Saturday, November 28, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
November
it's Thanksgiving
and warm
warm enough for open doors
shirtsleeves
flowers overflowing
and a walk
first coffee
then the mundane
and warm
warm enough for open doors
shirtsleeves
flowers overflowing
and a walk
first coffee
then the mundane
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Farewell, Steve, And Go In Peace
This was written by my dearest friend, Robyn, on the death of Steve Western. In memoriam.
Santa Fe afternoon
November 21, 2009
My dear brothers and sisters,
I don’t know if you have already heard the sad news, but one week ago today I lost a friend; we lost a friend. I cannot say I lost him to cancer because he beat that animal. Although he was diagnosed earlier this year with lung cancer, had one invasive surgery to remove the tumor, and even began to undergo chemotherapy he had recently decided to discontinue that treatment which made him feel so weak, so sick. His name was/is Steve Western and for nearly one full year he has been my mother Kathy’s confidante and companion. We joked and called my mom a “cougar” because Steve was 55 years old, just about twenty years younger than my mother, two years younger than my own husband, and only a couple years older than me. Steve entered our lives initially when he responded to an advertisement my mom had run for a roommate. They met and instantly took a liking to one another. He chose not to take the room saying that he’d rather get to know my mother (and her dog) outside of a roommate situation, and consequently he came into my life as well as Delaney’s and Bob’s, and he grew on us pretty fast. He lived a flamboyant life if you can call a retired truck driver from Cincinnati who once drove movie stars around Hollywood in a limousine, and even auditioned for a few minor roles himself, exotic. He had retired from trucking after he had a serious heart attack during which he said he had a near death experience, and he would talk about it with you in contrast to his buffed out, seemingly rough neck exterior. He had become a faux painter and did exquisite work refinishing furniture and walls. He could grumble with the best of them, but then you’d drop in and find him at my mom’s place down on the floor pawing the air with Archie, the black chow that has been in my mother’s life for years. In fact Steve discontinued the chemo in part, he said, because he became aware that Archie seemed to be getting sick from fondly licking his head and ingesting the treatment poison secondhand. I was one of the first people that Steve told he had been diagnosed with cancer. My mother was in Washington DC on business, and I spent several nights talking with Steve while she was away about the understandable anger and fear that he received along with the awful diagnosis. He was almost convinced that he was not even going to tell my mother upon her return; they had become so close by that time and his claim was that he didn’t want to impose this on her through the caretaking that she would inevitably chose to do for him. He was a man with only thin ties to his only family including a grown daughter with two children. This was a man living in the present. In hindsight I can see now that he perhaps longed for connection in the present to compensate for the loss he had felt in the estrangement from his own family of first judgment.
Eventually Steve did move into my mother’s house renting the bedroom where my grandmother lived until her passing. Steve slowed my workaholic mother to a needed canter and even to a full stop each night, cooking her dinner and building fires in the fireplace as fall’s chill arrived. Each night they side by side in matching lazy boy chairs, drank glasses of white wine, and attempted to solve the problems of the world. If you know my mother at all and even if you do not you should know that slowing her down is a Herculean feat. In this way I witnessed a man whom I had initially internally questioned (what did he want from my mother?) give my mother an enormous gift, the gift of comfort given unconditionally by another. At the same time it was a mutual give and take and though it was not without small outbreaks of doubt, questions around boundaries, and even arguments it was, for one year, a match unlike any other.
Steve made a pact with God or his demons, I think; he was NOT going to live to see himself pale to the cancer. On the 3rd of this month he set off hiking because it was a stunning Indian summer day outside. Steve had told me once he thought he would die on a mountain between two boulders. Well, he came close. Hiking alone on the north side of Santa Fe overlooking the city Steve was overwhelmed with pain that took him down. He reported that he couldn’t really even lie down, the trail was that steep, so he leaned against a tree and was eventually found by two hikers, women who got a mobile phone call in to my mother. Then my mom called me. As the sun set, paramedics and other rescuers made their way up to where Steve was, then slowly, slowly brought him down, and admitted him to the emergency room. I should explain that Steve has had a defibrillator since his heart attack some years ago, but at this present time and due to his desire to go out sooner than later he expressed his not so pleasant insistence that the medics and ER docs do nothing to resuscitate, no one was to go into his chest to revive or repair. A few days later, home again, he told me he was pissed off that he’d not died quickly and that there had been so much pain. The nurses explained to us that they could hardly believe how much morphine Steve was able to ingest. He came back to my mother’s home, his home too now, and resumed his habit of building evening fires and his late night conversations with my mother. Not eleven days later I got an eleven a.m. call from my mother that Steve was “having a seizure” and I should call 911. Within minutes Steve was no longer with us, no longer in his body, that is. He had gotten his wish to die quickly and before the cancer could hobble him– and even before the old dog died in my mother’s front room whom Steve swore he could not see go before him.
I don’t know precisely why I feel the urgency to relay this story except for the obvious, the call to you to love those around you anew every single day. That goes out almost as a cliché. I only know that I felt a gift came to me even in the briefest relationship to this person, a man whom I might not have met or been friends with under other circumstances. My own family of three, Bob and Delaney and I, have been handed our share of hardships lately and consequently are arguing more with one another than remembering to forgive. Steve was concerned about this and according to my mother it was among the last things he was talking about with her as he sat in his comfortable chair drinking his morning coffee. I was blessed with another’s insight into my life and I am doing what I can to remember him and to remember to be more patient, to slow myself down, to not ignore problems and to take steps to fix them. Lately I seem so wrapped up that the days are speeding by me, and I barely recognize what month it is, much less that it is nearly Thanksgiving and then Christmas, holidays that I know all of us as family were raised to cherish and roll around in, in the smells of baking and the late nights wrapping secrets in gold ribbon to be shared with one another in the early morning. I send each of you the gift of my strong, strong heart as moral of this intimate story. Nothing ends that began so freely. Ah man. Woe woman. Blessing way.
