Thank you, Robert. Your very kind posting has gone straight to my heart. Thank you.
Murph
Hobo Jungle
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MurphOnMillerAve
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Re: Hobo Jungle
Murph, it seems to me you are among friends who are more than acquaintances.
Dan Weinhold
Dan Weinhold
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MurphOnMillerAve
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Re: Hobo Jungle
sleepmac wrote:Murph, it seems to me you are among friends who are more than acquaintances.
Dan Weinhold
Yes, it has felt good to visit here, a little bit more and more, these several days. I take kindness and good hearts very much to heart, and value every voice who has shared their thoughts and sympathies with me here on MTJ since my wife's death.
We all know quality when we experience it.
Thank you, Dan
Murph
Re: Hobo Jungle
Murph, I am SO sorry for your loss. I would give up anything to have Daisy with me. Anything. I hope this helps in a tiny way:
BLOBS, TIME TO DIE, AND A LAST POEM
A letter arrived in the mail the other day entitled "Grief is a blob." It was written by a Ph.D. and was illustrated by a hand-drawn diagram. On the left side of the Xeroxed sheet an X denoted a death or loss. From there a single black line tracked the severe descent into grief, turning into a chaotic, jagged scribble filling half the page, then exited page right, ascending in waves toward recovery. I assume the precarious line was meant to represent the changing mental state of the sufferer. The doctor went on (in type now) explaining what I might expect to feel after my loss.
I'm not sure if the blob concept was meant to humor me or if it was meant seriously. Though it was certainly well-intended, I doubt I'll ever see my grief as a clumsily drawn blob. As a matter of fact, I don't care for the word, regardless of context.
Our culture has a bizarre and confusing relationship with death. We're inundated by countless versions of dying, be they in print, on TV, or in movies. Shootings, stabbings, strangling, along with tear-drenched melodramas involving sickness and accidents—every variant of death has been flat-screened in detail. From a young age, we become all too familiar with these news stories or theatrical depictions of dying.
Yet when the time comes, we usually remove our parents to nursing homes and the care of strangers. There, more often than not, we allow their lonely, undignified existences to dwindle away over too many years and at too much expense. I hear stories from friends about how their parents haven't recognized them in nearly a decade, kept alive only because of a feeding tube. "My father (or mother) would've been so horrified to end this way," they tell me.
Our culture insists on longevity over quality. Everyone hopes for quality in life, shouldn't we want it for our deaths even if it means less time on earth? But this rarely happens because just as quality in life demands planning, effort, risk, selflessness and luck, the same can be true for death.
I watched my mother die in one of the bedrooms of my house. I was reading her a poem when she stopped breathing.
I have to stop here and ask myself how much I want to share. Writing is like that. It's one thing to entertain or interest a reader; it's another to share too much that's personal. But I believe this is important, so I'll continue.
Watching my mother die was extremely emotional and difficult. I can make it sound easy, tell you I was reading her her favorite poem, tell you that evening sunlight flickered into the room after weeks of endless rain, tell you that I settled her arms across her chest and placed a dozen roses along her body. This would all be true, but I've left out some things as well.
In those moments after my mother stopped breathing, it almost seemed as if it wasn't real, couldn't have happened. This was the one person whose life I knew. My mother had spoken freely of her past for over 40 years, and I had a definitive understanding of what her 88 years had been like. Obviously we can never fully know another person, but I knew her entire life better than I'll probably know anyone's.
And that life had just ended. The constant that had been her was gone. There was no going back, no more last words or glances, just what was left in my racing mind and beating heart. I called out to her, wondering if her spirit was somewhere in the room. I stared into her immobile face a last time, which looked inexplicably beautiful to me. After ten minutes, a part of me accepted that she was gone, but as the next days were lived, I began to realize reluctantly that my thoughts and feelings wouldn't change anything. My mother was dead. It was irreversible. For months I couldn't stop thinking about her, reassessing everything between us, over and over, as if by finding a certain thought or secret, I might bring her back.
Though I knew it was her desire, allowing my mother to die without trying to prolong her life was very difficult. But as overwhelming as the experience was, I would not exchange it for the alternative. Frankly, facing my mother's dying, taking care of her over her last days, helped greatly with my grief. At moments it was sad and troubling, the images of her last days and hours will be forever vivid, but I did not feel the wrenching loss I'd felt when my father died suddenly and before anything had been resolved between us. This time I felt fortunate for having the luxury to honor my mother's wishes. Death can be as natural as life if the emphasis is not on longevity at any cost. She gave me that as if it were a final gift.
