I believe that the heart does go on…

/ Hillary Volk / 2 Comments

“Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you’re here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on.”
—–Celine Dion, Excerpt from Titanic Lyrics

It comes to me that I should tell you a story. But it is a true story.  Honest.

Recently, I have been meeting people who have lost a parent, often a mother, and who can’t seem to get past the

overwhelming sadness of their loss. Perhaps they confide in me because I seem to be functioning well (although, don’t get me wrong, I have my moments of tears). And oh yes, I do miss my mother. But Mama always said, “There is no death,” and from that day back in 1963 when she revealed to me her previous experiences with it, I have truly believed her. (See my other posts: A Little Background, Photos and special Memories, Long March Home.)

She would go on to say that death is an illusion – much like the horizon, which no one ever seems to cross. She told me that, “If our departed friends could speak to us, they would assure us that they are now, just as we are, enjoying life, peace, harmony and blessedness, and that there is no need for grief and sorrow.”(1)

So this is why I have to tell you this story. This happened to me yesterday, but it is only one of dozens of incidents that have occurred over the past weeks. Continue reading →

The Firewalk

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I’m looking around my home, now filled with all of my mother’s remaining furniture and items that we’ve just retrieved from a storage unit. I feel as though I have just moved into my own home again, and there is not a room in my house that has not been affected by the acquisition of ‘more stuff.’

In my mind’s eye, I ‘d like to live a Zen-like existence: bed, table, chair, laptop and phone. Of course, that is an oversimplification, but in today’s culture I believe we are all getting fed up with the care and grooming of all the things we bought when we thought we would live forever.

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The Parable of the Twins

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I just returned from a walk down to the lake, here in my home town.  The sun was shining brilliantly and the surface of the water was glittering like a thousand diamonds. Claudia pointed out some herons, which I wouldn’t have noticed on my own.  It was one of the first times I had been out for a pleasant walk since my mother died.  
As we sat down on the dock and put out feet into the refreshingly cool water, we talked about many things, and I learned so much from her and her experiences.  We spoke about life – not death, except that many of the myths about the dying process are as fictional as those about birth.  We laughed, we shared, and in the words of Rick in the film Casablanca, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Claudia told me about a conversation she had read in German about two babies in the womb and said she would find it for me in English.  Thanks to the wonder of the Internet, I located the excerpt from Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book, Your Sacred Self.  I am excited to share it today, because in a sense, I am going through a re-birth of my own in a world full of possibilities.
* * * * * * *

In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”

The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

–  from Your Sacred Self by Dr.  Wayne Dyer

My mother passed peacefully into her next experience last night.

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ADRIENNE COURTNEY PRITCHARD URBAN
1927-2016

I held her as she took her last breaths at home. She was surrounded by beautiful music and lots of love.  As a friend remarked, that was about “as close to heaven as you can get here on earth.”

She kept a copy of the following quote from St. Paul’s Cathedral in London with her important papers…a reminder that she would always be with us. She’d want you to have it too.

Thank you, Mom.
Rest in Peace.

“Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of a shadow in it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was; there is unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.”

Henry Scott Holland
1847-1918
Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral

https://stpauls.org.uk/death-is-nothing-at-all-6692.html 

 

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” says the White Queen to Alice.

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Long March Home

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I am writing this in the midst of my mother’s “Long March Home.”

My sister called again this morning to talk and read to her. My Uncle and Aunt spoke to her from California and I know that my mother perked up and heard the love in all their voices. They will call again, and I am grateful for the peace they are helping to impart to my mother’s last days.

She is sleeping comfortably now, having refused all food and water for the past two days. She is in no pain, and of course she does not, nor will she, take any medication, so there is no need to call Hospice.  I had a lovely Christian Science nurse come for a visit yesterday to brief me on the finer points of caregiving (positioning, etc.), but other than that, it is a time of calm, quiet and tranquility. With no meals to prepare, I am at liberty to just concentrate on Mom and reflect on the sixty-five year history we have shared.

At the Beach 1956

I am surprised, and a little delighted, that the floodgates of my mind are opening and memories are just popping out of nowhere.  I choose to think about the happy times, not about the days or even hours to come. I don’t even want to think about my future without her in it.  There will be plenty of time for that, but the time is not now.

The radio is playing an opera that I’m not so crazy about, so I’m going to pop a CD into the stereo for us to listen to while I scan some photos.  I chose ‘WQXR’s 100 Best Classics,’  and a mix of selections including Beethoven’s Symphony No.6 (Pastoral). The notes fill the air with beauty, and as always, lift us up when we need lifting.  Classical music has been an integral part of our lives. We have several musicians in the family, and I sing whenever and wherever I can (the shower, the kitchen, the car) – even when the songs don’t have words.

