just being in the moment

This is so weird for us. Michael still says he doesn't feel like he is dying. 

Yes, he has symptoms. He sleeps a lot...frequently 16 hours a day. He has unexpected bloody noses that are hard to stop. He has occasional nausea. His body is starting to itch a bit. He is getting cramps in multiple parts of his body. His appetite is a bit less and because of the sleep, he is eating less.

He is now losing weight. Yet, because of the Cushings weight gain, he really has a lot of weight to lose before it is really noticeable or much of a problem. I can see it in his face a bit now, though. 

But mostly, he says that he has felt so much sicker, so many other times in his life. None of these feel like impending death to him.

It is surreal. 

The doctor at hospice, looked at his test numbers and said she wouldn't be surprised if he didn't make it until Christmas. He might not, it is true. But we don't see it, he just doesn't feel all that bad. We are beginning to question the prognosis. Could the doctor be wrong? Doctors have been wrong about him before. 
For many years, we kept talking to the doctors that something was seriously wrong with Michael. For 30 plus years they didn't listen to us and he was sick...really sick. They didn't believe it and we had to fight for them to believe us. 

Now we are feeling the opposite. Is he really dying? Or will he still be here in the spring...the summer...beyond? Are the tests accurate or are they just odd because medical tests have often been weird for his body and the rare disease he has? He has lived, for many years, with tests that doctors said were impossible. Could this be one of those times? Or are we in the denial stage of grieving?

I have been doing pretty good with all of this...until this week.

It started with a few random weeping spells at odd times. Then I got annoyed at him for some silly stuff. Then I had a full blown crying spell. I told Michael and we talked and he held me. I was upset enough to forget that the massage therapist was scheduled. Fortunately, she knocked and came in when I didn't get up fast enough to open the door. 

Well, I hate to break it to you all. I am normal. Yep. I am getting into some of the grief stages. I don't think grief is like a ladder though. I think grief is more like a spiral. I have previously reached acceptance on the scale but now I am spiraling though some of the other stages yet again. 

I remember when I was pregnant with my second child, Karma. I was driving one day when I started to cry. I started to cry and couldn't stop. It just kept coming. I knew it was just the hormones and that I wasn't really unhappy. It is weird to be crying for no reason, other than for hormones. Well, this feels similar. 

Michael is really fine with dying.  He has been sick a long time and is just getting tired. Besides, he says he has the easy part. He just lives his life and he won't be dealing with the long term consequences. 

I know I will be fine. We both have done our work together. This is just a part of life.

Michael always says, ”At the beginning of a relationship, the death of that relationship is born”. I have prepared for this and know this.

Yet, here I am weeping. 

And yesterday, I felt that coat of grief settle on my shoulders. It is a cloak that is heavy.  It is hard to move wearing it because it weighs me down. Heavy, very heavy it weighs.

It is a familiar piece of clothing. I have worn it before in my life but most recently it has been stored in the very back of my closet getting dusty.

Michael loves hats. When we first met, he always wore a fisherman's style hat. When he worked doing something dirty, he would wear a ball cap. He has a collection of various hats he wears and has worn over the years. He has his grandfather’s old Bowler hat.  They all are hanging in our living room wall. 

He has one that he wears often. It is a fedora with a pink flower pin that Karma made for him. People love that hat. The pink flower is unexpected and makes him look a bit friendlier.

Michael always says that to wear a hat, a person has to wear the hat, not let the hat wear you.

The same thing goes for grief. I have practice wearing the coat of grief. I know how to wear it, and not let it weigh me down. I am strong enough to bear it, though that does not mean it is not heavy.

So we are still here. Michael says he is living his best life. I get up and do what is front of me to do. I have been looking at only the near future for months now. I put down a lot of my art business planning/ creating because I wanted to spend the time we had left together. I figured I had time later to do my life planning.

Now, I am having to think about straddling the fence of immediate life with future life. Yet, I don't know whether that future life includes Michael. It is an unknown. Decisions have to be made and it is complicated.

