposed for good. Yet, when I walk through such a place in the cold, wind, and snow as I did yesterday, it is impossible to be idealistic. It forces me to consider what happens when we as humans disrespect or fail to value the other. It has been a wonderful experience to be in Poland these last days and learn more about yet another culture. We are so diverse and yet some connected. Perhaps that is what I needed to be reminded of yet again. We are dependent on each other for survival, whether we want to consider that or not is a different question.

In a few hours I will be on a plane from Krakow to Berlin and from Berlin to NYC. Es hatte eine gute Reise gewesen. While I need to work on my Spanish and get my head back into that language again, I have now another one to learn.

Do Roberta i Katarzyny,

Dziękuję wszystkim za życzliwość; to było wspaniale spędzić czas z tobą tu i obiecuję, że wrócę.

To everyone else, thank you for reading.

Dr. Martin

Meine Mutter

Hello from Kraków and my little apartment,

It is about 1:30 a.m. and while I was originally in bed before 9:00, I have awakened and decided to write something if I going to lay here awake. It has been almost 24 hours since I got Nate’s initial text telling me that Lydia’s unbelievably strong battle to hold on to her life had finally ended. Over the previous 24 hours I had told people here she might wait him out also. She went 12 days without eating and I think she probably drank less than 10 ounces of water during that time. In that time either Nate, Carissa, a staff member of COH or I was with her. The smiles she gave and the hugs or pats on the head she doled out as those of us who watched her (probably not a single person could see her and not have tears at some point) was, and is, quite phenomenal. As I sat in her room (she is the only person to have occupied that room up until now) at the end of the hall, she seemed to let each person somehow see that incredible heart she possessed. She seemed, while never completely losing her ability to illustrate what she wanted or did not want, to try to genuinely show each and every person that she was grateful for the care they were providing.

I should note something about that care and all the wonderful people who have offered their care to Lydia during the last 3 1/2 years. First, they are not paid nearly enough for the extreme circumstances and difficult positions they endure each day. There are some incredible caregivers who try to help these men and women maintain their dignity as their minds disappear and their lives regress into the abyss of nothingness. When Lydia was first at COH, those individuals who were already where she would eventually be, petrified her. The actions of people, those who were once hard working and blessed with extraordinary intelligence, is unpredictable and often outlandish. They can be both physically and verbally abusive and that takes an emotional toll on the caregiver. Yet, I have observed first-hand care that was second to none from some of these employees. Yes, they are employed, but they are so much more than an employee of this company that has dozens of these facilities. There are individuals who are angels in human- form. As Lydia was blessed by their care and compassion, I too have received the precious gift of their love and concern. I would try when I was back to get them something from Caribou (the Midwest Starbucks for those unfamiliar) or I would fix dinner for everyone as a small token of my appreciation for all they did. While I do not want to point out any particular people, I did note during my recent visit that the present staff was probably the best overall staff I experienced during the entire time I had been coming to COH. I also know that such a staff is only possible when they are phenomenal people to begin with and the particular building management supports them in their care. I am grateful to those who are there full-time also. The atmosphere of genuine decency and expected respect for both the residents and family was so apparent. The corporate office in Minnesota is richly blessed to have the administrator, nurse, and activities person they do in Menomonie. In my opinion, they probably do not realize how fortunate they are. The individual acts of care and kindness you have given to Lydia and me will never be forgotten.

It has been a day of relief on one hand and tears on the other. I understand this dichotomous response and am willing to just let it happen. I do struggle with the fact that I handed off the physical presence of being in Room 23 to Nathan and I am grateful to him for choosing to come back even when I said it was probably okay to let her go because I think it is what she wanted. I do believe she held out much longer than anyone believed either humanly or medically possible because she did not want me ( or perhaps anyone) to be there. I am grateful that Carissa came in on a New Year’s Day and spent three hours on her day off with her. Lydia came to love Carissa and it was evident in the way Lydia looked at her and by the way Lydia’s entire affect changed when Carissa would come near. What I know for sure in my heart is that Lydia came to trust the people at COH and for that to happen, it took amazing individuals doing miraculous things. More importantly, you can be sure those who provide that outstanding care do it because they are outstanding in their own right because none of them are, nor could they be, paid enough. That being said, they should certainly be compensated much better than they are. I have learned much about elder care and, in particular, care for the memory impaired.

It is now Saturday morning and I did hear from Nate on some things and he did seem to get the immediate things that needed to be managed yesterday done. It is interesting to me that his need to be in Menomonie in the future and my need will now be quite different. He will have significant issues to manage there and I will not. Theresa and he will have substantive interest in Park Circle now and I will not. That is not to say that I will not go back, but I will no longer have a place to stay and in the next weeks I will have to probably go back and clean out my things from the Upper Sanctum and collect all the books and things that have been there since I left Menomonie. I know that what will happen in the next weeks is a process, but Lydia was amazing and she had it all figured out. I am fortunate to still have some amazing friends and former colleagues there, so there are ways that Menomonie will always have a sense of place for me or feel like home. However, the main reason that I have gone back in the past 5 1/2 years is now a guardian angel for me and someone who has profoundly changed my life.

