[Exploring Life] A Journey Into Memory: It has now been nearly two months since my father passed away, and five months since my mother passed away. I am learning more and more about the nature and power of memory; the ways in which I interpret and explore my own memories are changing in response to the experience of losing both parents. While I have always understood that memory is more than a mere recollection of facts or a mental romp through past events, I am quite surprised at the vast perceptual landscape that memory embraces. Memory can reveal itself through powerful imagery that envelope our senses is the essence of an experience. Memory can be an echo originating in the resonance of a sound that is retrieved from the past. Memory can simply be a feeling that has no clear reference to either visual image or sound; memory can be a sensation of touch deep within the body. In this post I will share the memory of the immediate aftermath of my parents’ death in order to explore the deeper workings of memory.

Perhaps the most profound experiences in life, such as the loss of loved ones, are those that reanimate and reawaken the latent dimensions of memory. Our memories are not limited to a process of remembering. Memories are inexorably creative, imaginative, and resilient forms of experience. The experience of memory does not simply transport us back into the past; memories redefine the present and influence the shape of our future. We cannot hold on to a memory or freeze it in time since memories are a process of constantly gestating and bringing forth that which is new. Memory and thinking are one unified phenomenon; we think with our memories and our memories imbue every thought we have. The most significant events in our lives forever change the character and personality of our memories.
Continue reading →

[Exploring Life] As We Get Older: Macleans Magazine has published an important article entitled Don’t Seniors Deserve Better? in which Ken McQueen explores the reality of how the elderly are treated in our hospital system. In the years leading up to their deaths, part of the care I provided for my parents was to help navigate them through the hospital system first as their son, then as their son and Power of Attorney. The points Ken McQueen raises in his article resonate with me as being strikingly true. Though criticism is often all too easy an approach to take, my intent here is to in fact take a critical look at my parents experiences in the hospital (nursing homes are just as challenging but will not be discussed here), and to relate those experiences to the issues raised in Don’t Seniors Deserve Better?

My first and most immediate response to Ken McQueen would be, “Yes, based on my experiences with my own parents you are absolutely right.” Not only do seniors deserve better, the glaring and obvious lack of care in “health care” for the elderly is a serious condemnation on our society and culture. In other words, we as a collective group should be ashamed of ourselves – myself included. At the same time, until I had the first-hand experience of caring for my parents through hospital visits, I was in fact completely ignorant of the issues. Why is health care not an essential component of our education? It is sometimes surprising how the confluence of life can place new kinds of relevance and motivation directly and unexpectedly in our path. The other principle we should maintain is that the criticism is focused on “the system” that drives it, not a person or individuals within it. For the most part, I found that the employees of a hospital are in many ways its victims as well. The problem is therefore systemic and the system is in fact “broken.”

Continue reading →

[Exploring Life] An Offering in Memory of My Parents

Though you have left us
Your presence echoes within the landscape of our souls;
Tears caress the beauty of your memory
And we know you have been released from darkness and suffering.

Your absence presses on our hearts,
You touch us gently in spirit.
Grief has become our most trusted advisor
For in loss we are made
And in the solitude of our despair we discover you,
Embracing our fragile sensibilities.

We can sit with each other no longer
The sound of your voices are painfully frail
But the essence of your love remains
Deep within that eternal place
You whisper.

Your home is within our hearts
Your essence is in our souls;
In the beauty and resilience of nature
We find you.

You are now a source
An essence
An inspiration
For those of us that remain
Waiting to one day journey to where you have now arrived.

May your memory remind us of purpose
May your words remind us of meaning,
And may your lives remind us of the gratitude
That is the origin of love
For it is through you that life remains vibrant, mysterious, and beautiful.

