To make Comments write directly to Jim at jimt@quixotic.ca
15
Mar
2020
I'll use this space for an event I don't want to, and can't, ignore.
My wife Joan died Friday evening, March 13. She had wanted to die at home, but on Thursday morning she realized that her illness was getting beyond my ability to look after her. Hiring staff to come in was a possibility, but Joan herself felt that she needed to change her mind and check into a hospice. We moved her into Hospice House in Kelowna Thursday afternoon. Although she was very tired and very weak, she was able to take part in conversations with her visitors that afternoon. The next morning she was unconscious, having great difficulty breathing, with no indication that she could respond at all to us or to other visitors. Just before 11:00 she took her last breath and was at peace. If you go now to the full page, you can read her obituary, and the eulogy that Sharon would have given at Joan's memorial service -- which of course cannot happen during this corona virus shutdown of all services.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: eulogy, death, Joan Taylor, obituary
18
Feb
My wife Joan has been handling the gradual decline of her life with astonishing composure. But occasionally, the veneer cracks, and I realize how fragile she is, physically and emotionally. I try to imagine myself into her experience, and can’t – inevitably, I drift off into my story, not hers.
So as once before, I’ve chosen the ruthless structure of classical haiku – three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables – to enforce some discipline on my monkey mind.
Walking on water
ice fractures under my feet
fall into nothing
Categories: Poetry
Tags: dying, death, unknown
30
Jan
’m not sure what I believe about life after death. I’m quite sure that I don’t believe in life before life.
When I was about ten, my mother told me that my father had proposed to another woman, before he met my mother.
He had finished his Master’s degree. He had signed up to go to India as a missionary with the United Church of Canada. He invited this other woman to go with him.
She said no.
By a fortunate coincidence for me, my mother went to India about the same time, as a Presbyterian missionary from Northern Ireland. My parents met at language school. Six years later they had me.
Even at the age of ten, it occurred to me that if that other woman had said “Yes,” I wouldn’t be who I was. I would be someone else. Maybe even –horrors – a girl!
Tags: birth, death, Souls, conception, predestination
13
Jul
2019
I lost my closest friend a week ago. Although we don’t normally describe a dog as a friend.
But over the last 12 years, I probably spent more time with her than with any human being. She was always happy to take part in whatever I might be doing. Always ready for a walk or a hike, a swim or a car ride. To anywhere. She listened to my
musings without contradicting me or correcting me. She seemed to prefer my company to anyone else on earth.
“Friend” almost seems too weak a word for her.
Her name was Phoebe. A Chesapeake Bay Retriever. She adopted my wife and me when she was two. And from then on gave us total devotion.
But age caught up with her. Joints that once could run and swim all day developed painful arthritis. By the end of her life, she couldn’t put any weight on her left front paw. Her right hind leg tended to collapse without warning, leaving her sprawled awkwardly on the road, or tumbling down the stairs on her back.
We knew her time had run out. We made an appointment with the vet.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: dog, death, Phoebe
May
I woke during the night, a while ago, with my mind racing. It was very dark. Heavy clouds hid the moon and stars. Our rural area has no street lights. And at 3:00 a.m., no neighbouring houses had any lights on.
Rather than tossing and turning, and probably waking Joan, I got out of bed, and went to our living room where I could look out the front windows.
I could see a few lights across the lake. I could make out the vague reflective sheen of the lake, the darker bulk of the hills on the far side, some humps that might be bushes in our garden.
Nothing moved. It was very peaceful. Almost holy.
` After a while, calmed and quieted, I decided I could go back to bed.
Tags: darkness, dying, death, doorways