The Fear of Dying

I have been thinking about fear of death lately. Watching my cat slowly die from lymphoma has convinced me that this fear is not exclusive to only human beings. When the cat's health goes downhill after his treatments, he acts very fearful. He even will rush about a bit, as if he thinks he can outrun the bad feelings he's experiencing. He wants to be held, and does not want to be left alone. It's different from when he just feels puny. It's more like he senses that death is near and he needs to escape it.

My mother died in 1995 of lung cancer. It was the quick-acting kind of cancer. Even after some pretty aggressive chemo-therapy and radiation treatments, she still only lived 7 months from her diagnosis. About 5 weeks before she died, I moved in with her and Daddy. He needed help. She was on hospice, by they only come twice a week, at least that was the case back in 1995. Those first weeks after I was there, before she became semi-comatose, she seemed afraid to sleep. She sat up through the early morning hours, staring at the television. She watched endless movies that she had taped on her VCR. After it became too difficult for her to get up and put in a new tape, she watched straight television, whatever channel her finger happened to scroll to. Late night commercials then could get a little bit lurid, sexy, half-dressed babes extolling the watcher to call them for phone sex, or psychics with fake Jamaican accents, wanting to run up you credit card. Mother stared at all of this stuff, unceasingly, falling asleep by default sometimes, sitting up in her hospital bed. She seemed to feel more secure in her aliveness with the noise of the television blaring.

It's something that we all take for granted somehow, that we are alive, that we will have tomorrow, that our hearts will beat and our lungs will expand and contract silently. As we get older we start thinking in a fleeting way about the fact that most of our life is probably behind us. And then we KNOW the longer half IS behind us. And once we get to my dad's age, or beyond, it must be something we think about in a clandestine way every single day.

I went house-hunting with my aunt this week. She's in her early 70s but is vibrant and in excellent health. She walks regularly, fishes, and until just a couple of years ago, still went mountain climbing. And yet, she kept eliminating certain houses because the stairs were too steep and in a few years she wouldn't be able to maneuver them, or mentally checking off the places that already had bars in the baths or railings along outdoor paths. She's thinking about her death, but indirectly, the way we all do during our lives.

There's probably no cure for the death fear. I've felt it most of my life, tried to imagine the world without me in it. Since I'm a pragmatist, not given to faith in an afterlife, it sometimes frightens me to my core to think about dying. Will I know, consciously, when the end is at hand. I hope for it to be fast and sudden, without unyielding pain. There's a very good book about the end of life. I recommend it to everyone who wants to know the science of dying. The title is How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin Nuland.

Onward ....

Bear Depredations

The motion light outside the bedroom window came on at 5:00 this morning. It woke me and both the animals. My SO is out of town so the dog and the cat are sleeping with me. I listened hard but couldn’t hear anything outside. Still, I couldn’t go back to sleep either. I got up and came into the living room. I turned on the light  outside on the deck. Saw nothing. I turned on the light over the driveway. Still nothing. I went into the laundry room and turned the light on outside the back door. Nothing there either. I suppose it could have just as easily been a skunk that made the motion light go off, but I am deathly scared of bears.

Night before last, a bear broke our cylindrical bird feeder off the metal bracket where it hung from one of the pine trees near the deck. The bracket was bent in half, the hook on top of the feeder was straightened, and the bale on the lid was misshapen. Of course, the feeder was completely empty. On the same night, my across-the-street neighbor had a visit from a bear that left tracks all over their concrete patio, including some that led right up to the window to their downstairs guest bedroom. 

Saturday night, about dusk, I ran into a big cinnamon bear at the dumpster. I was headed there to drop off a bag of garbage. He was standing on the rim of the dumpster, looking at me. I had the dog in the car with me, so I rolled down the window for her to get a good look. I am trying to get her to bark at them, but she’s as scared of them as I am. The bear looked at us and dropped down behind the dumpster where I couldn’t see him. I took my bag of garbage back home with me. I’m sure the bear went back to the dumpster as soon as I left. Every time I go there lately, bear scat is on the ground. And we have had scat in our back yard as well.

I friend who lives in the next county has been plagued by bears this year. She has lived in this area for 16 years and says this is the worst bear-year she has seen yet. At her house, a bear mangled the screen over her kitchen window trying to get in. On a recent morning, her doorbell rang, and when she opened the door, there stood the bear. He had been leaning close to her door and his paw touched off the bell. 

After that, she called the New Mexico Fish and Game department. They came out and set a trap. Within an hour, she heard the trap go off. There was a bear inside the trap but not her screen-mangling, doorbell-ringing bear. The wardens came to haul off the trapped bear. The next day, they brought back the emptied trap. Again, the trap went off, and again, it was not her bear. That bear is still on the loose.

Down in our valley, a woman with goats has had five of them killed by bears. In a small town 11 miles from here, a man had a llama killed. They are hungry and they are on the prod. It’s their gorging time, when they up their caloric intake to about 20,000 calories a day to prepare for hibernation. This year with the wildfires and the drought, they are having a difficult time finding their natural forage, so they're combing decks and garbage dumpsters. Meanwhile, I am having dreams about bears. It’s constantly on my mind. If I’m going to live here full-time, I’m going to have to get over this phobia, but how? Today I think I’ll drive into town and see if the local sporting goods stores has bear pepper spray in stock. Maybe with some of that in hand I’ll stop feeling so defenseless.

