The cats and the chickens take turns hanging out in the rocking chairs Maria and I put on the back porch for us, we have never sat in either one of them, not for a minute. The gray chicken – we were losing so many hens that we decided to stop naming them, and since that decision, we have not lost one – looks through the window at me curiously at me sometimes, trying to figure out perhaps, if I am a large bug or a strange rooster. We don’t have much to do with one another, these chickens and I, but we are accepting of each other, we don’t get in each other’s way. Chickens are like that, they want nothing from me but food, they don’t even want to huddle with Maria each day like the other animals. Animals teach me a lot about fear.
At some point in each day, I realize, I am afraid of something. What if my cold isn’t just a cold? When will be pay the price for having given up our retirement money or savings when we got divorced and the recession hit? How will Maria fair when I die first, as I almost surely will? Will our government ever simply function again, as it seemed to do for most of my life? Will my daughter be happy and secure in her life in New York? Will I age well or start to go to pieces one day, betrayed by my dependable body?
It’s interesting because these thoughts used to run through my head all day and most of the night, I lived in a feverish state of fear almost all of my life. Now they are just thoughts that pop in my head from time to time, they always seem strange to me, they are like flares, bursts of light. There is something narcissistic about fear, it made me selfish, self-centered, oblivious and uncaring sometimes.
I notice that people who feel fear a lot can sink into themselves, forget that all of us feel fear, every day of our lives, whether we have money or not, whether we are secure or not. Fear, like death, like joy and sorrow, is a part of the human condition, I think it forces us to be aware of the world beyond ourselves. My cold is a cold. It will pass. I would not trade a moment of my life now for what may come in the future. If hospice work teaches me nothing else, it is that retirement money doesn’t bring security. My daughter has her life in hand, she will live it as she chooses, she can care for herself. Maria proves every day of her life that she can take care of herself, often of me, and a lot of other things as well. I will age as well as I choose to age, it is up me, not a doctor or government agency.
It was so important for me to understand that every single person in the world has it worse than me, I feel nothing that everyone does not feel, I will not speak ill of my life or live beyond today. Just like my gray hen. I am watching her too. Living beyond my fear has helped me to heal and re-connect with the world. Fear is just a space to cross.