I cannot get the image and the experience out of my head of the moment that last night when I told her I loved her and she had become my mother, the parent I no longer had and she simply whispered, “I know.” As I moved down the hall from her room, I cried and trembled as I tried to walk away from this person. I remember Lexie and Brianna both tearing up and hugging me as I got to the common room. I think as I reflect on my own year of attempting to be a parent, for better or worse, perhaps most of what I know of parenting actually came from Lydia. I am not sure I realized that until just now. That might be something to ponder in another post. As I type this, again the sun is out and shining brightly into my windows, though if it is like that past couple days, it is fleeting. I guess that is apropos at this point. The fleeting nature of our experiences and what they offer to our lives is something to be considered. I have known for a long time that Lydia would come to this day and I would have to figure out how to manage it. It is life and I do not mean that in either a cliché or an uncaring way. Life is profound; it is a gift, but one that often burdens us or one we might too often take for granted. In the past days as people have reached out, I am once again shown how blessed I am. Those who took the time to send their words through text, FB, Whatsapp, or even phone calls have done so much to support me. I am grateful for those who have taken time to connect in whatever small way they have (they are not small).

It is now the evening of the 3rd and I am back in my little abode. I enjoy this little studio apartment and I appreciate the solitude. Today I was actually on my own as Robert dropped me off at the Wieliczka Kopalni Soli (The Wieliczka Salt Mine) to tour it. This mine is gargantuan (and that is an understatement). It has 9 levels, but we only saw three. It no longer mines salt, but still produces 150,000 tons through desalination. The tour was almost three hours long (if you want to see pictures and follow me on Facebook, I have posted some there). The picture at the top of this post is of Pope John Paul II and is carved entirely from salt. It was created in 1999. The mine has been in operation for hundreds of years and during WWII the Nazis actually moved a factory into the mine. Some of the salt pockets that have been mined are almost a hundred meters deep and the length and the width of the some of the rooms are astounding. There is a huge chapel (there are actually 20 of them throughout the mine’s rooms and tunnels) and three men carved some of the most amazing Biblical scenes into the walls. The floors, the ceilings, the walls, everything is made of salt. It is not really describable through words. Over a half million people visit it a year, and there is no doubt in my mind why. I think it ranks up with the Seven Wonders of the World. This is my fourth time to Europe and I have seen beautiful and stunning things, but I think the last two days are right at the top of the list for beauty and awe.

As noted, I am back in my room and I want to work on my syllabi for a moment and some other reading, but I cannot stop thinking about Lydia and coming to grips with the reality that she is no long present in my life in a physical form. I understand death, both from losing family members and as a former pastor, but this passing has hit me probably like the loss of my grandmother did. While I am keeping busy, there were three times today that my eyes welled up in tears and I did not even realize I was thinking about, or emoting because of, her. Last night when I tried to read to Robert and Katarzyna what I had written about her, I began to cry. Again, what I realize is I have lost yet another parent. Perhaps it is because she is, was, and will be, the best mother I have had. If you have read my blog during the past year (again see Wondering What She Really Thinks) you know that I have struggled with those maternal relationships. What I know about Lydia is that she could really get to me in a number of ways and produce a myriad of emotions, but when it was all pushed down to the basics, I think I loved her more than anyone, with the exception of my grandmother. I think I might have even loved her more than my adopted father, and that is saying something pretty profound. Is it because I am older and I understand the frailty of life more poignantly? Is it because she so affected my life in the last 10 years? Is it because we realized what we both gave and received from the other? I think it is some of all of these things. While my biological mother is still alive, I have no desire to reach out to her and that is for a number of reasons. Sometimes I feel guilty about that, but I think other experiences have taught me that I do not need to make everyone happy, and there are some I do not need in my life. In fact, it has been a hard lesson, but what I am realizing is there is no promise from anyone that he or she will remain in your life. While I do not mean this to be selfish in anyway, it has become abundantly clear to me that believing in the one’s self might be the only guarantee we have, and not even that is sure because sometimes we can be pretty flaky, even to ourselves.

What I know as I am going to call it a night in Poland (tomorrow is my last complete day here), I have lost yet another special and incredible person. While she owed me nothing, she has offered and given me much. While she was could be aloof, she was as down to earth as anyone I have ever met. While she might have appeared to many as hard or unapproachable, she welcomed me and loved me as few ever have. While she had no children, sie wurde die Mutter, die ich nicht hatte, und ich werde geehrt und demütigt, um einfach und liebevoll zu ihr zu sagen: ‘Lydia, ich liebe dich und du bist immer meine Mutter sein.’

As always, thanks for reading. When I post again, I will probably be back in the states.

Michael

Understanding What Matters

Hello from JFK,

For the second time in 5 months, after not being out of the country in almost a quarter century, I am leaving for another country. This time Germany and Poland. I am hoping to get some research done on George’s background and the places he lived. I am actually in Berlin and it is Tuesday, December 30th. It is about 3:15 a.m. Pennsylvania time and I have not yet slept. The flight was an hour late getting out of NY and I knew my connection was tight; so, of course, I missed my connecting flight to Kraków by literally three minutes. So I am sitting in the Berlin Tegel Flughafen für die nächsten sieben Stunden. I have gotten some walking in around the airport, but I am starting to fade. It is about 6:05 Pennsylvania time and I did not sleep. Though I would love to close my eyes, I am afraid I would sleep through the only remaining flight of the day. . . .

