You

Staying with my Dad in his nursing home room gives me time to think about life and garner a new perspective about living.

Here he is in this small space with four shirts in the closet and three pairs of paints and a few undershirts and that is pretty much it. But he is still Dad. All the other stuff of life is dwindled down to just  a very small space. Everything is stripped down to the bare minimum. But even so  all of him is in that room. All the things he did are in his mind and ours, They will not go away. And in the end memories is all we leave for anyone . Good Lord, you want those memories to be good ones. One of valor and holiness and self sacrifice and love. How many houses you have or all that is not what anyone will remember. What they will remember is how you impacted their life.

If you were not a great person when you could have been  a great person, then at least the end of life could be sweet if it is full of asking forgiveness. At the very least say you are sorry before you cannot. I know for a fact that many people would have much much better after you are gone, if you just say your sorry. I think people would be amazed at how much someone can forgive if given half the chance,

talking on the phone

Yesterday while I was painting, I got a phone call and was taking away and painting at the same time. After 20 minutes of an in depth conversation, I realized I had resolved my painting. There was something missing and after I hung up, it was done. The problem was gone and I wasn’t; even trying. I was just relax painting while I talked. The finished painting really was one that gave me a lot of comfort. It made me feel better just looking at it. It calmed me down . Yes my Dad is dying and yes I am thinking of that a lot and the gallery owner said don’t paint now because it is too hard, but I needed to do it just for me and it really gives me a lot of comfort.

I highly recommend doing some creative outlet activity while processing deep things to help you live it out. It is so much better to be with the grief than just try and avoid the pain. The gift of the grief will not be opened unless we go through it consciously. If anyone else is out there going through the same thing, which I know there are, then do this, at least write about it, poem about it. dance about it, paint about it and the gift will open up like a flower that blooms.

Chef

I have a brother who owns a restaurant. He has been the chef at his own restaurant for many years.

His food tastes like only he made it. IT is impossible to copy the way he cooks. It has a certain delicious taste in every single thing he makes that screams his name.

Don’t you think it is funny how you can just put together ingredients the same ingredients as it says in a cookbook and the same measurements  of those ingredients and the same directions and it turns out different for each person who makes it.

So there is a magic ingredient that is the persons soul gets infused in there somewhere and you can taste it.

steps don’t make it good, you make it good.

You

I like to think about this when I paint because the secret ingredient is me.

Don’t you think that is kind of great. It like we all have magic in us

 

a long way home

We do airbnb . I love doing it. Getting ready for the guests and then seeing their faces and hearing their stories and having them stay in the space that I made. Your home is more than just a room to rent. It has your life in it so when guests  stay they absorb some of you . I like that. It feels like I know them a little and they leave a bit of their spirit when they go. We have this shared experience that makes me feel good.

Airbnb is a soul exchanging thing. There is an apartment in the basement that we stay in when we have guests. Its an old house so I can hear them walking above us. Sharing their lives for a time here.

Sometimes they are here for a big reason. A funeral, or wedding or graduation or even to grieve.

My house sees it all and hears all the stories and then I can almost feel them after they are gone. I know that sounds spooky but I think its true that you can sense someone has been somewhere. Something has occurred. People in transit are super charged just because they are getting all this new input from traveling. We are never so interesting as we travel. It is like a ball of string . the more you roll it the bigger it gets.

sometimes I fall in love the the guests and don’t want them to leave but stay here forever in a big commune. that happened once and both my husband and I did not want them to ever go.

So that is way different then just renting out your house. Way Way different.

The Monastery

My Dad is in the hospital again. He is dying. First he was in a nursing home but he got sicker and weaker and stopped eating so they put him in the hospital. I did not like him being in the nursing home as it was  such a chore for him to live laying in a bed most of the day waiting for his broken arm to heal. It shouldn’t have been that big a deal to break your arm but when you are old it is a big deal.

Last night I had a dream vision thing that want to write about.  The nursing home is like a monastery.

They are full of old people in a most special place. The place is waiting to graduate from this life They are doing the last bits of living and they have an extraordinary amount of free time to think and ponder these last bits. They are on the launching pad. The nurses and CNAs run around trying to postpone the launch date to give them more time to get ready.

And this time is a sacred space for everyone there. At first I could not see it. I did not like going there but now after a month of doing it and being with Dad. I feel different;y about it.

I am spending time with Dad just being with him. He holds my hand , something he never did in most of his life. He was stoic as was his Dad and Mom . He doesn’t know any other way till now. Now he is tender and hold your hand . He is so soothed by you being there that it is like being with him for the first time. No walls are up. He needs us to be with him and we know it. My Mom stays there most all day and she is getting tired but it is necessary work. Launching someone into eternity is important work.

In the silences of the waiting. both of us have time to ponder this sacred space. Are we ready to meet our Maker literally . Review life and close up loose ends. pour love out  and gratitude to what you have been given. In the sacred monastery, everything else falls away.  All the busy life is not as important as being in this space.

People ask me what I have been doing lately. Usually I say I am fine and busy which is a bold face lie.

I am not busy and I am not fine. But it is too much work to tell them and i don’t want to hear them say they are sorry.

Now that I am in this space with my Dad we both do not want to hear anyone is sorry. He said that too. He said ” I do not want to hear that phrase again.”

Dying is a sacred time and should be treated as such. You don’t feel sorry for someone who is in the most holy place. The monastery. The nursing home should play gregorian chants in the hallways so you get it.

 

error: Please do not copy.