But, yet, we all are in that place. Maybe for some it is not as apparent. We think that our spouse will be there tomorrow or next month or years from now. But they may not. We don't know that the stable job we have had for years is going to be lost. Our house burns down. We lose a loved one to a sudden death.

I thought my spouse would be gone soon...now I am not so sure, he may not. 
Only don't know.

Here is a little something written by Michael in his role as a Zen priest December 4, 2004

just being in the moment

One of the things about being in the moment is that it is also often misinterpreted to mean only thinking about the shower you are about to enter, but what if this moment is a moment of planning for your day, your week, or your child's wedding? ..then just plan. Once you can be in the moment, then it becomes a practice to stand up in the moment, (not be blown away by the moment) and finally to take care of this moment (act in a way that is beneficial to you and to all beings...since last time I checked you are also a being).

We all want to be done. We want to get there. but in this case there is the end of this life. When we put it that way there is no particular motivation to finish. Buddha entered Nirvana at the end of his life, just be sure when you seek nirvana you are aware of the prerequisites. "This" becomes the journey, and "this moment" becomes your life. If this moment is one in the bathroom, then just piss, if this moment is on the cushion, then just sit. If this moment is one of confusion and distress, just be confused and distressed. It is perfectly all right to be where you are as you are..this is the freedom you are offered. This whole life journey is a process, and we are all like my kindergarten daughter who thought we all should be able to write our name without going through the process of learning how to do it. Right now you are in the process of learning how to do it, it is a fine place to be. We should not be killing this moment of being in the process for desire for a moment of being at the end of the process. Just do it. Just inquire about the schedule and follow it.

Dogen says the first time you sit, right there the right dharma is manifest. Our practice is a practice of manifesting the right dharma. If in your present moment the right dharma is being in process, then be in process. Relax. Just be here now, wherever here is, including in the bathroom, in the school, on the job, or in your relationship. Take care all of all beings there with you as best you can. Do not fret over a mistake made a moment ago, do not break your arm patting yourself on the back for what you did well a moment ago.
I hope you have met some people who are a step ahead in the process, then you can at least have some faith that the process is one you in fact desire. If this is true then just begin manifesting the right dharma here and now, and in the next moment and the next, and as you practice manifesting the right dharma, eventually your whole life becomes such a manifestation. Just begin the process, and have a little faith in the process. If you bought the idea of process from a book, or from deep dissatisfaction with things as they are, it is my recommendation that you find someone who has some traits you admire. Ask them how they do what they do, then just follow the schedule. This is the function of a teacher, if you choose a teacher where you do not wish to gain what they have...then you have no trust in the process. If there is no trust in the process then there is no ability to relax and undergo the process. (remember the Dalai Lama did not spring forth from a lotus..there was a lot of mud there, including having your country taken away before you even had a chance to rule it as you thought should be done, being a colossal failure as a ruler of a country, and as a result of that failure having your friends murdered and your citizens tortured.)....perhaps before we covet a Dalai Lama-like demeanor we should take a little look at the process and see if we really want to undergo it.

We all see ourselves as capable and smart. We all think we should be able to write our name without going through the process. It would be nice if just because we are capable and smart we could just skip the process of learning. Unfortunately this is not the way it works. Just be in the process of learning..that is where you really are. We should not consider ourselves the bodhisattva, we are the suffering beings the boshisattvas come to aid.

Once a student came upon Katagiri Roshi eating breakfast and reading the newspaper. The student said "Hojo-san, you are always telling us to 'just sit', or 'just write', Yet here you are reading and eating." Katagiri responded, "Yes, but I am just eating and reading the newspaper."

Being a teacher is just another step in the process, do not covet the next step till the time for the next step arrives, the last step (or apparent last step) of the journey is a doozy..I am in no hurry to get there. I, for one, am content with just being in the process. I see no need to pretend I am done, or I am perfect..I am in process, just like everyone else alive today is.

I am not sure what happens when we die, if the process continues, or if it ends, I sure am in no hurry to find out.

Be Well

Fudo
https://scurrilousmonk.blogspot.com/2004/