I know a man who has suffered a great loss and is showing courage and compassion as he navigates painful and turbulent waters that are always down stream of such a huge loss.

My Random Act of Kindness related to the blog to follow was that I ordered gift baskets to be delivered after the Holidays for the four veterinary clinics that have been the primary providers for my dogs and cats during the last decade. A small thank you for all the caring and compassion they have shown these animals I have loved.

There is a quote from the 1992 Western/Film Noire “Unforgiven” which has continued to resonate with me across these 20+ years (although I recently discovered that I often misquote it…..correct message, just wrong words).
Little Bill Daggett (A sheriff of questionable morals played by Gene Hackman) has just been mortally wounded by Will Munny (A hired gunman of questionable morals played by Clint Eastwood).
Little Bill: “I don’t deserve this… to die like this. I was building a house.”
Will Munny: “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

By my count I have had 13 dogs in my life. All of them were good dogs who had their pros & cons; Elly is my favorite of all time (Don’t tell Etta or she will come back and haunt me). This last week, on Tuesday 12/23, one day after her 9th birthday, Elly (who underwent successful surgery for mast cell cancer late last summer) was diagnosed with an osteosarcoma tumor which has wrapped itself around the C2-3 vertebrae in her neck, innervating the bone & spinal canal. Given the location and type of tumor, there is no treatment. The focus is on pain management, keeping her comfortable until I have to make the decision to put her down. We have a few days? Maybe couple weeks? I hope I will have the courage to not be selfish by forcing her to stay with me when I know she is suffering. I dread losing her.

I have been thinking a great deal about loss the last month or so. Cheery topic for the Holiday Season, right? Ho, ho, ho! Elly’s diagnosis brought the topic of loss into even sharper relief for me. Although I largely spent the first couple of days post diagnosis crying and snuggling with Elly, I also know how lucky I am to have been given warning of her impending death (Yea modern veterinarian medicine and me having access to it) so I could be mindful of the short time we have left together.

I am sure there is a larger message here about mindfulness and awareness of how short and unknown our time is with those we care deeply about and vice verse, but I am not in the mood to be that Hippie today.

It is the time of the year when we are obligated and indeed culturally-bound to review our year, assess our wayward behaviors, and renew our vows to be ever more awesome.

In taking stock of my year, it has been a rough one, adding to a string of rough years. There have been many wonderful events too, but here is a partial list among many difficult events from this last year: the end of a long term relationship was confirmed, another short but potentially wonderful relationship ended, friends died, I supported friends while close family members died, a close family member with whom I have a difficult history has Alzheimer’s Disease and has declined sharply (More impending awful to come), I put down 2 cats I had longer than any intimate relationship (I am sure that says both questionable and good things about me), lost a beloved dog to cancer, and have another lying next to me as I type who will not be long in my world. These words don’t do justice to heartbreak and searing pain associated with these events. Much loss, much isolation and sadness, much sense that important pieces of my life are falling away. I am in a Season of Loss.

I want to scream, “It’s not fair! Look at how kind, giving, empathetic, hard working, “nice” I am.”
Then Clint says in an angry, gravelly voice, “Fair’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
I want to break something and breakdown crying, “I don’t fucking deserve this!”
Clint: “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
God damn it, Clint. Fuck you. Yeah, you are right…… I still think you are a dick when it comes to politics…. I like your jazz compositions, and you have some serious Movie Director chops….. But still El Dicko politically speaking….. And still right about that deserve’s-got-nothin’ thing. Fuck.  Sad face.

Given that he is right (Still a dick though), all in all it was a year of….. a year of being a human. Nothing special, and nothing less. The Buddha called it the 10,000 joys and the 10,000 sorrows. But let’s not get too Damn Hippie about it.

What do I do with this sorrow and the knowledge all this sorrow is not particularly unusual or special? Somehow I need to both not entangle myself in the narrative of this last year and those before, while also allowing the grief. And somehow I need to not entangle myself in the grief while allowing the narrative. A “WTF?” from you would be appropriate at this point. What am I trying to say here? Uuuuhhhh……how about this? I need to find a way to somehow fully embrace that my experience of this year was one of repeated intense emotional loss, grief, and struggling to find a way to not fall off the cliff and sort through all that rose from the depths these events churned up AND know, really know, that many other kind, wonderful humans also had a Season of Loss, a year of intense, bone crushing loss and grief, AND that the world is not defined by loss, is not a cruel place. It both is and is not about what has happened in my life. To some extent we are all struggling in our streams, some times those streams turn to rapids in which there is a real danger of drowning.

