I needed to bring my study under control. I needed to throw a ton of things out, and get a serious desk. I need to take Froggie’s eternal advice and “Plunk My Magic Twanger.” I needed some space around my head, Maria’s hard work and imagination made this happen.
My study had become a living monument to my Dyslexia, piles of books, papers, printouts, and an odd assortment of muses and statues.
Most of all of that is gone and my head has some space to breathe. More work to do but it is so much better.
I think of Carol Gulley when I read this passage, “Love Deeply,” by Henry Neuwen in his book The Inner Voice Of love.
“When those you love leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply. The pain that comes from deep love makes your love ever more fruitful. It is like a plow that breaks the ground to allow the seed t take root and grow into a strong plant.”
Carol’s heart is bending, but I think it will not break. There is an inner strength there that is as powerful as death in many ways.
For the past few weeks I’ve watched my friend Ed Gulley slowly die from brain cancer and my friend Carol Gulley grow stronger and sadder by the day, as she comes to terms with the fact that Ed will not be with us much longer.
Every day, she sees her great love die a little more, every day she gains strength and wisdom. Every day, she stops seeking miracles.
The hospice phrase for Ed’s condition is “in transition,” when the process of actively dying begins, and the body’s brain, heart and other organs begin to slowly shut down. Every day for the past few weeks, I have seen Ed grow thinner, sicker, weaker and less coherent.
Ed has complained – sometimes emotionally – about the pain he is feeling, but it seems to come from no single place, but everywhere. It seems to come from the cancer itself, spreading through his body.
Carol seen her farmer begin to fail, of course, closer and more often than anyone.
Ed is the center of her universe and he has defined, shaped and filled her life for nearly a half century. They had plenty of troubles over their long marriage, but they were very much a couple, partners on their farm through many years of devotion and grueling work.
A love story.
Today, Ed could barely speak, he is sinking into transition, he is on morphine and other medications, he is rarely coherent and sleeps now almost all day, subsisting on a diet of ice cream and chocolate pudding.
It is hard for him to speak, swallow, talk, or stay awake for more than a few seconds. He can’t sit up.
He says he is in pain, the but the hospice staff believes he is feeling the “other pain,” the awful sensation of being immobile for days and feeling one’s organs begin to stop functioning. When I think about it, it is painful.
Curiously, as Ed becomes less active and aware, the process becomes more merciful. Hospice is doing it’s job, so is Carol, together they are making him comfortable and he is moving beyond fear and confusion into another kind of space. He no longer asks for help in dying, he no longer asks what is happening to him.
He is moving on.
Penny, the hospice aide came to wash him and check on him and make sure he is comfortable. She talks to him constantly, touches him, tells him just what she is doing, gives him some ice cream and cold water.
In the hours that I was there, he only spoke to me once, and said in a hoarse whisper, “thanks,” after I read to him. I did not think he was awake.
Carol, who suffers from depression, severe at times, is facing the saddest and most harrowing time of her life. I can only describe her as unwavering, even as what is happening is beyond her worst nightmare.
She is a rock, as is her family.
Carol has day by day come to terms with the fact that Ed’s time with her and his children and grandchildren is getting short, that he really is going to die, that there will be no more trips, no more walks, no more sketches or drawings, no more painted vases.
Darkness is a good and perhaps necessary teacher. When all is said and done, we can’t avoid it, deny it, explain it or rationalize it. We can succumb or be led into grace.
Carol can say the words now, to herself and to him. You have cancer, you are dying, there is nothing we can do, we will meet in a better place. She couldn’t say that until just a few days ago. Stronger, sadder.
Carol has begun thinking about Ed’s funeral wishes and even thinking about her life beyond him and their marriage. She hates to even think that way, and she hates to talk about his death as being inevitable, she says she can’t imagine a life without him, but she also says she knows she will survive. I think she is beginning to believe it.
Carol always refers to Ed as My Farmer, she never refers to herself as a farmer.
But she is a farmer, in every way.
She is a strong and powerful woman, she was on the tractor as much as any man, out in the field all day, but she comes from another time, when women looked at men and themselves in a different way. She saw it as Ed’s farm, she was there to support him. She was My Farmer’s wife.