Good morning on December 31st, the last day of the year from Kraków, a historic city in Southern Poland. I remember the first day in Europe in late 1980. I was a much younger man, and I knew a little German, but I felt so isolated because I knew so little of the language. At least in other place, I could look at signs and get some idea of what I might have been considering, but it is certainly not as easy. Then there is the punctuation issue and the different letters with little tails or lines through them, which means they are pronounced differently. I wish I could merely absorb languages and know them immediately. As I walked around the city center, where I have a small studio apartment for the week, it was so interesting to listen to the people and try to make out even a little bit of what they were saying. I did hear people speaking English and some others speaking German, so that was a bit of a bright spot. Robert and I made plans for Katarzyna, his significant other person, him and I to spent New Year’s Eve at a really cool pub just close to the main square. The people are out in mass getting ready to celebrate the turning of the calendar and there were markets and marathon runners and a wide variety of people. We did run into Maria and some of the other people here in the Polish Winterterm class. It was really a treat to meet one of my favorite students in her home town. While walking around, I saw the window where Karol Wojtyla, the Archbishop of Krakow, and later Pope John Paul II, used to give his homily or greetings. I also saw in a cathedral close by where he gave his confessions. The city center is a spectacular place and being back in Europe after almost a quarter of a century is one of the best decisions I have made in a long time.

It is now New Year’s Day and there are still some fireworks going off even though it is about 10:30 at night. I spent most of the day, the remainder of the the last day of the year, with Robert and Katarzyna as we went to the place called Dobry Kumpel (which is translated Good Friends), for our New Year’s Eve. It was a wonderful time. It was a small underground sort of a pub and there were not a lot of people there, though the town was packed. The other nice thing was no one was drunk, stupid, or loud. Today, January 1st, we went out to eat at a wonderful Italian Restaurant. It was sort of fun to have both a Polish and an English menu and try to compare. I worked on my Polish pronunciation skills. They are pretty sad, but both Katazyna and Robert are kind. Otherwise it was a pretty quiet day and I worked on my syllabi. . . .

I have been awake since about 3:05 this morning, though I might have fallen asleep somewhere around 7:30-8:00 for a bit. It is now about 9:30 in the morning and while I should begin with a greeting of Happy New Year’s and so there you have it, I received the call I have been expecting each day since I left Lydia’s bedside last Friday night. She passed away last night around 8:00 p.m., but she died peacefully and Nathan was there with her (I will put the time of publication for this at the time Lydia passed). I am grateful for both things. What an amazing woman she was. If you have been reading the blog as of the past month or so, you have learned something of her. It was ironic that on New Year’s Eve, I was in the church where the former Polish Pope John Paul II actually went for confession when he would return to his homeland. I lit a votive candle for Lydia and prayed that she might finally find peace and that George might come to take her home. It is also ironic that I did it in his homeland. Perhaps that all helped. While one cannot be sure of such things, and I am well aware that some might dismiss such things, it was something that I felt compelled to do on her behalf. There were phone calls, what’sapp messages and other texts to try to get things managed from 6,000 miles away. I spoke with Carissa this morning around 6:00 and she also filled me in on her last couple of days. It sounds like the last day and a half she was in that in between state of this world and the next. Nathan told me that he was holding her hand as she passed and that is really a wonderful thing. I am glad he has been with me on this journey. He is a good man.

What an amazing life she and George lived and what tremendous things they accomplished together. While I am glad that she was so aware of things and how she planned and orchestrated things in her life is an entirely separate story. I think she was in charge of things up to the very end. She made it into the new year, and while she did not pass on Christmas, she passed on the first day of the new year. That will be something to remember and something hard to forget, just as she herself is. It is now my goal to get the story written. It is something I need to do to give back for what she has given. What is it she has given . . . there are all the things that one might see, but what she actually gave was something of much greater value. She allowed me to see her when she was actually vulnerable; she allowed me to see her heart and the love she was capable of giving. She had learned to be protective of her heart because she was afraid because of her small stature and her accent. The fact that I could speak German with her broke down one of those barriers and the fact that I could always understand her when she spoke meant a great deal to her. The fact that I let her have her way more often than I perhaps should have also did something. I remember people being angry with me because she had become such a central part of my life. There is truth to the fact that I let her control more than I perhaps should have, but I had become her family. What was important is she realized that I loved her. I remember the day I left to move to Pennsylvania and she and Erica stood at the top of the drive way. I had to pull over a couple of blocks away because I was crying. Each time I would pull out of the driveway she would wave goodbye to me. When I returned from any trip or even from school that day, she was there to greet me and her smile was infectious. Even though she always argued she took terrible pictures, she had the most radiant smile and amazing blue eyes. When I left her a week ago this evening, I told her as I cried on her shoulder that she was my mother and that I loved her so much. I was sobbing and she was rubbing my head. She opened her eyes and whispered, “I know.” As I am writing this, I have to stop because I cannot see through my glasses or more correctly, through the tears.

