Time to Grow a Little More.

A couple of days ago I had a dream.

I have dreamed it three or four times in the last few years. Each time, the details change,but essentially, I dream I am in graduate school at my alma mater, Southern Methodist University. I am apparently in my late 20s or 30s, and I have left journalism to study for a master's. In the dream, my mother is alive and well in the family home in New Mexico, and she is paying for my living expenses and classes. I am single. In the dream,I am fully aware of my mother's warmth and love for me (a fortunate truth all our lives).

At the beginning of each dream, I am happy and having a fine time. I am going to class. Afterwards, I try to think where I should go next. It slowly dawns on me I have a full load of classes, and I am only attending this one and maybe one other. I can't even remember what the other courses are and we are more than halfway through the semester. Too late to drop the unattended classes and get my mother's money back. I consider going to the dean of students' office or provost, but feel overwhelmed. And guilty. So, so guilty. I decide I must begin to rectify this, and that also involves telling my mother. I dread it, but I square my shoulders.

And then I wake up, the guilt and sense of disorientation so emotionally vivid,I have remembered each dream.

After the first, I said, "Huh."

After the second, I took notice, and sat down to puzzle a bit and contemplate my navel. I decided I was ignoring important tasks or actions I should be making in my life, and I was off-balance. It didn't take much to uncover what two or three of those were, and to attend to them. And I felt better, and didn't have the dream again for a year. Then I took inventory again and corrected a few more things.

Now it has been at least 15 months, and here it is again, with some major alterations. Those I will mull awhile, but the bottom line is, my inner person is telling me I am not doing enough. I am not taking care of all my business, or using my talents to their fullest. And in the meantime, I am having a fine time. And that all is true.

But I am doing so much more than I was. Why does my sleeping self tap me on the shoulder and say, "You aren't doing enough"?

It isn't neurosis, I am convinced of that. I really believe it is the growing strength and power I am scared I don't have, but in my sleep, I know I do. My dreams nudge. Neurosis would be ignoring the push and sulking. Health means looking at the goals on my mental list and start tending to them.

One of those is truly frivolous but important to me--to ride in a helicopter. I have wanted to fly since I was 4 years old. I have taken lessons. I have been a passenger in a stunt plane. I have taken a taste of skydiving, and ridden in the Goodyear blimp. The hot air balloon and helicopter ride remain to be fulfilled. Good to look forward to, to anticipate.

There are many ways to fly. Each time I step out on what feels like thin air, trusting I will not fall, I am flying. Such tiny steps in midair. A dinner for my family. Touching and hugging just about everyone more, when I've never been touchy-feely. Opening up a little more. My honesty goes to bedrock, but I am not so open. I feel the effort to force those shutters or doors open just a little more every time I pry.

The dream is an unexpected gift, as so many things in my life. It is time to rebalance my life again to accomodate a little more, to be patient with myself when I don't progress as fast as I want. To enjoy process, and value each person in my life. That is what the dream tells me. The feel of my mother's steady love?
Oh. That reminds me to go on loving myself and forgive my imperfections. Fairly late in the semester? I'm 65. I think there's still quite a lot left.

All in all, a pretty good night's work spent in dreams.

Does the End Justify the Means?

Suicide.

Human suffering, so we are taught, and so I mostly believe, leads to enlightenment. Growth. A greater understanding of the gift of life itself.

But what if?

No hope, no enlightenment in cases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia, or a brain tumor? Something we don't know how to heal and leaves the recipient with no mental faculties, years of misery and years of misery for family, caretakers, and friends?

So we have laws, in a few states, that if a person still has full faculties and wants to end his/her life, they can do so if they can find a physician to help them. Is it merciful? Cowardice? How do their families and friends handle it? Does it matter? I am at peace with those laws. No agenda.

A counselor who works with depression once told me, "Suicide is what people do when they can't think of anything else to do."

I have a friend whose husband killed himself after years of treatment for cancer. He couldn't eat or drink by mouth, but was fully cognizant when he shot himself. It was a total shock. She almost went under in reaction. After several years of treatment herself, she is a strong, empathetic friend to have. And she is still angry about his death. Not unforgiving--that would not be healthy for her. But angry. She might have been, anyway. But HER suffering would have been less if he had gone on, and I'm sure he told himself his sudden demise would mean LESS suffering.

And then my own experience. Mother had Alzheimer's. Her body was very strong. When she was cognizant and aware (and suffering because of her awareness), she told me, "It is if I write my life on a giant blackboard as fast as I can, and it is erased as fast as I can write it."

Four years after she went into care she forgot my name. But her face would still light up when I came in. Many aren't so lucky. But I would cry all the way home. Twelve years after she went into nursing care, her autonomic system failed and she died.

Mother would never have chosen suicide. And look at me. Did I grow? Did I learn? Reluctantly, I have to say I did.

Do I believe in stopping persons from suicide? Yes, because often, it isn't their lives that have failed, but for a bit, their imagination. Is that another word for hope? I think so...

People without hope have an explosive effect on society. The fracture they create spreads out in ripples. Ask surviving victims of a suicide bomber.

Ask family and friends of a suicide.