Onward ....

Back in Paradise

So much has happened, or seems to have happened, since the last time I posted here. We did list the house in Texas, and before we left, it had already been shown three times. Since then, its been shown several more times, and our real estate agent believes an offer is just around the corner. I have such mixed feelings but know that it’s the right thing to do financially. I will miss my great big house, with all its storage and that huge kitchen, gee! I will probably never have such a nice place again.

But then we arrived here, in the mountains, on Sunday and my mood, my sense of purpose, just completely changed. I stepped out of the car at the post office in the valley, just to see if we had any mail while we were gone. The fresh, light air hit me, wrapped me in good feeling. A little breeze was billowing. Everything has greened up since we were here, a big change in just a little over two weeks. It seems like where I belong.

The cat and the dog both got lively in the car as we headed across the valley and up the mountain. When we turned down our little tree-lined lane, the cat was bobbing his head, trying to see around the dog, who was galloping about the car. I rolled the windows down so they could both feel the cool air, too. By the time we pulled into our driveway, all three of us were excited. 

The dog bounded out, remembering her squirrels, and immediately began to hunt for them. The cat was meowing as I carried him in his taxi up to the backdoor. As soon as I let him out, he went in search of his water bowl and his litter box. I had to hustle to get things arranged for him and then he went to the front door, wanting out on his deck. It did me good to see him so animated. He’s been declining so steadily since the beginning of the month. I believe he is happier here where he is able to go outside for long periods of time.

I feel so much more relaxed here, so much more myself. Away from the distractions and disasters. Our friends here began to welcome us back “home” as they walked by with their dogs or were just out walking. It doesn’t quite feel like home yet, but I think it will come to more as we are able to bring our things from Texas and surround ourselves with them. 

We went to a town hall meeting in the community center last night. The presentation was on fire evacuation. There are so many things to learn about living in the mountains. Afterwards, we walked over to the lodge restaurant and sat with friends out on the patio, had a Blue Moon, then dinner, visited. We like everybody here, and there’s no pressure attached. If we want to socialize, the opportunity is there. If we don’t want to, or are not in the mood to, then there’s no judgment either. We’ve got tickets for a concert on the 26th, with a larger group, for dinner and then to the city and the university auditorium for the concert -- “Music From Anglefire.” We talked about it last night and all seem eager for the day to arrive.

Speaking of arrivals -- my aunt is here. She’s borrowing a cabin from a friend of hers in the next county, and will join up with us after today. My SO has business in Albuquerque and I’m going with him. We want to look at hot tubs after his appointment and learn how they fare through the winters here. My aunt is definitely coming to stay with us this weekend. The big annual picnic is Saturday and I’ve invited her to come. She sounded excited. It would be great if we could talk her into buying a place over here -- she loves it so much in New Mexico, once owned a cabin in the area where she’s staying now. There’s a very reasonable cabin for sale just up the mountain from us. I doubt it will happen but I intend to tell her about it anyhow.

I will try to find more time now that we’re back here and settled in, to blog. I have things I’ve been thinking about and would like to write about them, so I shall be back soon.

Onward ....

A Blog Radio Interview

For the past several days, I have been working like mad to get this place shaped up for the real estate agent. She’s someone I’ve worked with before and I pretty much know that a really spotless house impresses her and tends to make her appraise higher. My goal is to make this place irresistible to a buyer. It would be so good to sell it quickly. From my experience buying the mountain house, I know the biggest obstacle is going to be financing. It’s just not easy to get a loan in this economic climate.

Seems like we have too many things going against us, too. We’re still battling the mice, and in fact, are finding traces of many, so we’ve declared war and have traps set all over the house. I don’t want to put out poison because of the cat, who is failing rapidly, poor baby, as it is. I really wish we hadn’t needed to come back here. He was doing so well in the mountains.

It’s hot. God, is it hot! We’re breaking temperature records every day, and dry records, as well. I hauled water down to the crepe myrtle we have planted along the driveway, and two days later, we needed to haul more down there. It’s really difficult to do, and I can’t believe we’ve managed to keep them all alive that way for such a long time. The man we hired to water while we were gone has done a fair job of keeping those trees alive, but some of the other stuff I planted in the spring has already died, and more keeps following. It’s just ridiculous how dry it has been, really since we moved in here. It’s one of the reasons I want to leave. There are others as well.

I’ve thought about this -- why I have become so disenchanted with Texas. The heat and the constant drought is just one reason. This place has been overrun with creepy-crawlies, too, and that’s contributed. The last time the dog was bitten by a copperhead sort of capped it for me. She is so much happier in the mountains, as is the cat. I think they both thought we had already moved, and they seem depressed since we’ve been home. They feel repressed, and I have realized I share that feeling. There are so many small-minded people here. I get angry every time I read the local newspapers. Our friends back in the mountains have been e-mailing, inviting to us all sorts of things when we return. It’s nice to have people who want to include you in social situations, who are like-minded, and have experienced more in life than this one little spot. 

I did an interview for blog radio yesterday. It was fun and I felt it went pretty well. I like the internet  for things like this. It’s much more intimate and effortless than actual radio where you have someone poking a microphone in your face, and all the business that’s surrounding you. Television is even worse. This felt much more like a one-on-one conversation. The interviewer also felt like it went very well. Here’s the link to the interview: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dennistardan/2011/08/01/a-conversation-with-cindy-bonner

Onward ....