She is eager to return to my writing class, she loves to sit and talk with the powerful women who are coming to see her.
Her writing on her blog suggests to me that even as she suffers, there is also an awakening. She intends to have a meaningful life, for her sake, for her family, for Ed’s memory.
A couple of days she couldn’t even talk about administering medications to Ed, especially morphine, now she is doing what she needs to do and fully accepting what is happening. Today I sat with Ed for several hours while Carol went to see a orthopedist about her torn ligaments.
I was holding my breath. This would be a horrible time for Carol to undergo surgery.
She was dreading the visit. Instead, they found an infection in her knee that was drained, the doctor felt her ligaments could heal if she rested and got treatment. I was relieved to hear that, so was she. No surgery for now.
The spiritual question is always can you stand erect in your pain, your hour of loneliness, your fears. As long as you remain standing, you can speak freely to others, reach out to them, give to them and receive from them.
Carol is standing erect in her pain.
My reading for her tomorrow will be from Love Deeply, and for Carol. I”ll leave this book with her.
“The more you have loved and have allowed yourself to suffer because of your love, the more you will be able to let your heart grow wider and deeper. When your love is truly giving and receiving, those whom you love will not leave your heart even when they depart from you.
They will become part of your self and thus gradually build a community within you. The longer you live, there will always e more people to be loved by you and to become part of your inner community.
This the pain of absence and death can become fruitful. Yes, as you love deeply the ground of your heart will be broken more and more, but you will rejoice in the abundance of the fruit it will bear.”
Yesterday, I sat with my friend Ed Gulley for five hours while Carol went to see her granddaughter win a ribbon for the Bejosh Farm cow Atta-tude. Among other things, I was struck by the behavior of the Gulley’s many animals – four Australian Shepherds, two rescue cats, and a 14-year-old Cockatiel named Ozzie.
I am curious to see how they react to Ed’s illness.
Ed always called him “Oz.” Until a few days ago, Ed and Oz talked back and forth all day, Ed could get Oz to dance, chirp and talk back, they have been talking to each other for a long time. This weekend Ed, who has brain cancer, stopped talking and fell into a deep sleep from which he rarely emerges.
And Oz stopped talking also.
Several times during my stay (I’m going back this afternoon) I went over to talk to Oz, he seemed quite interested in me, but had no interest in talking to me. He seemed sad to me, and I wondered again, about animal emotions.
What do these dogs and cats and this bird understand about what is happening to Ed? Are they sad? Anxious? Grieving?
It is almost an article of faith in the animal world now to believe that animals have emotions just like humans do, and they feel the same things we do. Many believe they mourn and grieve the way we do, and as we love and need our pets and animals more in our fragmented society, we also are coming to believe they are just like us.
I love animals, but in a different way. I love them because they are not like us.
They don’t kill one another for no reason (except for cats, maybe) they don’t envy each other, sue each other, tweet obnoxious and hateful things to each other. I love them because they are different, if they were just like us and have our precise emotions, I wouldn’t want to have them around me. Just watch the news.
I will be honest and say I don’t know what Ed’s dogs and other animals are feeling. It is clear they are disoriented and unsettled, they certainly have the intelligence and senses to know he is sick – he looks, smells, acts and sounds differently than the person they knew all of their lives.
I’ve researched this subject quite a bit in my writing and talked to many scientists and biologists. Almost every one of them says pretty much the same thing, and that is also the way I feel about it:
Animals do have emotions, of course, but animals and humans feel emotions very differently.
“When we see a cat purring or a dog wagging it’s tail in joy, we shouldn’t expect that it’s feeling what we are feeling when we experience joy,” said Joseph LeDoux, a respected neuroscientist at New York University in a recent speech. “I’m not saying that other animals don’t have feelings, just that they are different between different species of animals.”
And different, he added, from people.
Everyone knows what emotion is, I think, until they are asked to define it. There is little, if any consensus in the scientific or psychological world about what emotion is, and how it differs from instinct and other aspects of mind and behavior.