[Exploring Life] The Feeling of Death: It seems to me that death leaves an echo within those that survive their loved ones. It is as if a vibration of remembrance stirs within the heart and reverberates feelings of that which can no longer be. The loss of a presence does not result in silence, nor does it create emptiness. To the contrary, the absence of a loved one is at times strikingly vibrant. There is an energy in death that persists throughout life; a music of impermanence whose meaning can only be felt when death whispers near by. Is this a grieving process? Grief, I can state unconditionally, is a formidable experience – an experience that literally and figuratively takes us to our knees and wipes away all of our pedestrian routines and desires to place us firmly in the presence of life. But I now sense there is more to experience than grief, there is more to experience than the intense sorrow and desolate landscape of loss. It occurs to me that there may in fact be a music of absence, a kind of soundscape of loss, that remains within and speaks to us on a primal level.

Sound is not only heard it is felt. Sound is at the very least both aural and tactile. Too often we think of sound as something that belongs only to the domain of the ear. However, sounds literally reaches into our physical bodies and affects every aspect of our physical being. That is, sound penetrates every dimension of who we are physically, mentally and spiritually. The energy inherent in music, especially music that originates in an artistic sensibility, has the power to literally transform our very presence. We commonly think of music as something that occurs externally and moves into us through vibration. However, I wonder if the heart creates a kind of music that originates within the energy that animates our lives. Id it possible that the heart, without the aid of any instrument of any kind, speaks to us through music of its own making?
Continue reading →

[Exploring Life] The Spirit of Death: I wonder… where are my parents now? Various religions refer to an afterlife, and thus death is not an end but a transition in life. There is no clear evidence of an afterlife, that is to say, we cannot directly perceive what happens to our lives after death has taken us. Where is it death takes us? There is energy within each of us – what becomes of it? Do we move into another existence, or do we simply cease to be?

We are all in the midst of a great mystery – our own lives. Does it not in some manner seem strange that we are born into a world, live for an uncertain period of time, and then die into the unknown? Is life accidental, or the plan of an omniscient being who has granted us existence? One thing is certain, and that is that death itself is our most constant and consistent companion throughout our lives. Death does not merely arrive at the end of our lives, it is with us at the very moment of birth. It is with you now, at your side, while you read this. This is not morbid nor despondent, it is simple reality. One of my favorite spiritual artists is John O’Donohue, and in his compelling book Anam Cara he explores the spirituality of death. I thought it would be helpful to explore the recent death of my parents in the light of his insights.
Continue reading →

[Exploring Life] A Matter of Dying: When we lose a person of significance in our lives what is it that remains of their existence? Even though we must inevitably die, each of us also leaves a sense of our presence in those that we had a bond with in life. It is as if presence in the midst of death had an echo; a resonance of a person’s identity and sensibilities that remains alive in the world around us. I believe this is an dimension of memory that brings that which was into the present moment in a manner that is more than merely remembering. This kind of memory invites conversation with the very identity of the departed. Not a conversation, of course, in the literal sense, but a conversation of spirit and in spirit with the essence of identity and the essence of presence itself.

We have created a world that is becoming increasingly difficult to live in. The rules and grammar of culture and society have an unpleasant tendency to place the material before the meaningful. We wallow in material things and mediocre forms of identity; we fear the pursuit of essence, presence, and meaning for these place us firmly in the spiritual domain and therefore require us to face death. Meaning in life cannot be pursued in the absence of death. Yet we denigrate death to vacuous and inane forms of entertainment as exemplified in many video games and certainly across the so-called “entertainment” industry. Our school systems are paralyzed when face with the practical realities of living and remain hopelessly and foolishly silent on the topic of death. We attempt to ignore death, and in this ignorance we fail to learn what it means to be alive in this very strange yet incredibly wonderful world.
Continue reading →

[Exploring Life] In the Presence of Death: When death takes the presence of a loved one from us, it also leaves an eternal echo within our own being. Death is neither friend nor foe, it is simply an inevitable companion throughout life. Death is neither evil nor good, it exists beyond duality. While our fears and insecurities manipulate death into various forms of “entertainment” the reality of death is both pure and absolute. The idea of loss becomes clearly defined in the presence of death. The idea of grief becomes its most penetrating in the presence of death. Carlos Castaneda stated in one of his novels that, “Death is our most trusted adviser.” Death can be trusted in its certainty, and it clearly intends us to learn from it.