A world full of music is my mother’s idea of Paradise. When I was maybe twelve or thirteen, she told me about her experience of dying in the hospital from complications arising from an ectopic or tubal pregnancy. My sister Andrea hadn’t come along yet, and I was about three years old at the time. Now you may doubt what I am about to say, but I have no reason to believe that Mom lied to me. It was something you just didn’t talk about back then; people would think you were crazy.  (This was before everyone started cashing in on the ‘out-of-body’ stuff.)

Mom said that she had the feeling that she was floating, floating above the room. She saw the doctors working on her, but she heard music in the distance – beautiful music unlike anything she had ever heard before.  She turned in the direction from which it was coming and started to walk.  Everything glowed and sparkled, the way it can after it rains. She recalled saying to herself, “Oh.  Is THIS what it’s like to die?”

sidney-e-pritchard

My Grandfather

Who knows how long she enjoyed that euphoric moment. But then, she had an overwhelmingly sad thought: “I can’t leave little Hillary alone!” And back she was in her body, facing pain and disappointment and loss and all the other human frailties.  Not for a day, but a lifetime.

She came back for me.

How could I do any less for her?  My mother. My teacher. My best friend.

She’s smiling now as she hears the familiar part her father first played for her on the phonograph when she was just four.  As she watched him Craftex the ceiling, he taught her the words to the scherzo melody in the Pastoral, “I see you, I see you, tra la la la la la. I see you, I see you, tra la la la la la…”

In her mind now, she’s dancing and skipping around the room.

 

 

Original Purpose

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I’ve been bad.

I don’t mean that I’ve been ‘bad’ bad, only that in the nine months or so that I have had this blog I haven’t really achieved what I set out to do, and that is to enlighten people about what it is like to home care for an ailing parent or loved one.  I have learned so much in the past five years, and I really feel as though I have a lot of ‘down in the trenches’ wisdom to impart to others who may be traveling down this same road.

PD_0101

Mom in the 1980’s

So, I’ll start at the beginning, and pretend that you, Dear Reader, are sitting right here and have never met me or my mother.

Mom and I probably talked to one another several times a week, sometimes daily and sometimes many times a day, all through my life. She lived in a house about three miles from mine, and we shared (almost) everything, but especially insights and learning, and what others would call ‘metaphysical’ or philosophical topics. She, being a Christian Scientist as well as a voracious reader, and me, being somewhat of an ‘egghead’ myself, in our case meant that we didn’t talk about movie Continue reading →

Dementia without medication

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In 2013, a nursing home in Maine eliminated the use of antipsychotic drugs from their dementia ward. That same year, a New York facility went from 38% in 2009 to 11% of their patients on them.  In 2015, California reported only 15% use of the mind-numbing, fog creating meds to subdue people in memory facilities.

In 2012, the Federal Government started regulating the use of antipsychotics in nursing homes. Several studies had shown that use of these drugs caused falls, strokes and even death. Could it possibly be that geriatric psychiatrists are now beginning to see that it is not only possible, but preferrable, to care for the elderly with memory issues in more – yes, I’ll say it – humane and thoughtful ways?

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“We are such stuff as dreams are made on…” Wm. Shakespeare

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When everyone’s gone and the house is quiet, I think about what my life might be like in the future. With Mom sleeping in the next room, I realize that she won’t always be with me, and I will have to go on…

We’ve all got our dreams, and time and tide shape them as the years go by.  I had so many, many over the past 50+ years I couldn’t begin to list them, starting with becoming a ballerina.

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Home nursing

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Out of the thousands of books I have in my mother’s and my combined library, my eyes rested on “Beeton’s Book of Household Management.” I pulled it off the shelf and settled in with a hot cup of peppermint tea.  I glanced through this facsimile of Mrs. Isabella Beeton’s 1861 tome, which outlines observations on all things from the history of fishes to making soups, jellies and puddings, to the management of the housekeeper and domestic servants. I was particularly interested in her chapter on Invalid Cookery, and although  it didn’t shed much light on the subject – at least not much that I could use – there was a passage that I was compelled to duplicate here:

“(2416) All women are likely, at some period of their lives, to be called on to perform the duties of a sick-nurse, and should prepare themselves as much as possible, by observation and reading, for the occasion when they may be required to perform the office. The main requirements are good temper, compassion for suffering, sympathy with sufferers, which most women worthy of the name possess, neat-handedness, quiet manners, love of order, and cleanliness. With these qualifications there will be very little to be wished for; the desire to relieve suffering will inspire a thousand little attentions, and surmount the disgusts which some of the offices attending the sick-room are apt to create. Where serious illness visits a household, and protracted nursing is likely to become a necessary, a professional nurse will probably be engaged, who has been trained to its duties; but in some families, and those not a few let us hope, the ladies of the family would oppose such an arrangement as a failure of duty on their part. There is, besides, even when a professional nurse is ultimately called in, a period of doubt and hesitation, while disease has not yet developed itself, when the patient must be attended to; …”

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