Rather than learn about what animal emotions are actually like, we tend to simply put our emotions into our head and claim we know them.
Bark Magazine asked in a 2008 article whether animals have emotions. The subject stumps many biologists and behaviorists, but it didn’t stump Bark:
“One of the hottest questions in the study of animal behavior is, “Do animals have emotions?” And the simple and correct answer is, “Of course they do.” Just look at them, listen to them and, if you dare, smell the odors that pour out when they interact with friends and foes. Look at their faces, tails, bodies and, most importantly, their eyes. What we see on the outside tells us a lot about what’s happening inside animals’ heads and hearts. Animal emotions aren’t all that mysterious.”
Curious. They are plenty mysterious to me.
Of course animals have emotions, but what are they and how do they differ from ours?
I have no real concept of what animal emotions are like. When it comes to dogs, we believe what we need to believe. We get the dogs we need, we understand them in the way we need to understand them and make us feel better.
In the animal world, the rarest statement you will ever hear is “I don’t know.”
It seems everyone knows or thinks they know what animals are feeling and thinking, especially dogs and cats.
I do not know, and I am forever trying to piece it together.
People often cite the elephant for example to show that animals grieve the way humans do. But biologists caution that what we see as grieving can also be seen as instinct, the natural disorientation and obsessive behavior that occurs in almost any species when a herd animal or mother is separated from the herd or a child or when an animal in the herd dies.
On You Tube it looks like human mourning. But many neuroscientists believe the truth is more complex. They have emotions for sure, but what are they really like and how do we define them?
Animals have no idea what death is – we are the only species that does – so while they might be deeply troubled or unmoored by the death of another member of their species, they really can’t be mourning in the sense that we use the term, any more than Dr. LeDoux’s cat can be feeling joy the way we do.
Is Oz grieving for Ed? Does he know that Ed is dying? His family says yes, of course he is. They are much affected by what they see as the dogs unquestioning loyalty to their human.
I am not sure I see the same thing they see.
The dogs are eating as usual, sleeping as usual, going about their daily routines, hunting for hedgehogs, rolling in much, begging for food.
Ed is lying immobile in his bed, and some of the dogs are staying with him, as Red does when I am sick and lying in bed.
Ed’s dogs are older, they love to lie around him and people in the family. When Carol sits at the kitchen table, they gather around her too, that’s where the food is.
Most of the time, they are lying around in the usual places. Often, there is one sleeping under Ed’s hospital bed. Everyone attributes this to unflagging devotion. But my dogs always like to sleep in or under any bed I am in, they are den animals, it’s a good place to sleep.
Does Red know when I am sick, or does he know that I am lying still in bed, and isn’t it in his nature to be close to me, especially when I am still? He lies next to me in my study all the time.
Often, I think, how loyal he is, he knows that I am sick. That makes me feel good.
What is the line between instinct and conscious emotion, especially in an animal without our language or understanding of sickness and death?
What I see is Oz, a bright creature of instinct and ritual, whose familiar routines have suddenly been shattered. Ed no longer comes and goes, he just stays lying in bed. Nothing about him is familiar to Oz, who seems to not know what to do.
Ed no longer calls out to Oz or answers him, as he always did. His voice is different, when he speaks at all, and it is not clear to me that Oz even recognizes him. When Ed’s son-in-law came into the room, Oz started chirping and dancing around, he knows Tony well and often talks to him.
If I were asked to describe the Oz I see, I would first say he looks sad to me, and then think about it, and say he is confused and disoriented. His familiar patterns and rituals have been upended, he would surely sense something is wrong and different, and is not certain how to behave.
When animals become confused, they are often still, alert, silent; they wait to re-configure and re-learn their world, that is how they survive and adapt.
Yet when I looked at Oz yesterday, the first thing I thought was that he is sad. And I thought that was touching and beautiful that was. How easy it is to see animals in that way, it is my way of thinking. It is comforting to me.
I often think of Henry Beston’s beautiful writing about animals in Outermost House: Animals he wrote, live by voices we shall never hear. “They are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
When we insist they are just like us, we trivialize and demean them, and lose our opportunity to understand them in a better and wiser way.
