Bittersweet

“When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.” - Tecumseh

My friend Lisa passed away this morning in the way, place and time she chose.  She is the first person I have known and loved to make use of a legal, medically assisted death procedure.  Several days ago, Lisa and her family sent a note to a select group of people to let us know she had chosen today as her last.  She has been very ill and we were all aware her time was growing critically short.  She wanted to leave this world with dignity and comfort and she wanted to be in control.  While I knew this day was coming, seeing the announcement in that way sent me spiraling down into a place of confusion and pain.  Suicide, even in this form is hard for me to process.  Apparently, all these years later, the little Catholic girl still dwells somewhere deep within me. But I love Lisa and I respect her right to make her own decisions.  What is right for her may not be right for me.  Who am I to judge?  My immediate challenge became figuring out how to be fully supportive of her and her loved ones and get myself through the next days.  I wrote a letter to Lisa to tell her how much she means to me and to say goodbye.  I made frequent contact with the others who make up a small piece of the collection of people she gathered around her and surrounded with her wisdom and love.  And I laid out a strategy for today that included time on the deck overlooking the ravine behind my home, some quiet, creative projects to distract me, prayer, meditation and reflection to send her spirit on its way and a small split of prosecco to enjoy in gratitude for her friendship and love.  Most of that didn't happen.

I did go outside to sit on the deck for an hour surrounding the time of her death.  The heat in the city is oppressive today, the air thick with humidity and smog.  At times there was a breeze but instead of carrying the gentle sounds of nature, it carried the sounds of the highway a kilometer from my home.  The birds stopped singing amid the cacophony of lawnmowers that seemed to be running all throughout the neighbourhood.  Still, I sat and read a book about love and said my prayers of gratitude.  When I could no longer endure the weight of the air I sat long in a tepid bath, trying to unknot the kinks in my too tight muscles.  I received a message from a dear young friend who was convocating from her masters program today.  She asked me to join her and her husband, mother and three small children for lunch.  As hard as I knew it would be to pull myself together, I knew that I must.  Lisa would have told me to go and celebrate.  I accepted the gracious invitation, dressed and headed to the restaurant.  It was a good tonic.  After lunch I drove my friend to a mani-pedi appointment she had at nearby salon.  I took a chance and went in with her and left a couple of hours later with a fresh pedicure, a bit of overdue self-care.  Lisa would have approved.

Tomorrow I will attend Lisa's funeral and the shiva in her family home.  I will cling tightly to the other women whose circle I have joined through my connection with Lisa.  They are the gift that she has left me, wonderful, beautiful people to know and to love, a place to belong.  A couple of days ago, I received a response to the letter I sent to Lisa to say goodbye,  She left me with these words, "I send you love and .. more love and hopes that you will be safe, strong and free and always feel like you belong." She was extraordinary, in life and in death.  Godspeed, my dear friend.

Seasons

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” - Ecclesiastes

I took on a new client a couple of months ago for what I expected to be a small project, barely worth my effort.  I didn't really want to take this piece of business.  For one thing, it is a French language agency and I don't speak French.  For another thing, the agency director didn't show any indications at the beginning of our interactions that she could recognize personal boundaries.  She sent me text messages from morning through night, seven days a week. One morning I woke to twenty five text messages which she sent in the middle of the night.  I am already immersed in other work and this project looked like a tremendous amount of effort for very little financial reward.  But the friend who sent her my way is a good friend.  His gut was telling him that she really needed help and that I was the person to give it to her.  He was right.

The morning to night, seven days a week texts, emails and calls have not abated.  In fact they have escalated.  Now they don't just come from the agency director but from the agency board and other members of agency management.  They come from the director's friends and supporters.  The director is dying and there is much to do to get things in order before she passes.

In these two months, I have come to love her. I admire her zest for life.  I am awed by the example she has set in taking the life lemons she was handed and making lemonade. She will leave a legacy of love, hope and healing not just for the children she has devoted her life to helping but for all those, like me who have been blessed to know her.

Just two months ago, when I met her, we thought she was getting better.  We believed she had many months, even years ahead.  We now know that is not so.  We count the time in hours and days now.  When we learned that her time was growing so short, I struggled with why God would bring me to her, to love and know only to take her away from me so soon. It is a selfish sentiment.  In this season of her life, she needed me and in this season of my life, I needed her.

A couple of weeks ago, when I went to meet with her at her bedside, she presented me with a Superwoman cape.  It made my heart smile.  As much as I appreciate the gesture, I don't think it is an accurate representation of our roles.  It is she who is Superwoman and I am merely her humble student.

Many Angry Men

”There was never an angry man that thought his anger unjust.” - Saint Francis de Sales

I've been doing a lot of work these past few weeks, investigating complaints of various types.  There have been the "mean girl" complaints, the "improper behavior" complaints and the "clash of egos" complaints.  The one I'm focused on right now is a workplace harassment case by a group of women against a group of men.  I've had private meetings with each of the women and each of the men. Taken individually, with one exception, I've quite liked all of them, both complainants and respondents.  What has become clear to me is that they are all working in a testosterone fueled atmosphere where aggressive interactions are the norm.  The physical space that they work in is tight.  The men regularly shout at the women and at one another.  They hurl epithets and bump into the women, sometimes with force sufficient to knock them off balance, all without apology.  Complaints about their behavior have until now, fallen on deaf ears, largely met by the all male management team with a "Suck it up, princess response".

And yet, these men, taken individually seem like good guys.  They've talked to me about their wives and mothers.  They are affable in my company and mostly respectful in our interactions, and yet they are also bewildered.  They don't understand why the women are complaining.  They don't understand why the women are afraid.

It has started me thinking about the rage of men and whether or not they even realize that they make women feel afraid when they rage at us.  I wonder if they know that we feel afraid when they tailgate our cars and then flip us off or scream at us when they pull up beside us at stop lights.  I wonder if they know that it makes us afraid when they yell at us.  

Last week I met a woman at a social reception.  She was clearly having a bad day.  As I seem to have a face that invites strangers to unload their burdens, she told me her story.  She has been married to a good man for more than thirty years.  They have children and grandchildren.  But just that very morning, her husband had lost his temper, angry about a situation that his wife was not responsible for, but shouting at her as the outlet for his anger.  She knows he would never physically hurt her but he made her feel afraid, just the same.  She got into her car and drove for five hours, unable to convince herself to return to her home, pushed beyond her breaking point.

I don't know what the answer is to dealing with angry men.  I do know that we need to do a better job with our sons in teaching them about the effect that male rage can have on women.  I have spoken to my own son about it.  Perhaps I will have the chance to do the same with the men who are the respondents in my current investigation.  Probably not, but I sure hope someone does.