What matters one might ask? What matters is that God saw fit to allow me to be given yet another parent. What matters is that we loved each other and that I have been so blessed to have her in my life. What matters is that she passed peacefully, without pain, and yet still on her terms. She made me promise that there would be no IVs, tubes, or other measures and that is how it was. What matters now is that I live a life that might make her proud of me and that I will work to complete the dream of writing a novel about George and her, which, though fictional, will provide some sense of the phenomenal group of people they represent, those people who were displaced by the atrocities that were, and are, a significant part of 20th century Europe. A story that depicts the work ethic and spirit they had as they came to America hoping to create a new life. The irony that I write this sitting in Poland, George’s homeland, is not lost on me. The irony that I am visiting Auschwitz on Sunday is also not lost on me because George had escaped from one of the other notorious camps, Dachau.

As I continue to write, the sun has broken through after a day and a half of clouds and is streaming into my little apartment where I am writing away and preparing for yet another semester. I believe the sun is a reminder that more than merely feeling sadness, I need to rejoice when I think of her amazing life. Lydia, did this same sort of preparation, though not on the computer. There are boxes of her notes on her study. She was a brilliant professor and she cared passionately about other people learning. She is sort of like Sr. Galan in that way. She wanted people to think and ponder. She never tired of learning. It is unfair and tragic that she had to be afflicted with the terrible disease of dementia. She knew four languages. She understood so much about the world. She actually knew what mattered and she taught me.

Lydia,

Mit meinem ganzen Herzen liebe ich dich, und ich danke dich. Du bist jetzt mein Schutzengel, und ich verspreche mein Bestes zu tun, deinen Job zu schwierig nicht zu machen.

To the rest of you, thank you for reading.

Michael (the grateful son)

Being Worthy

Good morning from the airport in Charlotte, NC,

First, thank you for the texts, the comments, the tweets and the other ways in which so many of you have reached out and shared your kindness and concerns over these past days. I actually stopped to see Lydia one last time before I left Menomonie at 1:15 this morning. She was sleeping and yet seemed to be leaving this life at the same time. It was snowing steadily as I drove the 70 miles to the airport, and it was nice that it was 2:00 a.m. so there was little to no traffic on an interstate yet to be plowed. I listened to music that comforted me and allowed me to ponder as I crawled my way, figuratively speaking, to MSP.

What is abundantly clear to me is the simple fact that I have been, yet again, given two amazing gifts from Lydia. The first was to have 8 days with her and to be with her as she prepared all of us, both the staff of COH, who have been her family for three and a half years, and me, who became the son she never had, and has spent the last ten years with each other, to let her go. To say there were poignant moments during these past days comes no where near explaining the words, the expressions, and the tears that have been shed in the last room on the left at the end of the hall. The second gift, because in spite of the fact she told me that ” I had a shit temper”, she also knew that I would be an emotional wreck should I be in the room when she passed. Therefore, I believe, and I was told by both the caregivers, the nurse, and the administrator (and now by Melissa and Maria, through José) that she waited for me to leave. I never told her I had to leave on a particular day, but she held out. What people did not realize about Lydia, unless they were blessed enough and therefore allowed to get close to her was that she was an incredibly loving person. I wrote about her compassionate nature in other blogs, but whenever anyone was hurting, it affected her to the very core of her being. Her eyes would well up in tears and her voice would tremble as spoke in her Austrian accent, “Michael, it is just terrible.” And she always rolled those Rs. Kevin, her painter, tells of the time she took a large amount of food to the food pantry in Menomonie. As she saw the people waiting for basic staples, she cried and wanted to go buy more food to take back to the pantry.

Yet, to be fair, she was not always easy; she could be incredibly tough. She expected a lot from people, but nothing more than she expected of herself. She worked tremendously hard at creating a life for herself in this country and in 29 years of work took only two sick days. I think, in spite of her independence, after George passed away, she was unbelievably lonely. I did not know her for about 10 years, but I have a pretty good handle on who she was. I think Dennis, who spent 13 years in the carriage house, was important in that transitional time. I think Shelley , who probably treated Lydia better than Lydia treated her, was also important. I think the hard work and companionship that Shelley gave was important to Lydia in the time following George’s passing. I think Lydia was continually reaching out to people and simultaneously pushing them away. Somehow, and for some reason, she did not do that to me. The other three (technically four) people who managed to keep Lydia’s companionship and she never pushed away were Bill and Maryann (Bill and Lydia were colleagues at Stout and actually started at the same time.), Becky (Lydia’s department secretary), and Elaine (her next door neighbor). For some reason, and I am not sure she would use this term, but we somehow demonstrated a worthiness and as such, she trusted us. When she trusted someone, by extension, she loved them. In spite of the fact she never weighed more than 100 pounds until the last couple years of her life, and ended her life under 5’0″ tall, her heart must have taken up most of that space because it was incredibly large and strong. I also think it is what kept her alive these last days.