It changed me to watch someone die. It allowed me to reappraise my life, truly question what it means to be alive.
After her death I wanted time to stop. Though my fiancée halted the two-dozen clocks in our house, it wasn't enough. Everyone else's lives simply continued to plow along as inexorably as ever, and that seemed harsh. My mother's apartment was rented to someone else, and I was forced to rush removing and selling or giving away all her things—a misery. The expensive squirrel-proof bird feeder left at the request of the new tenant soon disappeared from the balcony; the birds that Mom had fed for so many years would find somewhere else to eat. Life folded over her existence too quickly, but that's the nature of an impatient culture.
I have her ashes resting in my shop, guarded by hand-carved miniature angels that she treasured. I have her photo on our mantel, framed carefully with antique glass. I talk to her, I pour out a beer for her, I meet her in my dreams. "Mom, you're still alive!" I say. "My Gosh, I thought you were dead. I sent your obituary to everyone. I'm sorry." She seems delighted to have fooled me.
People we love die, but they really do live inside us. I sense both my parents so clearly almost every day. I hear them talking to me, reminding me of important things, guiding me in many ways. It's true that once we die we don't matter that much to most people, but it's reassuring to know we can matter very deeply to a few.
I'll end this column with the poem I was reading to my mother when she stopped breathing. At one time she had it memorized. I can hear her voice so tenderly and almost shyly reciting the words.
THESE
I am lost on these roads
On these summer nights.
Kids sit still on cement steps
of fluorescent-lit buildings
And watch me pass:
A lost white face at the wheel
It's mine catching headlights
That I don't understand
As with a slam of sound
Red taillights go out in darkness.
I should know these small towns,
These brick and white structures
Staring out of the moist black air,
These woods, these silver green leaves;
I have lived here all my life,
Yet I am lost on these roads
And all I can do
Is clutch the wheel
Steer and breathe
And try to keep the extent
Of my tearing mind small.
So many separate songs
And still, and still
I need you to listen to mine
Till I can truly see
My heart in your eyes.
BLOBS, TIME TO DIE, AND A LAST POEM
A letter arrived in the mail the other day entitled "Grief is a blob." It was written by a Ph.D. and was illustrated by a hand-drawn diagram. On the left side of the Xeroxed sheet an X denoted a death or loss. From there a single black line tracked the severe descent into grief, turning into a chaotic, jagged scribble filling half the page, then exited page right, ascending in waves toward recovery. I assume the precarious line was meant to represent the changing mental state of the sufferer. The doctor went on (in type now) explaining what I might expect to feel after my loss.
I'm not sure if the blob concept was meant to humor me or if it was meant seriously. Though it was certainly well-intended, I doubt I'll ever see my grief as a clumsily drawn blob. As a matter of fact, I don't care for the word, regardless of context.
Our culture has a bizarre and confusing relationship with death. We're inundated by countless versions of dying, be they in print, on TV, or in movies. Shootings, stabbings, strangling, along with tear-drenched melodramas involving sickness and accidents—every variant of death has been flat-screened in detail. From a young age, we become all too familiar with these news stories or theatrical depictions of dying.
Yet when the time comes, we usually remove our parents to nursing homes and the care of strangers. There, more often than not, we allow their lonely, undignified existences to dwindle away over too many years and at too much expense. I hear stories from friends about how their parents haven't recognized them in nearly a decade, kept alive only because of a feeding tube. "My father (or mother) would've been so horrified to end this way," they tell me.
Our culture insists on longevity over quality. Everyone hopes for quality in life, shouldn't we want it for our deaths even if it means less time on earth? But this rarely happens because just as quality in life demands planning, effort, risk, selflessness and luck, the same can be true for death.
I watched my mother die in one of the bedrooms of my house. I was reading her a poem when she stopped breathing.
I have to stop here and ask myself how much I want to share. Writing is like that. It's one thing to entertain or interest a reader; it's another to share too much that's personal. But I believe this is important, so I'll continue.
Watching my mother die was extremely emotional and difficult. I can make it sound easy, tell you I was reading her her favorite poem, tell you that evening sunlight flickered into the room after weeks of endless rain, tell you that I settled her arms across her chest and placed a dozen roses along her body. This would all be true, but I've left out some things as well.
In those moments after my mother stopped breathing, it almost seemed as if it wasn't real, couldn't have happened. This was the one person whose life I knew. My mother had spoken freely of her past for over 40 years, and I had a definitive understanding of what her 88 years had been like. Obviously we can never fully know another person, but I knew her entire life better than I'll probably know anyone's.