Seeing Oz only as sad is how anthropomorphizing works, of course.
They can’t talk and tell us what they feel and we can’t go inside of their heads. They don’t have our language, and we don’t have theirs, so is simple and natural enough for us to project what we are thinking onto them.
Ed and Carol Gulley’s granddaughter Kaylah were going to the Schaghitocoke Fairgrounds today to show the one year old steer Attitude, an animal Ed and Carol helped birth a year ago. Ed always wanted one of his cows to win their show class.
After much prodding and encouragement from her children, Carol agreed very reluctantly to go. We all knew it would be good for her to get out of the farmhouse for an afternoon. She agreed and asked me if I could sit with Ed for the four or give hours that she would be gone.
I was happy to do it.
She showed me where the medicines were, I know how to administer them through the mouth.
She showed me where the pudding was, and the ice cream, and the cold water, these are the only three things Ed is eating or drinking now.
I studied the morphine syringes and other medications in case I would have to use them.
I had the phone number of several family members to call if I needed them, or if anything changed with Ed.
Almost all of the grandchildren showed up to go with Carol to the fair, it was very much a family gathering and I knew Carol would love it and hate to miss it.
When they all left, I was alone with Ed, perhaps for the first time since we had lunch after he was diagnosed with brain cancer.
It was quiet, I sat next to the wind, a soft breeze blew in from across the pasture. Ed signed and groaned once in a while, but mostly slept.
I brought two books: Only To Sleep, a new Philip Marlowe novel written by Lawrence Osborne, and The Inner Voice, A Journey Through Anguish To Freedom by one of my favorite spiritual writers, Henri J.M. Nouwen.
I often read chapters of Nouwen’s book to Ed.
This is the passage I read aloud to him from Nouwen today, I don’t know if he heard it or not, I think he did hear some of it.
“There is a deep hole in your being, like an abyss. You will never succeed in filling that hole, because your needs are exhaustible. You have to work around it so that gradually the abyss closes.
Since the hole is so enormous and your anguish so deep, you will always be tempted to flee from it. There are two extremes to avoid; being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.”
So this is it, I told Ed, we are dancing around the abyss. We can’t be swallowed up by it or so distracted by the pain that we can’t find the peaceful or healing place.
Every five or ten minutes, Ed’s eyes were open and he would look at me, and try to speak. Sometimes he could, sometimes he couldn’t. Mostly, he was no longer making sense. He knew I was there, he knew who I was, he said hello.
Once or twice he asked me what was wrong with him, and how he might be able to get better. At these times, he seemed to forget that he had cancer. I would tell him he had brain cancer, it was not curable, he would soon be going to a better place.
Once, he said he wanted to die. I said he would, it was up to nature now, and the God he believes in.
“Oh,” he would say, or “thanks,” and then drift back to sleep. I dave him cold water two or three times, and pudding twice. He did not ask for or seem to seek any medications.
As I said in the chair, the Gulley dogs came up to me one at a time – Grissom, Minnie, Miss Putz, Lovey. They all wanted to be scratched, and so did the cats, Shiver and Ophelia. I had the sense they were all anxious and confused, they seemed to want reassurance.
Ozzie, Ed’s much loved Cockatiel – the two chatter back and forth all the time, and as recently as last Saturday. Ed doesn’t talk to Oz any longer, and the Cockatiel is silent, that is sad.
June, a neighbor from down the road, came to the door with some fresh-made farm biscuits, and a giant crockpot full of soup. It was the biggest bowl of soup I’ve ever seen.
I was hungry, I hadn’t eaten anything that day and the biscuits practically melted in my mouth. I sat by the window and read the novel.
Carol and her children have not had to cook a meal in a month, every day neighbors and farmers appear with enormous quantities of food for dinner.
I was struck by the silence.
It had never been so silent during the time I have been visiting Ed in his hospital bed. His sons were out in the field, Maggie was with Carol, the grandchildren were all with them. The farmhouse had a stillness to it that I had not encountered before, and I felt very much at peace, sitting a few feet from my semi-conscious and dying friend.
