Feeling unsettled – helpless – someone crying silently in my heart – these days I must keep disciplined focus on the tasks at hand. Teaching private sessions in the back patio or on zoom, getting absorbed in cutting back eager ivy, and weeding out an innocent looking, not easily noticeable but explosive invader plant. Talking to my good friend Bernd in Berlin for an hour and half, his wife is Russian, her mother does not believe there is a war in Ukraine. I take to cooking different congees, with rice, barley… This is one of those times in my life when food needs to be very simple. Playing my cello is the best medicine. 

A friend texts me out of the blue, she needs to find help caring for her ailing elder husband. She remembers me having Araly when caring for my husband Bob, once a week for 4 hours for the last few months of his life. I had decided I want to devote myself full time to this task, but I instinctively know I need help and perspective so I will not drown. Araly tells me stories about the many hair-raising and ridiculous situations she has encountered throughout her career as professional caregiver. We laugh a lot, she is my savior. Today, I give advice to L. who is not sure about anything in her shifting reality at home, the uncertain decline of her husband. Death could come in the next few months or it could be years. Listening, I clearly feel her overwhelm, confusion, concerns about money, boundaries, what is real, what is imagined. I was there myself. I make several calls to find a helper, then speak again to my friend. Each time when we are on the phone, her husband knocks at the door needing something. A smoothie might be good for him he suggests, the old banana tasted awful. I hear his voice fragile, his soft need, the lostness.  “He sounds like Bob,” I observe. She is surprised as I continue: “Listen to his voice, beyond the words, and you will know where his spirit is at. You know how to do that.” 

 

So much is hiding in our voices, in plain sight, beneath the words, within the jumble of vowels and consonants, the tones. What wants to be heard? I remember how good it feels, when giving care, we are needed. Besides mourning Bob, I terribly missed the routines, challenges, and fulfillment of caregiving. Especially in the face of death of loved one, feeling needed, feeling helpful, is a real gift. It brings solace to giver and recipient. In war times so much is needed, in Ukraine everyone steps up, does something to help. Together. This is what makes us most human. We hunger for it. Here too, in America, so much is needed. Today, I am a tiny bit of help.   

The nasturtiums finally showing, not as abundant as last year – on my kitchen window sill, they glow and help me….