And that life had just ended. The constant that had been her was gone. There was no going back, no more last words or glances, just what was left in my racing mind and beating heart. I called out to her, wondering if her spirit was somewhere in the room. I stared into her immobile face a last time, which looked inexplicably beautiful to me. After ten minutes, a part of me accepted that she was gone, but as the next days were lived, I began to realize reluctantly that my thoughts and feelings wouldn't change anything. My mother was dead. It was irreversible. For months I couldn't stop thinking about her, reassessing everything between us, over and over, as if by finding a certain thought or secret, I might bring her back.
Though I knew it was her desire, allowing my mother to die without trying to prolong her life was very difficult. But as overwhelming as the experience was, I would not exchange it for the alternative. Frankly, facing my mother's dying, taking care of her over her last days, helped greatly with my grief. At moments it was sad and troubling, the images of her last days and hours will be forever vivid, but I did not feel the wrenching loss I'd felt when my father died suddenly and before anything had been resolved between us. This time I felt fortunate for having the luxury to honor my mother's wishes. Death can be as natural as life if the emphasis is not on longevity at any cost. She gave me that as if it were a final gift.
It changed me to watch someone die. It allowed me to reappraise my life, truly question what it means to be alive.
After her death I wanted time to stop. Though my fiancée halted the two-dozen clocks in our house, it wasn't enough. Everyone else's lives simply continued to plow along as inexorably as ever, and that seemed harsh. My mother's apartment was rented to someone else, and I was forced to rush removing and selling or giving away all her things—a misery. The expensive squirrel-proof bird feeder left at the request of the new tenant soon disappeared from the balcony; the birds that Mom had fed for so many years would find somewhere else to eat. Life folded over her existence too quickly, but that's the nature of an impatient culture.
I have her ashes resting in my shop, guarded by hand-carved miniature angels that she treasured. I have her photo on our mantel, framed carefully with antique glass. I talk to her, I pour out a beer for her, I meet her in my dreams. "Mom, you're still alive!" I say. "My Gosh, I thought you were dead. I sent your obituary to everyone. I'm sorry." She seems delighted to have fooled me.
People we love die, but they really do live inside us. I sense both my parents so clearly almost every day. I hear them talking to me, reminding me of important things, guiding me in many ways. It's true that once we die we don't matter that much to most people, but it's reassuring to know we can matter very deeply to a few.
I'll end this column with the poem I was reading to my mother when she stopped breathing. At one time she had it memorized. I can hear her voice so tenderly and almost shyly reciting the words.
THESE
I am lost on these roads
On these summer nights.
Kids sit still on cement steps
of fluorescent-lit buildings
And watch me pass:
A lost white face at the wheel
It's mine catching headlights
That I don't understand
As with a slam of sound
Red taillights go out in darkness.
I should know these small towns,
These brick and white structures
Staring out of the moist black air,
These woods, these silver green leaves;
I have lived here all my life,
Yet I am lost on these roads
And all I can do
Is clutch the wheel
Steer and breathe
And try to keep the extent
Of my tearing mind small.
So many separate songs
And still, and still
I need you to listen to mine
Till I can truly see
My heart in your eyes.
That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
When this distance is read in miles.
Re: Hobo Jungle
I think we need some Bob Marley in the jungle.
"Every Little Thing is Gonna Be Alright" => https://youtu.be/r-WqATGgx8c <=
"Every Little Thing is Gonna Be Alright" => https://youtu.be/r-WqATGgx8c <=
----Wayne----
Back when I was growing up, if you didn't start someth'n, there wouldn't be noth'n.
--Merle Haggard
Back when I was growing up, if you didn't start someth'n, there wouldn't be noth'n.
--Merle Haggard
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MurphOnMillerAve
- Posts: 18489
- Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:18 pm
- Location: Kennywood Park
- Contact:
Re: Hobo Jungle
Thank you, Tramp, for all the effort and gracious intention of your message to me. I'll continue to read it several more times. For now, let me just say that the line, "People we love die, but they really do live inside us," rings very, very true for me. That is the prayer and Faith part of it all, isn't it.Thank you, again, sir.
Murph
You have my sincere good wishes for your continued success in communicating through your art. I celebrate your accomplishments to date.
Murph
You have my sincere good wishes for your continued success in communicating through your art. I celebrate your accomplishments to date.
