mission of mercy

In 18 six 2 hours I’ll be flying to Vancouver, then Frankfurt. Not an ideal time to go to Europe, nor my preferred way of spending old age. But go I must. My brother and sister-in-law, married for sixty years, are both near death. Dementia, literally, from the Latin, “going out of one’s mind”, is devouring their brain and cell functions.

Due to scarcity of beds they’re in separate facilities. As shadows of their handsome selves, they barely eat, no longer speak, and steadily vanish into that dark night. Waiting for what? Our half-brother, weeks short of retiring from 40 years as doctor-who-still-makes-house-calls, does magic in masterminding their care. His wife and two daughters (juggling professional and familial duties of their own), visit daily, answer emergency calls, do laundry, spoon-feed, and savour moments of lucidity.

Karla, Peter, Gerhard — back then.

May they be blessed.

All of us — including an already-grieving granddaughter, our distant cousin, and me “over here” — are drawn into an orbit of kinship. A family at last, for too long separated by geography and stale disagreements, heeds the unspoken invitation of two beings about to die. Tibetan teacher Lama Lekshe writes,

“Rivulets become streams. / Streams join as rivers, / Rivers return home to the great ocean. / Homeward, homeward, / Home to the familiar beginning but knowing it now / With clear eyes and mind.”

p.s. Johnny, my dharma brother in Northern Ireland, writes to say that today’s Summer Solstice, “an auspicious day to travel East into a new dawn”. He enclosed a photo of a decorated tree at Ballynoe stone circle, Downpatrick, Co. Down. Go raibh míle maith agat!