While I have noted this to people before, I am not sure I wrote it publicly. I do believe there are events that occur in our lives that we do not really understand until much later. I think my coming to UW-Stout is such an event. What I know or believe now is that Stout merely served as a vehicle to create other possibilities. First, while I learned important things at Stout, both positive and not so much, the learning I achieved was significant. It afforded me the opportunity to meet Mark and Gayle Decker and prepared me for coming to Bloomsburg, where I would be with the Deckers (although more of them) again. It prepared me, albeit primarily through observing others, about how I might develop and support a program. However, perhaps the most important and unexpected event was a chance conversation with Elaine that led me to Lydia. As I noted in a recent blog, I had no inkling that we would become a family. I think, and not meant inappropriately, I became her caretaker, her child, her spouse, all in one. It was both a blessing and a curse of sorts. I think of the morning I woke up and she was standing at the side of my bed staring at me and asking if I were awake. I think of driving her around town (much like driving Ms. Daisy) on her errands. I think of fixing her breakfast every morning or mowing, or walking along the roof with the blower, cleaning out the gutters so she wouldn’t. I think of raking leaves or snow blowing and shoveling to try to keep her from doing it and freezing. I remember going to her house for a glass of sherry or fixing dinner so she would eat more than grapes or bananas. I remember taking her out for rides in her 1977 Oldsmobile Ninety-eight and her patting the robin-egg blue dash and exclaiming, “Michael, it’s a beautiful car.” I now believe that Lydia was, and is, the real reason I came to Menomonie. Indeed, epitomized in the last 8 days, it was in sitting by Lydia’s side that the event of 11 1/2 years ago finally became crystal clear to me. Menomonie=Lydia. Regardless her penchant for independence, God knew she needed someone to be there consistently. For God to believe I was worthy of this calling is humbling to me because I am not extraordinary and seldom do I think about any kind of worthiness.

It is now the 28th of December and I am back in Bloomsburg and Nate has taken over the vigil. I am not sure how he will manage things as the family is with him and they have relatives in the area. I called COH a couple times yesterday and I spoke with Nate also. When I called this morning there was no substantive change. Lydia is Lydia; there is nothing more that can be said. I think she will wait Nate out also. The idea of being there is much difference than merely physical presence. That is what I believe. Lydia inside her deteriorating cognitive capacity is as sharp and determined to manage her life as always. Perhaps our worthiness is the actual witnessing of an amazing lady who will live her life completely and also completely on her terms. Perhaps it is that she allows us to participate in such an extraordinary event that offers us something of worth. She is not in pain and she rest comfortably; she is still lucid at moments and even poignant and witty, though that comes primarily through her eyes and her smiles, frowns or other body language at this point. Yet, as I noted in her comments like “no kidding” or “I know” or her patting my head lovingly as I cried on her shoulder demonstrate the worth our relationship has to both of us.

As I got up this morning, it was also a Sunday 17 years ago that I received the phone call that my father had passed away. He had dementia also, but actually succumbed to pancreatic cancer. I have wondered if today will be Lydia’s day and it would merely connect us in yet one more ironic way. Today I will try to focus my energies here and organize some things before I am on the go again tomorrow. I need to manage a half dozen things specifically first thing in the morning. I have appreciated all of your comments, your prayers, and the various ways you have made me feel worthy of your gifts and friendship. I will be communicating through FB and this blog over the next week. I will have photos of my researching and working on more of Lydia’s story in the next days. May we all find our places and things that give us a sense of worth. Sometimes, probably usually, they come when we least expect it.

Thank you for reading.

Michael

Saying Goodbye to an Unequaled Love

Good Christmas Morning,

As I sit in Lydia’s room, my brain flashes memory after memory of Christmases past through the movie screen inside my head. My earliest memories of Christmas are always at my grandmother’s house in Sioux City, IA where I grew up. My grandmother had a sort of an old farm house out at what would have been the edge of town at that time with a couple of acres of land and a barn for her garage (ironic that I just considered the parallel for the first time). Her home was not spacious, but it was welcoming and her care and love made that place even more so a haven of comfort and safety. It was her care and love that has influenced my life more than I could have ever imagined. She fought her own demons and she was a widow at 45 years old. I have not really considered that carefully before I began writing this blog. While I am well aware of our lengthening life span, even in the late 1950s to be a widow in your forties would have been the exception and certainly traumatic. As I noted in my last blog, losing a person before what is considered a full life has to always be a shock and exceptionally difficult.

Yet, and while I remember many things from that time in my life because I was actually living with them at this point, I do not remember my grandfather’s passing. I do remember his being ill and in a bed, but I do not remember his death. I also do not remember any of my grandmother’s struggle in the immediate years that followed. What I remember is sitting in a mixing bowl and being pushed around the bakery they had owned together. What I remember is sitting on the bakery table and rolling out pie dough with my own little rolling pin. What I remember is a morning breakfast of a soft poached egg, a half of grapefruit, and a piece of toast made of the best bread in the world. I remember smiles, hugs, and love that was shown without measure, and that was just the everyday thing. I remember birthdays that had the most amazing birthday cakes in the world (she was a cake decorator). I remember sitting in her station wagon and yes, I remember that she smoked cigarettes. In fact, just a week or so ago I got in someone’s truck and the smell of smoking in the car brought me back to that salmon-colored Studebaker. In, fact, I told him so. My Grandmother Louise, more than perhaps any other person in the world modeled what it meant to love and care for the other. Her willingness to give was apparent each day as she allowed us to be around in the bakery as small children, probably under foot, but all her workers were like our aunts and uncles. I remember playing with the adding machine for hours on end. The amount of adding machine tape I wasted could probably have filled a corner of a landfill. I would punch numbers and pull that handle for hours and I never grew tired of it either. Another thing I never grew tired of was the amazing items to eat. It is a wonder I was not the fattest little toad on earth. As I grew, the times I got to spend at her house, usually beginning on this day and completing the Christmas break, were the most precious times of my childhood. Her care and love for my sister and me was so readily apparent in everything she did.