"Doing wrong is like a joke to a fool." Proverbs 10: 21-28
Re: Hobo Jungle
Thanks, Murph. Just so you know, I miss my father every day. It has been 37 years and I still can rarely talk about him without getting misty. But there is a beauty in that. I can only hope that with time, that beauty will come to you as well. It does not remove the pain, the longing, the emptiness. That will remain, but the beauty is a force as well. Wonderful thing to feel because it means you have lived and you have loved.
That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
When this distance is read in miles.
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MurphOnMillerAve
- Posts: 18489
- Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:18 pm
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Re: Hobo Jungle
Tramp wrote:Thanks, Murph. Just so you know, I miss my father every day. It has been 37 years and I still can rarely talk about him without getting misty. But there is a beauty in that. I can only hope that with time, that beauty will come to you as well. It does not remove the pain, the longing, the emptiness. That will remain, but the beauty is a force as well. Wonderful thing to feel because it means you have lived and you have loved.
The privilege of that has been coming to be even further understood by me these several weeks since her passing on January 14. The privilege of having been loved by my Virginia and of having returned that love in full measure and having it received so openly and fully gives me, now, a huge vacancy in my life, but at the same time, I am fully aware of the honor of having been loved. It seems like the joy of loving somebody comes with the cost of feeling the pain of loss, someday. It makes me all the further grateful she and I had such a good time of it - all of it - every step along the way.
Thank you., again, Tramp, for the reach-back.
Frank, his father's "Murph"
"Doing wrong is like a joke to a fool." Proverbs 10: 21-28
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Rufus T. Firefly
- Posts: 42005
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Re: Hobo Jungle
Tramp wrote:Thanks, Murph. Just so you know, I miss my father every day. It has been 37 years......
It is closing on 35 years since both of my parents were killed in a car accident.
No beauty; just lingering pain and emptiness.
The average train of thought isn’t big enough to carry a full sized opinion on any subject.
Re: Hobo Jungle
This is an odd question: Have any of you REALLY and truly called out to God at a point of complete despair and defeat? If you did, what happened?
That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
When this distance is read in miles.
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Rufus T. Firefly
- Posts: 42005
- Joined: Wed May 16, 2007 7:52 am
- Location: To be Determined
Re: Hobo Jungle
Yes.
Nothing.
Of course, one can always argue that nothing was something.
Nothing.
Of course, one can always argue that nothing was something.
The average train of thought isn’t big enough to carry a full sized opinion on any subject.
Re: Hobo Jungle
Yes. The outside circumstances maybe did not change, but internally I changed. I do not remember the specific circumstances, but, as my mentor stated in my case, "I was down so far, I had to look up to see bottom".
As Rufus put it, "no answer" can be an answer in it's own. I have seen external circumstances change for what I considered to be better in my eyes, after prayer.
Dan Weinhold
As Rufus put it, "no answer" can be an answer in it's own. I have seen external circumstances change for what I considered to be better in my eyes, after prayer.
Dan Weinhold
-
MurphOnMillerAve
- Posts: 18489
- Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:18 pm
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Re: Hobo Jungle
Tramp wrote:This is an odd question: Have any of you REALLY and truly called out to God at a point of complete despair and defeat? If you did, what happened?
YES, and little by little, I have been finding my way, with His help, and with the help of friends and family, many of whom have been telling me they have been having me in their prayers, daily. I believe them. Thus, through these connections (I also follow Dr. Wayne Dyer's perspectives), I have been finding out who I am, now, and what remains of me...
...and yes, Belief is at the core of it all, for me.
I don't see any harm in my believing that, not as harm to me, nor to others close to me, nor to the Universe.
I don't know where the impulse to be kind comes from, other than the kind hearts of the givers of it and, perhaps, from the Source of Kindness. I sure do appreciate it when it shows-up at my door, or says Hello to me out in the community. Looking in people's eyes, I can see the sincerity and truth of their outreaches to me.
Re: Hobo Jungle
There is a science behind healing by prayer. If praying takes you to a happy place. Your brain will stimulate neurotransmitters. Helping your body heal faster. If eating ice cream takes you to a happy place. Ice cream will heal you just as fast as prayer. Studies show people with a deep faith heal quicker. Why? Because they pray. This takes them back to a happy place. Studies show people with a positive attitude heal quickly also. Why. Back to that happy place. Eat ice cream, pray, laugh or whatever it takes to get you to a healthy nontoxic place. You will heal quicker physically and emotionally.
I spend entirely too many hours a day tying my shoes
Re: Hobo Jungle
ANY positive reinforcement is a good thing. In my experience sitting around feeling sorry for ones self never solved anything. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
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