I felt I was where I was supposed to be, it felt like and spiritual time for me, I hope Ed felt some of the same thing in some way. I know the person I know is gone, but we are still close, there is still a bond of trust and openness between us.
I don’t go into that deep hole.
Ed asked me when he could go out and milk the cows and I said nothing. Sometimes it is eerie and disquieting when I realize who it is I’m talking to, when I see that it is the cancer speaking to me, not Ed, and that sends the hairs on my neck straight up, I’m face to face with this evil thing that is killing my friend, I am talking and it is talking back, using Ed’s voice and brain.
I shook that off and decided not to go there.
I felt lonely, and yet calm and very much at peace, I could hear the wind whistling softly across the hayfield just outside the window. Somewhere out back, I heard the cows sounding mournful and remote.
I very much love being alone, it is always a spiritual experience for me, and Ed somehow seemed to join in this with me, even though he didn’t speak or even sit up.
We were just there, alone together. It was a deeply spiritual feeling.
Whenever I feel lonely – and I think I was feeling Ed’s profound sense of being alone as death approaches – I am humbled, I could almost touch it.
When I feel lonely, I try to find the source of this feeling, I either run away from my loneliness or dwell on it. When I dwell on it, I feel sad, worse. The spiritual task for my time with Ed was not to escape or deny the loneliness of this time, but to find the source of it.
With my heart I search for the place where my loneliness comes from without fear. This is life, I think, and I respect life. Ed had a good and long life, and yes, he might have lived longer, but so do many of the people who die. We don’t get to decide when we die, or when others die. I can only bow to the awesome mystery of life.
While Ed and I sat together in that beautiful and holy breeze, a couple of farmers, but men with weathered faces, came into the house – the door is always open – and spoke to Ed. I could tell they were nervous, uncomfortable around death. So they told jokes. They asked where the hookers were, where we were hiding the beer, why were we partying so loud.
This is what men do when don’t know what to say, when they look at Ed shrinking into himself and moaning and saying incomprehensible things. They offer him gossip and news of their farm, then leave. They don’t stay long. Usually, they punch him lightly in the arm before they go. I recoil at these jokes, but then I realize this is the dialogue of fear. We are all taught to fear death.
The time rushed past me, I dozed for a bit in the chair next to Ed, we were both napping and sleeping together. I went to get him some pudding, and some ice water. I held the straw up to his lips so he could drink the water, then gently and carefully spooned the pudding into his mouth. Then I got a washcloth and wiped the excess pudding off his mustache.
I felt close to Ed at those moments, he was my brother again, my dear friend. I thought of all the talks we had, all the dinners, all the excitement about our friendship and why and how it had occurred. It seemed a miracle to both of us. I found that I was not only not uncomfortable caring for Ed in this way, it was deeply satisfying to me. It is our way of talking now, our only way.
At 3 p.m., Penny, the hospice aide came, competent and cheerful. Penny has been doing this for 18 years, she knows her stuff. S
he said she was going to bathe Ed and rearrange the bed and sheets. I thought of Ed and his dignity, so I went out of the room and drove to the Moses Vegetable stand brought fresh-picked sweet corn, beans, blueberries and watermelon.
People bring pots of soup and trays of sandwiches to the Gulleys, so I bring corn and fresh vegetables and fruit. Every visit, i look to see what is left, and know these are good things to b ring.
By the time I got back, Penny had washed Ed and changed the sheets on his bag, and also changed his catheter bag. She talked openly and easily with him, explained what she was doing, was cheerful and confident.
He barely replied. He continues to sink.
We talked about Ed and she reminded me that what I heard was more and more the cancer speaking and not Ed. She said she saw that we were both comfortable with each other and safe in the silence. I think death can sometimes be beautiful, but I also imagine it can be the loneliness thing on the earth. In fact, I felt that sometimes today.
Carol came back in the late afternoon, eager to check on Ed, and happy to tell us that Kayla won her class with Attitude, she won a ribbon. Ed, she said, would loved to hear that, he has wanted that for years.
She got busy right away feeding him, talking to him, wiping his brow, touching him. I saw the waves close around her again, it was time for me to leave.