As I got older and I worked in the bakery, I am sure she lost money on me. While I worked hard, I ate more than my fair share of bakery items. As I have noted in other blogs, she insisted that we be polite and that we always treat the other person with respect. She would tell me you cannot both love someone and disrespect them. I think I took that lesson to heart more than any other she might have offered. I think that is why I have such an issue yet today with disrespect, either received or when I might engage in it. I will admit, I am not perfect in this area, but it is something I do try to do. Sometimes my smart mouth and wicked turn-of-a-phrase can get me in trouble. What I also remember about my grandmother was the elegance and beauty that was such a central part of her. She was always, even when in the house, in a dress or skirt, and even if it was gingham or calico, she was elegant. Her smile radiated warmth and her care of those around her was readily apparent. She and her older sister, my Great-aunt Helen, together could make anyone feel appreciated and happy.

When she passed away, I think that was the hardest I had ever cried in my life. She was not very old (64). I look at that very differently now as I am approaching that decade. If there is a person, up to now, that I hoped might be proud of the person I have become, it would be her. As I think of various things, I am astounded at the parallels I see between Lydia and Louise. Perhaps I should not find it ironic that Lydia’s middle name is Louise. They both had a sense of decorum and elegance that few women I have met ever have. They both were interested in the world around them and paid attention to both the big picture and the little details all at the same time. People who can do both are a rare breed and that certainly describes both of them. They were both frugal, and yet incredibly giving. My grandmother pulled out all the stops at Christmas and she was always willing to help a person who needed something. Most people have no idea the number of ways Lydia gave to other people. Because of her reclusive nature and her accent, many found her unapproachable, and I must admit she did little to change their perceptions, but she was an amazingly kind person. Once her neighbor was struggling in a significant way and Lydia came to her rescue. Because of Lydia’s generosity, her neighbor kept her house.

It is now 9:30 Christmas evening and Lydia seems to hang on by a thread at moments and then with more tenacity at others; it might even be a frayed thread, but she clings to it with all her might. She has had visitors the last three days, and earlier this evening she did tell one of the caregivers that it was George. I am hoping that is the case and that George can assure her that life beyond here is not something of which she should be afraid. I have often said she was here out of fear. I noted that in an earlier blog, but I think I have witnessed it first hand in the last days. When she has clung to my hand or anyone’s hand the strength with which she held on was phenomenal. The other event, the one of tragic nature, of which I wrote earlier has really taught some things. I have been corresponding with Lydia’s doctor and he and I have had the most amazing conversations about the spiritual manifestations of our humanity, both in the here and now and in the beyond. What he shared with me in the past day was amazing. and it connects directly to the idea that God, at least the God in whom I believe, does not wish for us to fear our physical death, nor does God want those of us left behind to grieve or worry about our loved ones who have passed before us. I am well aware that often such conversations can become maudlin, if you will, and I do not wish to engage in anything of the sort, but the question of what is on the other side is such a significant one for so many. In spite of everything, I guess I do not worry about it, at least for myself. When I was a parish pastor, I remember saying I did not have to worry about the what ifs on the other side, but rather I needed to be faithful in the here and now. I think I still try to live my life in that manner.

It is now December 26th and while I sit in Lydia’s room the best way to describe the affect is that it is peaceful. She sleeps most of the time and somehow she hangs on. She opens her eyes at times and there are moments she seems distant and then there are other moments when she is perfectly lucid. She continues to show us that she is incredibly strong and she is in charge of what she will and will not do. No one, including her doctor expected she would hang on this long. I now believe she is waiting for me to leave versus waiting for me to be here. I think she did want me here to tell me she loved me and for me to spend the Christmas holiday with her. I think the manner in which we choose to leave the world, when something is not accidental, is more in our control than we often imagine. I think I had at least an inkling of that before recently. Then I read a book this past year that was a gift from my friend and brother, Jose. Now I have watched Lydia over this past week. I have watched her interact with people I cannot see, but she can certainly see them. She has at times seemed to be in conversation with him, her, or them; she has at times seemed to push or shoo them away. At this moment, she is actually up and out of bed for the first time in 6 days and Carissa and Mindy are washing her up. She managed that well and now she is resting comfortably. She actually looks like a completely new person. There is not a single person on staff that can figure her (or this) out at this point. I think it gets back to what I noted previously. She will leave when she is ready. Over the past hour she has carried on somewhat of a conversation with three of us and actually ate a little ice cream. It is the first food she has managed since last Saturday morning. From my past as a hospital chaplain, this sort of rebound is not uncommon, but I think it is a bit different when she has been so far away for so long and the doctor and others expected she would not manage this beyond a couple of days. A bit a go I told her again that I loved her and she was amazing. Her response, with color in her azure blue eyes was simple, “No kidding?” She is now again asleep and that is how things go with her.

