Marlena,
I met Susan back in 1975. We were both riding a company bus regularly
to work at McDonnell Douglas. Early on in our getting to know one
another she told me she had the disease that ultimately turned out to be
Crohn's (a disease that somehow gave rise to all the others). We were
getting serious so she was giving me fair warning. Shortly thereafter I
had a dream about her. In it I was something like one of the doctor's I
had read about, someone who would do something sacrificial like take
care of leper's. In the dream I was happy to take care of her. I told
her about the dream the next day and she scoffed. I told her the dream
meant that I would be able to take care of her no matter what. She
scoffed some more.
I think it was to that dream she referred not so long ago saying "you
said you would take care of me and you have, but I didn't think you would."
Someone not so long ago said Susan was the closest thing to an angel
she'd ever met. Yesterday a 78 year-old man, someone I'd never met,
came to the house and leaned over Susan (who had been given morphine and
couldn't hear him), petting her arm and telling her how much he
appreciated her, that she was a wonderful Christian lady. I thought he
was going to weep. He wasn't coherent and didn't stay long, giving me
his phone number and offering like so many others "to help." Later when
Susan seemed more coherent I mentioned his name, saying he had come to
see her, and asked if she remembered him. She didn't.
Auden sometimes missed being married. There were a few women he met
that he could imagine being married to. He was a Christian and believed
homosexuality was a sin, but he also believed in God's grace and that he
would be forgiven. He could see (or imagine) what it would be like to
be in a good marriage, but he was a committed poet and believed a wife
would hold him back. Nothing ever held me back but me. I was never
interested in the sort of clubishnesss that poets and other writers
engage in, partly to help their being published, but mostly it seems
(from the bios) because they really liked being with each other, or a
few of others like them, and liked the writing scene. I was a
well-trained Marine when I started college and couldn't abide any sort
of clubishness other than the sort I had been trained to appreciate.
The work I did at Douglas and McDonnell Douglas was fairly easy. There
were few days in the 39 years I worked in Engineering that I couldn't
find time to write if I wanted to, and I did often enough to believe
that my occupation hadn't kept me from anything I wanted to do.
So here I am at 03:00 in the morning. I woke to check on her and found
her with her head on one of the bed railings breathing hard. I gave her
some more morphine and placed the oxygen device back in her nose,
straightened her bedding a bit and lay her back down. I then couldn't
go back to sleep. It doesn't matter.
Lawrence
On 6/27/2015 10:20 PM, eternitytime1@xxxxxxx wrote:
Dear Lawrence
Walking next to Death as you are IS universal. Having had a somewhat similar
situation, I believe you are putting into words the emotions I have not been
able to articulate and it touches the grief that never leaves.
Thank you for sharing, not just the poetry, but Susan of whom I have heard so
much of Susan through the years. I do believe she has been a Gift. I am so
sorry that you and she are going through this.
Lurking on Lit-Ideas,
Marlena in Missouri
Sent from my iPhone
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 07:26:45 -0700
From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] On Help
When she was an hour away,
More counting the time
To find parking, I would
Feel guilty not going or
Being there more often.
Now she is here, heavily
Breathing oxygen and getting
Percocet while I'm doing
All I'm able, realizing
She doesn't know all
I'm doing. And now
I'm borne down by
Those who come and stay
Or talk too long saying
They want to help.
There is no help
Which they would know
If they realized
The immensity of what
Is transpiring on this
Bed beyond their grasp.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2015 21:29:33 -0500
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: One in the morning
From: Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>
Thank you, Lawrence, for sharing.