I am struck by people that sincerely empathize with those that survive the recently departed. I am struck by people completely ignorant of any meaningful degree of empathy. The various kinds of reactions by those that know a survivor are widely varied. The most empathic know the best they can offer is their complete presence in the moment. The least empathic make vacuous statements that only hide their inability to deal with reality. I say this not to criticize those that are incapable of dealing with the intensity of the inevitables in life; they choose to hide behind repetitious insecurities. But I am struck by the incredible diversity of response in the presence of death.
Continue reading →

[Exploring Life] Recollections of Dying: Death approaches each of us in its own way. We do not know how and when it will tap us on the shoulder to announce its presence, but we do know that inevitably it will come. Another mysterious notion about the approach of death is trying to understand when “dying” actually begins. We might say from the moment we are born, but that is obvious. The idea of dying is in itself mercurial; it is if an apparition that remains on the outermost edge of our peripheral vision begins to ever so slowly come into sight.

Both of my parents died in the IOOF nursing home, just two rooms apart from one another. My mother’s death was a very long, difficult and heart-wrenching one to watch. My father’s death was sudden and occurred in his sleep. Family surrounded my mother during her passing; my father died alone in the night. I have been told be various people that the person dying literally decides how that will happen. The comment seems to have truth as my mother would have wanted to be surrounded by family, while my father would not have wanted to inconvenience people. These experiences, like the birth of my children, change your very identity as well as your orientation to life and the world around you.
Continue reading →

[Exploring Life] The Landscape of Loss: Both of my parents lived what would be considered a long life. My mother died at age ninety and my father at age ninety-two. They lived independently in Sandy Cove Acres for all except the last year or so. Though it can be traced back further in time, I see the sudden and shocking change from living independently to being dependent as the beginning of the end of days. We could trace the beginnings of the decline of independence further back in time as more and more family and professional support had to be brought into the home in order for them to live. This included the formal support of CCAC as well as more support from both my sister and I.

Our ideas about old age are under constant revision. People today are living longer. As with many things in life we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on quantity rather than quality. In this case, we are able to extend the length of a person’s life through medical science, yet I also believe we as a society and culture are both inept and incompetent at maintaining a meaningful quality of life. We go to great effort and cost to artificially extend life through medications, yet we put no where near the same amount of resources into providing continued, never mind improved, quality of life for our seniors. Intensifying the problem is the difficulty in talking about the realities of old age as a family. Both mom and dad had great difficulty in discussing the old age and the inevitable reality of losing independent living. To them, the loss of their home was a near equivalent to the loss of their life.

Perhaps even more painful than the experience of their death are the long series of events leading up to their death. It is a period of great pain and suffering, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Here I learned just how fragile and incomplete medical science as well as a nursing home systems are, that is, they are first and foremost businesses that largely ignores the very humanity of those they intend to serve. They hide behind the clinical and cower from the practical everyday realities of life. I also learned just how fragile my own resilience can become in the face of gradual yet great loss.
Continue reading →

[Exploring Life] A Ritual Goodbye: On Monday January 17, 2011 we buried our father (grandfather and great grandfather) next to our mother (grandmother and great grandmother). My mother’s funeral on October 1 2010 seemed as if it happened only yesterday. Both services were held at St. John’s Anglican Church in Port Dalhousie and the interment at Victoria Lawn Cemetery in St. Catharines, Ontario My mother’s service and interment just three short months ago was nearly identical to my father’s service. In a sense, my father’s funeral celebrated his life, and also the nearly seventy years my parents spent together as a couple. Their deaths also signify the final closing of an entire era in all our lives. Their presence has now turned to absence.

The feelings around this final goodbye are, admittedly, very hard to describe with any precision or clarity. It seems, however, that exploring whirlwind of thoughts and feelings around the funeral services for both my mother and father seems both essential and unavoidable. That is, that deeply seeded sense of intuition we sometimes refer to as the soul seems to be calling in a manner that is both unavoidable and demanding. The experience of both caring for my parents while during their end of days and providing a means to say a final goodbye to both my mother and father is easily one of the most profound experiences in my life.
Continue reading →