His hospital bed is at an angle in the middle of the livingroom,  so he can see the TV but also so there can be the little table with all his Care stuff on it and also room to Give the care.  So his back is to the Front Door.   When i came around in front of him,  he opened his eyes and saw me and started to cry.

Cry like tears flowing,  his face all how faces get when there is crying going on.  So i sat down and he just cried a little while.  This was new.  He talked about how it's hard now to hear out of his "good" ear.  He's had a bad ear from a broken eardrum most his life,  but now the good ear seems gone.   And  that seemed to be the one last thing gone.  About how it's just too hard to keep living this way.

He said a few times that he wanted me to "go with him",  but knew i couldn't.  There's more,  but no need to put it here.

And he asked me to take down four photographs in frames from those shelves at the end of the living room .  His mother and father, his daughter that died so young,  and I  included the one of him as a little boy with his cousin on a pony and then the one of the  5  prize winning heifers.   He wanted them packed in a box.  Done.  He wanted to again talk about how it would go with the cremation and how would Blake come for his ashes and put them in a Prince Albert can,  take them, up to that little lake in Colorado and feed him to the trout.  At one point,  when  after a long silence, he began to silently cry again,  i found myself leaning down and putting my head to his.

I'd thought i'd be there maybe an hour but it was most of the day.  When i got home,  Alz B's son Bill called that it was a good day to change the oil in the car and so i went,  we have been waiting for this good day for that for quite a while past the mileage point,  and while he changed the oil and rotated the tires we talked about a lot of things,  it was easy and there was goodness to it so,  an Antidote.  Nelia and i speculated about our crappy gardening this year and that was good too.   I came home at dusk.    Tay had waited at the gate.  I used to think i didn't know what she did when i'm gone…but then realized i can look at what sticks are by the gate or elsewhere.  Her important sticks were right there at the gate.

So…it might have been just a practice run.  Or,  it might be….well,  it.  No way to know.  But it doesn't matter.  It is what it is and it is really Something,  this dying.

IMG_4574f

and Look.  Oh and eeee and EEEEEEEEEE, eeeeee,  o and Look…

it's happening.  Finally.  So very Few in comparison to the "normal",  but oh and just, Oh 

i also saw a flight of migrating Pelicans on the way into town.  Migrating Pelicans.  Can you believe it?????   But i saw them.

 

 

 

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33 responses to “a different kind of Old Cowboy day”

  1. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    Epigram by David Mason
    The baby’s bawling and the old man’s laughter
    rise from the center of the same I am.
    Say it to windows, doors. Say it to rafters
    on rivers of light. Say it to the breaking dam.
    It could have been the old man’s bawling and the baby’s laughter if it were written for the Old Cowboy. Moving moments and you the lifeline that matters. People I know often worry about being of use and I think we are all of use in our own ways, to someone, somewhere, some time.

    Like

  2. Patricia Spangler Avatar

    i’ve had ocb’s experience–of crying when someone came in. crying spontaneously because –well, i don’t know why, really, but it feels good. i think of his heart melting, cracking open, a moment of vulnerability. who would have thought it?

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  3. grace Avatar

    yes…who would have thought. a more deep self is forming, out
    of all the images he has thought composed him? but yes. We
    are softening and softening.
    Travis thought to take him for a ride today if he will agree to go.
    He, Travis, just got his Beloved El Camino back from some work
    somewhere and he can carry OCB out, strap him in and they can
    GO. It occured to me this morning that they really could come
    Here. The Big Gate opens and Travis can drive right in and
    OCB can look at the Goats from his seat, right there. He can
    meet Tay.
    We’ll see how the morning goes for him. Maybe.
    And funny you are here this morning, i have been looking at
    First Iris since before daylight….

    Like

  4. saskia Avatar

    some journey, the two of you are involved in, it sure is ‘something’

    Like

  5. saskia Avatar

    oh, and also your sharing of it

    Like

  6. Patricia Spangler Avatar
  7. Stephanie Avatar
    Stephanie

    Grace, I love how sensitive you are to everything around you. To the Old Cowboy, certainly, but also how you know which sticks are Tay’s “important” sticks. I love that. Your awareness of the life around you has helped me to be more aware, too. Thank you more than I can say and love to you.

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  8. Martine Bos Avatar

    Grace….you… very sweet woman……..

    Like

  9. Dana Avatar

    My dear aunt just died. My mother and my cousin, her daughter, were her caregivers till the end. She was old and ready, but still the process was excruciatingly slow. The ways of death are so mysterious….

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  10. grace Avatar

    I am being Taught

    Like

  11. jude Avatar

    i remember these tears. so clearly.

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  12. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Blessings and condolences to you and your family Dana. Aunts are special in our lives…

    Like

  13. grace Avatar

    i think
    crying
    is such a beauty full thing , to cry, to cry about having Lived,
    to cry about not living anymore, the tears, i think the tears
    are tears of love of human ness
    how we come
    how we go
    i know now that i will cry. For sure then, i will cry. Maybe i am saving all my tears for Then?
    but i will cry out of Love for it All, the BEAUTY of it all, what it is
    Yeah. i know i’ll cry.

    Like

  14. jude Avatar

    My mother didn’t cry for herself. only for him. he cried all through it.

    Like

  15. grace Avatar

    so…maybe
    crying
    is something to think about?
    Wendy thinks so.
    I trust Wendy.
    Do You cry?

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  16. grace Avatar

    i think most of Wendy’s kids don’t cry.

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  17. grace Avatar

    i will give water to the yard garden now and ask that the hose
    Be My Tears
    that feeds the Pepper Plants, the Eggplant, the Cucumber

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  18. jude Avatar

    i used cry more,for sadness. now i cry less. out of joy more. i think it is the influence of the man. who rarely cries. moved mostly by extreme circumstances and never self pity. crying is also a learned manipulation. life is tricky.

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  19. jude Avatar

    crying requires a kind of acceptance.

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  20. grace Avatar

    i have never cried even for sadness. Just that tearing up thing,
    the Almost, but the not.
    yes. life is tricky. For sure. For sure it is.

    Like

  21. grace Avatar

    like…what is sad? the photograph on the girl child/woman
    on your Spirit Cloth blog….
    she works with safety pins.
    She is working.
    safety pins.
    maybe when you are working you don’t want blurred vision

    Like

  22. grace Avatar

    i dont know, this….
    i will hold the words and see what comes

    Like

  23. grace Avatar

    Stephanie…it’s kind of easy here…me being the only human being and this Life being quite singular
    but i THANK you, for saying it matters some how

    Like

  24. grace Avatar

    excruciating
    this is the word……

    Like

  25. beth Avatar

    Oh Grace… What must that be like? Waiting for the in-between to not be in-between any more but to be gone. To the other side. Into the unknown.

    Like

  26. grace Avatar

    yes…no matter how hard we try to think about it, to understand,
    all the different ways possible, all the words spoken and written, it is still, still, impossible to know unless it is our Self
    experiencing it…i think….

    Like

  27. grace Avatar

    yes. we are All of use

    Like

  28. Kat Scott Avatar
    Kat Scott

    Your awareness is a great teacher…

    Like

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