Rowing Quietly Upstream

This came to me like an old 40w incandescent bulb. My partner is staying away this weekend because he is sick and he doesn’t want to infect me. I tell him it’s up to him, and said, "I don’t care if I have to take care of you like this." But like always, when he makes up his mind it is written in stone.

I feel I most likely die when I feel my partner is OK in life. Not that it will be a firm date, or even really planned... I'll just turn the boat around and join the rest of us. Nor does the OK state have some kind of qualifiers. I will pass much like my mother will pass once she feels we are all OK(I have a schizophrenic sister that is having a hard time). If look at where I am now, and what I have become. I probably won’t “be” anything but pure love, in most instances to my partner. I am constantly reminded that he is own person, lives his life with or without me. Not in a callus way, is still in a loving and appreciative of the impact I have made on his life. He rarely asks for anything, and most all of what I have contributed to make his life easier was done on my part out of love. I don’t want him to owe me anything, and I think all this came out of my near death. A force that propelled me to fight to live, leaving me to believe that there was a bigger picture I needed to address.


That to be in the world, or to more importantly to live in this world someone had to love you, like your mother, or father… in order for you to survive. My partner was raised by some village elders unrelated that acted like grandparents to him in his case. He feels indebted to his "grandmother" who had passed just before we met, I did meet his grandfather on two visits to his home and have a great picture of the two them. I will venture to say that is grandmother passed him on to me, and he was the closet to her and it shook him when she died. It was a miracle we met but we did so, just as soon as he got over the grief.

My survival from my hospital nightmare also had a love factor involved, my family, ex-partner and nurses made it all possible. So the best thing to come out of this freaky experience is the fact that I will be known for attempting to show love, above anything else I am, do or was capable of. I don’t need to “be” anything, but what I am right now, of course, with some improvement.

Experience with Immature Thoughts

How often do we judge our experience down to every single moment on whether we are pleased? Be it food, drink, temperature, the views and/or the sounds we hear. If I find myself wanting a constant pleasant experience for myself, I find that I am constantly on the move. This seems so immature when I really contemplate this. More a mental experience than physical, always leap frogging to something perceived as better than what I have right now. It becomes even more pronounced when things might be difficult, even slightly. I have brain damage so severe that when I get too much input, be it noise or perceived chaos I get overloaded because my brain cannot narrow down a single person conversation from background noise. It is even more pronounced on the phone if the other party is in a really noisy area. Although this is a common problem with my injury, I am looking into how I deal when it happens because it like life, you cannot control every instance. If I examine personally at how I try to control life in general, and relax, I am in fact easing the stranglehold we sometimes carry around with our life experiences. Trying always to make them pleasant to our senses.Then in the big picture of life, I might be more prepared for the more difficult aspects of aging, sickness and death. We often daydream a fairy-tale ending to our life, or put in so far on the back-burner that the only existence it plays in our life is a certain child like approach to real life connections with friends and family. People are in our life for a reason and we sometimes take it so for granted that we dismiss any feelings surgically on a regular basis with no remorse.



As I got a massage in my favorite family run shop-house, they guessed why I am on the path. Saying, "Broken heart or a family death?" I said, "No, a logical conclusion." I survived my near-death not because of my strong will as most will surmise, but for the kindness of others. How could I have strong will if not for having love in my life to give me the strength? My mother played a very important role, giving me life for really the second time! My friends and even the night nurse who has since passed, saw the fact that I was more “there” than the doctors at that time said. And now look I can write this, when they predicted a vegetable like life, post injury. Can you imagine how a mother would take what they said at that time about her first-born son? To prepare for me to die. How can one possibly pay this back?



Ever notice a Thank You never seems to be sufficient when someone does something good and loving for you. The best way to return this favor is to be loving with others, transform your gift from them into something as worthwhile as theirs. Letting go of the power they gave you because it would be mature.

If anyone loves you then this really means they are sacrificing a part of their sense of “I.” Lowering their self-cherishing enough to look beyond. A gift we sometimes overlook.

I watched two policemen enjoy ice cream, brought to them by a superior when I stopped coincidentally to put a bandaid on my toe. I enjoyed the look on their face, and I did not even have to pay. We exchanged smiles, one of the free gifts of life.
The first part of my discussion is looked at it depth with Paticcasamuppada(Practical Dependent Origination) in Buddha’s teachings.

That Same Face

It’s quiet, with the exception of the beeps on my monitoring equipment. I know ...I have been here before. I am going in and out of consciousness, and it is getting harder and harder to breathe. My partner is watching me, wondering…I look at him, and see three wrinkles of worry on his forehead. I marvel at his handsome face, his few eye wrinkles, his graying temples, but he is much more, a truth body. Yes, I have learned so much from him. He knows death well, from cremating his own brother when was 18 from suicide, not to mention his parents in the recent past. It is a on to another life that he has prepared us for by making merit and being a monk many times. He smiles. Knowing I am trying to talk, he leans closer to the bed. With a slight smile, I manage to whisper, “I get it,” before slipping into a subtle mind just before death.








Now, back it up. Where or what proceeded this, you ask?


I recently watched Revolutionary Road, and Kate Winslet in a moment of hopelessness of seeing her dreams scattered like ashes…had that face. I said I know that face, and it all came back to me.
My father drunk, sarcastically bitching at my Mom while she was making dinner for the six of us. My Mom’s hands were wet, she had a towel in one hand, and things were burning in the kitchen. She was leaning on the kitchen door frame, just looking at him with the same pained expression, and a tear flowed down one cheek. The four of us kids were avoiding coming to the table to endure, yet another one of his rages. What will he do this time? Mom was torn up, she can never do it, be good enough for him and she had nowhere to go, with the four us attached. She turned around and said, “Fine” and poured herself a glass of wine. She continued on fixing our dinner, tears were flowing down now and falling onto our plates. “Kid’s, you know your father.” Pissed off she would not engage him anymore, he got up from his regular throne, a chair at the table, slamming the door and taking off in his car. Mom would still try to serve dinner, but was so overwrought. I was sick of it, and took off to my room, dinner was not that important. Later my Mom would try to make up for the love that she and us did not get from my father. At times it was too smothering for me, being in junior high…moms were supposed to give you twenty paces, plus I saw right through it. I would say that you can’t make up for him.





Now years later I know what I got from my mom, was the ability to love someone, love myself and this formed my successful relationships. Lucky, I have no kids to worry about having to feed and clothe. I pity the situation she was in back then, and am glad she is happy now. She paid a hell of a price for us kids. Thank you Mom, and I really owe you my life. Yes, I finally get it.
The top photo is by my partner of the cremation of a family friend. A dear father figure who helped him as a child, when his father took off drinking, leaving his mom to raise her 4 kids without him.