Where to start?  I have no clue if this will be helpful to you or even make any sense or even be helpful to me, but RAK has suggested some things to me (OK, Clint probably played a role too (Dick!)) and I am trying them on for size.  By its very nature of requiring me to be aware of Others and then to strive to genuinely connect with them, RAK has made me more aware of the suffering and struggle of Others, seeking ways to be present with them, be gentle with them, help in small ways while trying (emphasis on “try”) to reduce my judgments, assumptions and own…..”self-ness.” Ironically, sustaining random acts of kindness across these last 4(?) months has had the effect of making me more aware of my own suffering and struggles, encouraging me to be more present with myself, gentle with the myself, suggesting there might be value in stepping back from the judgments, assumptions and all the tangled, gooey, sticky, primordial soup that contributes so much to how I touch and sense the world around me.

A big step for me is to step back from trying to decide if my emotional response to loss is “justified.” Part of my struggle is that I “know” there are people in my life, let alone the World, who have had more horrible losses than I have, so how much suffering am I allowed? Hmmm, OK, so if I am only allowed a moderate amount of suffering given that others deserve more, then the suffering I am feeling is just me being selfish and greedy (taking extra portions when the Suffer Platter is passed around).  I am such a bastard….,but wait!  Look at how much that person is taking!  There is no way what happened to them is anything like what happened to me and they took way more than me!  WTF??!!!  Oh, crap, the person who “really suffered” is looking at my portion, compared to theirs.  I KNOW I am being judged.  Would it be gross to put some suffering back on the platter?  Does it now have Erik germs on it?  No, no, no, that would just call attention from everyone about how much suffering I took.  Maybe I could slide some to the dog?  What if I got caught doing that? That would be embarrassing. Shit, I guess I will sit here and feel bad about myself, and I vow that next time I will not be so greedy at suffering.

But, if I my experience is not worthy, if I am not allowed to feel this amount of suffering, why do I feel like I really am suffering?  Why do I feel so bad?

A Clinical Psychologist I have a great deal of respect for observed that loss is cumulative, trauma is cumulative. Among the implications of this, it means that our responses to a single event are colored by all the events that have gone before. I don’t know the history of those around me in enough detail to ever know what a specific loss “means” and how much pain is evoked. Everyone’s suffering is worthy of compassion and gentleness without the event being weighed for how heavy and painful it is or is not.  It also means, I think this is a biggie, that suffering is not a contest with some people being more deserving of being “allowed” to suffer than others when we assess the recent events in their lives.  There is no “right amount” of emotional response to an event. How we feel is how we feel. Denying the response doesn’t make it go away.  Believe me, I spent decades mastering that technique only to have a really gross, deeply infected emotional cyst burst. Let’s just say it was a mess and I have needed a lot of assistance in cleaning it up.

I think the trick, and I have not mastered this one, not sure I ever will, is to find a way to balance being fully present for whatever response you have to whatever loss you encounter with the core belief that your suffering is real and legitimate, but it is not all that defines your world.  Allow your self to be in that yucky, awful space to the extent that you can (and back away when it is too much) and to somehow know that this is a completely deserved response to this pain, AND also know your suffering is not special.  The good news is that you are not alone.

Please note that I am saying I think it might just sort of work this way, and it is a path I am trying out. I have no idea if it will work, and I can assure you I have only taken the smallest of baby steps.  Truth be told, it is hard for me to imagine I can find this balance, but I guess we will find out.  I can also assure you that when Elly dies, I will be a wreck.

But, hey! New Year’s and renewing our vows to be ever more awesome. My resolutions are to quit smoking (I don’t smoke so I always include this as a guaranteed win) and lose 5,000 pounds (a nod to the many resolutions that have never been realistic to obtain).
What are my *real* resolutions? I think, when you get down to it, I just want to be a less crazy person (while still being the brilliant visionary, hilarious, and “nice” guy I am). Less seeing the world through the ghosts and demons that roam the halls and cellars that are me; more able to really listen and hear what the people in my life, especially those I care about but others I cross paths with as well, are trying to say in their words and beneath their words; better able to be present with the horrendously awful and the amazing beauty this year will bring me because that is how the Universe plays this game. You know, be less crazy. If I fail at that, at least I gave up smoking.