Tomorrow, Carol has to see a orthopedist to see about her torn ligaments. She said if her daughter Maggie can’t make it, she might have to ask me to stay. I am pleased that Carol can ask me for help, that is one of the hardest things for her to do.
She never asks for help, it is a sign of her growth and evolution that she can do it now.
It is a gift to me, I think she is beginning to see that.
She thanked me for our talks this weekend about being honest with Ed. It was weighing on him how she could do it, and now, she says, she has figured it out the words and it has taken a great burden off of her and helped Ed to understand the reality around him and be reassured.
All good, if that’s the right word. this is a process, and Carol and Ed are in it.
Beware: Prudes and Stuffpots And Old Farts And People With Impressionable Children. Those Vulvas Are Flying Again!
Maria has struck again with her Flying Vulvas, and on two fronts. She put 14 brand new Flying Vulva potholders up on her Etsy page this afternoon, and within seconds, all but one were gone.
I think the last one is still there (25$ plus shipping), but I don’t think Flying Potholder XII will be there for long. Oh, that Maria…Why won’t she stick to vintage hankies and leave Vulvas a secret.
A number of horrified people squawked at me (and her) when I wrote about her Flying (for freedom) Vulvas, calling them “gross,” or “disgusting,” or dangerous to immigrants and their children.
Traci literally lost her lunch over the Vulvas, she resigned in furious protest from my blog (which is neat, since you can’t really join it) and stormed off to a more moral and less revolting sight, spewing hateful e-mails in her wake.
I told her I wished her peace, and offered that no Vulva that I knew of had ever killed or seriously injured anyone. She did not respond, I referred her to the National League Of Decency. Boy, was she on the wrong blog.
Another woman (really!) scolded me for wanting to expose my genitalia to the world. Now it was my turn to be horrified, I would never do that to people. Maria’s Vulva’s are quite beautiful and artistic. I might just go buy the last one.
Some rational and civil people pointed out that they wouldn’t wish to have a Vulva potholder hanging up on their walls, but they had no problem with Maria making them or my mentioning them. In our edgy and polarized country, I guess this passes for progress.
I don’t really understand that the many people who just don’t want Vulvas hanging in their kitchens – lots of people do – can’t just not buy one and move along. Social media are spawning legions of outrage and grievance addicts.
As I pointed out some of my disgusted and grossed out readers, they should go online and check out the genitalia hanging up in the Vatican Museum and countless churches in America. For thousands of years, artists have painted penises and vaginas, as if they were actually part of the human experience.
Oh, that’s right. They are. Where do people think Jesus came from?
I hate to think where we would all be without Vulvas.
I guess the answer is nowhere, we wouldn’t exist without Vulvas. I find them beautiful and honest and deserving of being seen and considered. And I am truly sorry at the women I’ve heard from who find such an elemental part of their bodies gross and disgusting.
What have we done to women?
As if Maria, that soul of sin and depravity, wasn’t in enough trouble, I wrote a piece about my deep love and appreciation for Vulvas, those beautiful flowers of feeling and sensitivity and pride. Vulva decals are on the way, and more Vulva potholders as well.
She is onto something and knows it.
I promised to never take photos of the donkey Vulvas. As the refugee soccer kids, they seemed more interested in pizza and the Avengers, they found the Vulva potholders a bit boring, but seemed to survive exposure to them intact.
Ali wants one.
I should point out though, that this is all deceiving, as much glee Maria and I derive from poking the pompous. Maria has sold out both sets of Vulvas, (cept maybe the one), people really are loving them, buying more than one, sending them to their friends, grasping their importance as symbols of femininity and freedom.
And of course, Maria immediately ordered 100 quite beautiful Vulva stickers, they will also be sold on her Etsy Page, along with other potholders.
We don’t see any evidence that the manufacture and sale of these Vulvas has set humanity back much, and Maria loves her Vulvas, it is just what she thinks her art ought to be doing, celebrating and connecting with women and people who love and respect women.
And sometimes, stirring the pot for women.
You can follow Maria’s nefarious artwork on her blog.