Earlier, Nate contacted me and he and his wife and two girls are on their way here. They are going to drive straight through and hope to be here by tomorrow afternoon. Knowing that I had to leave, he felt he could not leave her without one of the two of us here with her. I understood that and while I have been here 16-18 hours a day for the past week, it might be as my one colleague noted. That she does not want her loved ones around when she decides it is time to pass over. Earlier in the week, the times I had tears coming down my face were legion, but now I am simply ready for whatever comes. While I will still cry, I think the fact that I have had an opportunity to spend this time and we have noted how much we love each other, I have been given yet another example of the love and care she has. She did not want me to see her fade away; she did not want me to remember her looking sad and worn out. So today she is looking more like the Lydia I have always known: a smiling face, wide brilliant eyes, and a manner than demonstrated how incredibly enormous her heart is and how immeasurably she loves those for whom she cares. At this point, she is again sleeping and actually sleeping quite soundly. She does cough from time to time, but for the most part, her sleep is deep and undisturbed.

I am quite sure when I leave later today, she will be sleeping and I will not see her on this side again. It is about 6:30 on Friday evening, CST, and I have just cooked dinner for all the residents here at COH. I have done that from the time Lydia first came to reside here. The difference now is she was not following me around in the kitchen. She would get so upset that I would not sit with her soon enough. I remember one time I cooked and everyone raved about the dinner, except her. She said it was “so-so”. Lest I ever think of myself too highly, she would bring me back to earth. Earlier this afternoon as I told her again that I loved her, she looked at me and smiled and said, “No kidding?” It was both the accent and the look on her face that made the moment unforgettable. While she is against everything everyone said, still here, I do believe she is soon to pass over . . . . she told me today that she saw both George and her parents. She will look at one point and stare intently. When someone asked her if that was George she said, “no” and pointed to a different place in the room. It is apparent that those who love her are ready for her and hope to give her a sense of comfort as she begins this new journey. What I know as I get ready to leave and allow her to pass on her terms that I will miss her terrifically. I will miss her amazing smile and her intense and knowing eyes. I will miss her compassion for those less fortunate (especially her four-legged friends) and her willingness to give to those who needed help. I will miss her accent and those phrases that made her so endearing. I will miss and cherish the love she have given me. Earlier tonight as I knelt by her bed again, I cried and told her she was my parent and that I was thankful for everything she had done for me. She opened her eyes and looked at me and said, “I know.” Indeed she does, and so do I. I love you, Lydia, with all my heart and I hope your journey to that better place is wonderful. There is more I would like to say, but there are no words.

Thanks for reading.

Michael

When Days Turn to Hours Turn to Minutes

Hello from Comforts of Home in Menomonie,

I am sitting at Lydia’s bedside and she continues to amaze us as she has slept, but continues to simultaneously fight and fade. I use those words in that order intentionally because up to this morning that was the order in which I would say things have occurred. This morning, however, there is a change. I think there is much more fading and significantly less fighting. In spite of my background as a former parish pastor and with my experience in hospital chaplaincy, the process of leaving this world for the next is such an individual experience, both for the person passing and for those watching. When I came back to Wisconsin this time, I did not expect that this would be a final visit to Lydia. She is sleeping almost constantly though from time to time she opens her eyes and looks around. This morning, her eyes were bright and she gave Carissa the biggest smile as Carissa came into to greet her. It is now about 2:00 in the afternoon and she is resting comfortably. A bit ago she did open her eyes and looked at me. As I told her I loved her, she nodded her head yes and mouthed the words “I love you” in return. It reminded me of 17 years ago almost to the day that I told my father on the phone that I loved him and he responded that he loved me also. He passed away about 12 hours later.

During the past four days I have had a lot of time to reflect on what I believe a life well-lived might resemble. As I have noted at other times, Lydia (and George, her late husband) was/were quite the story. While I was never fortunate enough to meet him, I have heard some stories. Together they created a life that spanned countries and continents, languages and cultures. From his time in a concentration camp to her losing members of her family as a consequence of WWII, the war than encompassed a generation and most of the world. I am pretty sure that George and she had no idea what their coming to America and Chicago would have in store for them. I remember that she told me that they both worked two jobs when they first got to Chicago and worked hard to make this new country their home. At one point when she was a student at Northwestern University, she remembered working hard on her English to get rid of her Austrian accent. It never happened. That accent stayed with her for the rest of her life. I used to tease her when I would encourage her to say words with a “th” sound. Of course, I could get her laughing hysterically when I tried to say German words that contained an “umlaut o”. She, of course, could make that sound with no difficulty.

Today, the 23rd, has been another lesson in reality and fragility. While Lydia hangs on to her life, the son of her doctor, the person who has been so supportive of her, and the person I noted as brilliant texted me about 5:00 p.m. this evening to tell me that he had lost his son in an lake mishap on Lake Superior. His matter of fact statement that he would be distracted was heartbreaking. Here Lydia is hanging on, but she has lived her life and at 90 is ready to depart this world. I am not sure how old his son is, but the doctor and I must be contemporaries at least within a few years and I would imagine his son was probably in his late 30s. There is no reasonable time to lose a child, but to lose them unexpectedly, tragically and two days before Christmas is beyond what any person should have to bear. My heart goes out to him. We had the most wonderful talk this past Friday. It is ironic that I have the title for this blog I do because what I have learned is he went into the water and could not get out. Another person also died trying to rescue him. One of the lines in the song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, is “does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?” It was that very song I was thinking of when I reversed those words for the title. He lost his son on Lake Superior, which is where the Edmund Fitzgerald sunk in 1975. I remember the first time I ever saw my father cry was when my older brother passed away. Parents are not supposed to bury their children.