Santa Fe afternoon
November 21, 2009
My dear brothers and sisters,
I don’t know if you have already heard the sad news, but one week ago today I lost a friend; we lost a friend. I cannot say I lost him to cancer because he beat that animal. Although he was diagnosed earlier this year with lung cancer, had one invasive surgery to remove the tumor, and even began to undergo chemotherapy he had recently decided to discontinue that treatment which made him feel so weak, so sick. His name was/is Steve Western and for nearly one full year he has been my mother Kathy’s confidante and companion. We joked and called my mom a “cougar” because Steve was 55 years old, just about twenty years younger than my mother, two years younger than my own husband, and only a couple years older than me. Steve entered our lives initially when he responded to an advertisement my mom had run for a roommate. They met and instantly took a liking to one another. He chose not to take the room saying that he’d rather get to know my mother (and her dog) outside of a roommate situation, and consequently he came into my life as well as Delaney’s and Bob’s, and he grew on us pretty fast. He lived a flamboyant life if you can call a retired truck driver from Cincinnati who once drove movie stars around Hollywood in a limousine, and even auditioned for a few minor roles himself, exotic. He had retired from trucking after he had a serious heart attack during which he said he had a near death experience, and he would talk about it with you in contrast to his buffed out, seemingly rough neck exterior. He had become a faux painter and did exquisite work refinishing furniture and walls. He could grumble with the best of them, but then you’d drop in and find him at my mom’s place down on the floor pawing the air with Archie, the black chow that has been in my mother’s life for years. In fact Steve discontinued the chemo in part, he said, because he became aware that Archie seemed to be getting sick from fondly licking his head and ingesting the treatment poison secondhand. I was one of the first people that Steve told he had been diagnosed with cancer. My mother was in Washington DC on business, and I spent several nights talking with Steve while she was away about the understandable anger and fear that he received along with the awful diagnosis. He was almost convinced that he was not even going to tell my mother upon her return; they had become so close by that time and his claim was that he didn’t want to impose this on her through the caretaking that she would inevitably chose to do for him. He was a man with only thin ties to his only family including a grown daughter with two children. This was a man living in the present. In hindsight I can see now that he perhaps longed for connection in the present to compensate for the loss he had felt in the estrangement from his own family of first judgment.
Eventually Steve did move into my mother’s house renting the bedroom where my grandmother lived until her passing. Steve slowed my workaholic mother to a needed canter and even to a full stop each night, cooking her dinner and building fires in the fireplace as fall’s chill arrived. Each night they side by side in matching lazy boy chairs, drank glasses of white wine, and attempted to solve the problems of the world. If you know my mother at all and even if you do not you should know that slowing her down is a Herculean feat. In this way I witnessed a man whom I had initially internally questioned (what did he want from my mother?) give my mother an enormous gift, the gift of comfort given unconditionally by another. At the same time it was a mutual give and take and though it was not without small outbreaks of doubt, questions around boundaries, and even arguments it was, for one year, a match unlike any other.
Steve made a pact with God or his demons, I think; he was NOT going to live to see himself pale to the cancer. On the 3rd of this month he set off hiking because it was a stunning Indian summer day outside. Steve had told me once he thought he would die on a mountain between two boulders. Well, he came close. Hiking alone on the north side of Santa Fe overlooking the city Steve was overwhelmed with pain that took him down. He reported that he couldn’t really even lie down, the trail was that steep, so he leaned against a tree and was eventually found by two hikers, women who got a mobile phone call in to my mother. Then my mom called me. As the sun set, paramedics and other rescuers made their way up to where Steve was, then slowly, slowly brought him down, and admitted him to the emergency room. I should explain that Steve has had a defibrillator since his heart attack some years ago, but at this present time and due to his desire to go out sooner than later he expressed his not so pleasant insistence that the medics and ER docs do nothing to resuscitate, no one was to go into his chest to revive or repair. A few days later, home again, he told me he was pissed off that he’d not died quickly and that there had been so much pain. The nurses explained to us that they could hardly believe how much morphine Steve was able to ingest. He came back to my mother’s home, his home too now, and resumed his habit of building evening fires and his late night conversations with my mother. Not eleven days later I got an eleven a.m. call from my mother that Steve was “having a seizure” and I should call 911. Within minutes Steve was no longer with us, no longer in his body, that is. He had gotten his wish to die quickly and before the cancer could hobble him– and even before the old dog died in my mother’s front room whom Steve swore he could not see go before him.
I don’t know precisely why I feel the urgency to relay this story except for the obvious, the call to you to love those around you anew every single day. That goes out almost as a cliché. I only know that I felt a gift came to me even in the briefest relationship to this person, a man whom I might not have met or been friends with under other circumstances. My own family of three, Bob and Delaney and I, have been handed our share of hardships lately and consequently are arguing more with one another than remembering to forgive. Steve was concerned about this and according to my mother it was among the last things he was talking about with her as he sat in his comfortable chair drinking his morning coffee. I was blessed with another’s insight into my life and I am doing what I can to remember him and to remember to be more patient, to slow myself down, to not ignore problems and to take steps to fix them. Lately I seem so wrapped up that the days are speeding by me, and I barely recognize what month it is, much less that it is nearly Thanksgiving and then Christmas, holidays that I know all of us as family were raised to cherish and roll around in, in the smells of baking and the late nights wrapping secrets in gold ribbon to be shared with one another in the early morning. I send each of you the gift of my strong, strong heart as moral of this intimate story. Nothing ends that began so freely. Ah man. Woe woman. Blessing way.
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