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 ....

House Guests, a Volcano, and a Serious Discussion

I cannot keep track of the counter numbers on this blog. I don't even know if anybody reads the damned thing. I've thought several times about giving it up, but then I think of something I want to put down here and so it goes.

The pecan pie turned out OK. It didn't taste like my usual pecan pie, but it was devoured so I guess that's a good sign. The boys came and stayed with us for five days, and it really wasn't long enough. They are the easiest house guests in the world, so enthusiastic about everything, and appreciative. They make me really proud.

We took them over to the Capulin Volcano National Monument east of Raton. We hiked down into the crater and back up, which I thought was a hard slog, but I only thought that in the beginning. The rim walk was the real killer. I seriously believed for a while that I would not make it around the rim. It was brutal, and at 8600 plus feet, a real breath taker, and I mean that literally. I my lungs hurt, my heart pounded. The uphill climb was the worst. When we got to the top, finally, I thought I would really enjoy looking down on the lava flows. We'd watched a little movie before embarking on this trek, and it had explained about the pressure waves and lots of other geographic phenomenon characteristic of a volcano like Capulin. Instead, I was so thrilled to be done with the worst of the climb, I just sat on one of the benches they had up there and tried to get my breath, to fight down the vertigo that kept trying to take over, and to quell the nausea. We took some pictures on the way down but I haven't downloaded them from the camera yet.

On Sunday, we took them to the airport in Albuquerque and had a real heart-to-heart on the ride back about selling the place in Texas and making this our permanent home. There are some things that have to happen here for me to be in favor of such a big move, and we began on some of those things this week. We bought some furniture for one thing, and the carpenter we discovered is coming back to do some more work to the place, and to help me paint the bedroom. My SO is going back to Texas tomorrow morning to check on things at the house, and to do some personal errands and make some business calls. He'll be gone a week. When he gets back, the bedroom will be done and all that will really remain is remodeling the kitchen. But that will have to wait until the house in Texas is sold.

It is going to take some real getting used to, living in such a small house again. This house is just barely bigger than the first "starter" home my ex and I bought way back in the early 1980s. I'll have to get rid of half of my "stuff," more than half. But it's just stuff, and I said way way back that I was not going to let "stuff" run my life the way it has done for at least the past 25 or so years. It's not worth it. We'll have a big sale after the house sells, fingers crossed. We have a figure we want to get out of all this which will allow us to become, once and for all, debt free. Both of us are ready for that.

Meanwhile, the cat has taken a real downturn in the last couple of days. Today has been an especially bad day. I tried to go to sleep with the SO at 10:00, but here I am back up with the kitty. I held him for about an hour, and he responded to that. I tried explaining to him that he would feel so much better if he would eat something and drink some water. And that I would take him to the vet in the morning. He turned to press on me the way he has done his entire life, showing me that he loves me, too. And then he got down from my lap and ate some of his can and got a big drink, wandered off to the litter box, and now he is back in the chair he commandeered practically from the first day we moved in here. It's a big old semi-circular 1970s style low back easy chair with rust colored upholstery. I'll be glad to get my good living room stuff here eventually.

Guess it's time to turn in, or try to again. I'll post some more things I've been up to tomorrow.

Onward ....

Before We Move; the Mountains Again

And so, before we make a big move, it's probably a good idea to spend more time up here in the mountains. If for no other reason, than to experience the changing weather.

We got here on Tuesday, which happened to be my birthday. The paint job in the front room was a pleasant surprise. It really does brightened things. I don't feel like I'm in such a cave anymore. A handy man came yesterday and spent the entire day, doing odd jobs. He hung the new chandelier and it completely changed the way the dining area looks. I'm getting happier with the interior by the minute. I like the curtains I made, too, although I don't think my SO does much. They cost me about $7 and my labor, about an hour and a half at the sewing machine. We hung the new blind in the laundry room. It's a cerulean color, a cellular blind but one that opens so it's possible to still look outside but should keep that room warmer in winter. It cost more than $400 but I won't go into that.

It's hot here. I'm not happy about that. The big front room is especially hot. We're having the handy man back next week to install some ceiling fans. I can't sleep when I'm hot and I'm kind of wary of leaving windows open at night since it's bear season. We don't have any a/c. Nobody up here does. Right now, we need it during the day. It got up to 88 yesterday afternoon. I don't like to sweat. In fact, it's hard to sweat with only 5% humidity. But it's still better than being back in Texas where heat indices yesterday were between 107 and 109 degrees. If it would only rain a little I think it would cool things off. Everywhere, really.

We came in two cars. I wasn't wild about that, but we had too much to haul and I wanted my car here to pick up my son and his partner from the Albuquerque airport in two weeks. Plus, my SO will be working next week, and the vehicle we've left here has no working a/c. I, at least, want to be cool in the car. I brought the cat with me. I think the trip was hard on him. His kidneys are functioning poorly and he wet the carrier several times, which is not like him at all. But I anticipated this and put piddle pads under him and carried extras. He did finally start drinking water in his carrier while we were on the road. That's a first. He's doing as well as can be expected. I'm happy to have him with us. And we have our little kitty hospice setup in the living room here just as we had back in Texas.

Two days before we left the dog was bit again by a large copperhead. It happened late on Saturday, and this time she was very sick. During the night she began to go into shock, and I had to cover her with a blanket and lie in the floor with her until her shaking stopped. It was scary and upsetting for both of us, and I vow the next time to take her to a vet no matter what time of day it happens. Fingers crossed that there will be no next time.

So, here we are again. I will try to do better with this blog.

Onward ....