It is now about 8:00 p.m. and I am still sitting in the room with Lydia and merely keeping her company. She has opened her eyes a few times today and she has actually seemed more lucid than she has the last few days. I remember these sort of swings in patients when I was a hospital chaplain. The body is an amazing thing and each of us go about leaving this world in our own unique way. While this past day has helped me come to terms with her passing, it has also exhausted me. I do not feeling this completely tired for a very long time. I remember one person in particular who had gone through so much in the hospital before the doctors were willing to let her go. I am going to go home and try to get some sleep. . . .

It is now Christmas Eve day and about 9:30 in the morning. I had some breakfast before coming back to COH and when I got here, I found, I guess not surprisingly, that Lydia continues to defy odds. Her vital signs are actually better and yet, she is noticeably weaker this morning. She does not want water and has had no food since Saturday morning. I remember flying back to Sioux City over 25 years ago to watch as my mother passed away. Her situation was much more difficult because she had been put on life support and that had to be removed. In this case, there are no IVs, no tubes, and nothing to prolong Lydia’s life, which were her wishes. They are the same wishes I would have for myself. I think there is a time for the body to merely let go and be allowed to stop.

What I am realizing in the last day is the tenuousness of our existence. I have found out that her doctor’s son was 40 years old and his brother (and I think wife) had to witness this tragedy. I cannot imagine the trauma of having to watch someone struggle to live and lose their life in such an unexpected way. The cliches that are possible do nothing to explain the unexplainable. As I watch Lydia fade into a new life, we are in her room alone and it is actually peaceful. I am listening to Pandora and I have it playing classical holiday music. I have been told that our hearing is the last sense of the body to quit working at the time death arrives. If this music can help her be more peaceful, I am more grateful for the time we have had these past 5 days. Yesterday she was quite lucid and actually was able to answer questions at least minimally. When I showed her a picture of George, which is on her headboard bookcase, from his younger days, she got the largest smile on her face that I had seen in a while. When we consider carefully what we are offered daily, it seems that too often we do not see it as an offering or a gift. I do understand that external circumstances can make the gift of a day seem to be a burden rather than a something to be cherished. I understand that the extenuating events that impinge on that block of time can overwhelm us and cause us to lose sight of the opportunities that might be presented in that time. Yet, how many times do we, in the normal course of events, lament when a period of time is coming to a close, wishing that somehow we might have managed that time better. I am not sure if it is because I have approached the ending of another decade of my life that I have found myself reflecting on what time means and feeling perhaps a sense of urgency for those things I have not yet completed. On the other hand, I find myself with a sense of calmness that I have not often felt. I am actually pretty content. I have been pushed to consider mortality in more than one way this year, but I believe our mortality is always something we must, or at least should, appreciate and ponder. What does our humanness offer that no other creature, at least to our knowledge, possesses? I think it is both the ability to remember as well as the ability to imagine. Remembering, of course, offers us a glimpse into our past; imagining offers us the possibility to wonder about the future. In both of these we begin to understand who we are, but also why we are. This returns me to the phrase with which I began the post: a life well-lived. Whether we have an opportunity to grace this world for 90 years and leave it compassionately or we have 40 years and our life is ended tragically, each person has the possibility of having a life well-lived.

I think as we continue our lives and our days become hours and our hours become minutes, we always have the opportunity to love and care for those around us. Too often we fail to recognize those possibilities and chances. Too often we concentrate on ourselves, worried about the morrow. This past year I have been given many opportunities to share with others. Sometimes I have succeeded in those moments and other times I have failed miserably. Nevertheless, yet today, tonight, or tomorrow, I will be afforded yet another chance. How do I know this? I know it because I see it in the smile of someone who is leaving this world, but still recognizes my voice and the words “I love you.” I see it in the amazing caregivers who tend to her needs and care for her gently and lovingly. I received it in a video tonight telling me I was missed. As I have been reminded of again and again, love is the most unparalleled gift we can offer another person. In the past 10 years I have been graced with the presence of one of the greatest personalities in the smallest of frames. I have been confounded by her stubbornness and blessed with her boundless love all at the same time. As she rests quietly in her bed this Christmas Eve, she still recognizes me and smiles knowingly at my presence. She has told me on more than one occasion today that there is someone in the room coming for her and she points to their presence. Perhaps what she sees is the coming that all Christian believers celebrate this Christmas Eve, the incarnation of the Christ child. Perhaps it is appropriate that as we move into this most holy of nights in the Christian calendar, Lydia points to something much like the shepherds must have pointed or the Wise men must have pointed. Perhaps she knows better than any of us when her time to leave this world is and she will, as she has always done, decide just how this will be managed. When I once told her that I was not sure that God would be ready for her and that he might have to clean some things up, she responded knowingly, “I will take my broom.” Those of you who really know her, know just how true that statement is. She managed her life and she was always in charge. To allow God to be in charge will be something difficult, but then it is difficult for most of us. As I leave her for the moment to attend Christmas Eve services, I hope should she leave before I return that she knows how much I love her and how grateful I am for her presence in my life.

To all of you reading, I wish you a very blessed Christmas.

Michael