​ Today I find myself give a mental shout-out to caregivers, the unsung, the unnoticed heroes of everyday life. Someone is ill, in the hospital, disabled, depressed, needing attention--you name it. They can't function by themselves and so a caregiver steps in. Maybe they didn't know they would be needed until, voila, something happened that changed everything. Or perhaps they saw it coming, as with a scheduled surgery or a slowly evolving dementia. 
I have a dime in my hand. Roosevelt, the one who gets my attention, in on the front. 
But what is on the back? I must turn it over to be reminded. And likewise I must remember the caregivers, and tell them: I see you. A patient and a caregiver, two sides of the same coin. 

     Can we say that cooking to eat healthy is simple? As with many questions, the answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Lately I’ve been eliminating carbs (pasta, potatoes and rice) from our evening meal and cooking up vegetables to serve in their place. Now, let me tell you that until recently I would admit that I didn’t like vegetables. Not very PC, but at least truthful. I grew up with Birds-eye frozen green beans, lima beans and peas, always over-cooked.
     Nowadays I’m into roasting vegetables. Here’s my simple recipe: cut them up, add olive oil and salt, and put the Pyrex pan into a 350 degree oven for thirty. That’s the simple version.
     Check out Comfort Food under the “Cottage Companions” section of this blog for details for Cauliflower and Carrots.

     A friend’s daughter-in-law recently received a kidney from her sister. As they say, it was the perfect match. This woman, who spent most of her time in bed before the transplant, is now up and about, walking five miles a day with her new puppy.
     For sure, this is a feel-good story, and we can leave it at that. But think about it! For years there was no time for silence, solitude or simplicity, and yet now she can simply embrace silence and solitude, not just physically but mentally and spiritually.
     Problems, such as this one, can become all consuming and drown our very being. However, this woman, so I understand, didn’t let that happen to her. Rather than wallowing in self-pity she remained upbeat, allowing hope to flourish and physical healing to occur. Mind/body/spirit in concert. The lesson for us is not rocket science.

Another summer walk. Always the same, always different. I went out early while the trees still provided shade on large sections of the walkway. Most days I rotate among four different loops, each more or less four miles from home to home.

    A couple of weeks ago, as I walked up and down stairs and ascended or descended little slopes on my walks, I became conscious of one of my knees. “None, of that, Bobs.” My current life style counts on walking—at home, at the cottage, and in my travels.

      My diagnosis, weak quads; my prescription, exercise! My private little PT sessions didn’t take much in the way of exercise or time. On today’s walk I completely forgot about my knees. Simple-- but I’m aware that that isn’t always so for others, and perhaps some day it won’t be for me. My rule at the moment is to start with a simple solution, and to start early.

Someone once told me that ‘the death issue’ is one of the main themes that human beings have to deal with, and the one that they most avoid. I don’t remember what the others were, but it just may be that dealing with death is the fundamental one, the one that energizes everything we do. We can’t avoid it, try as we might. When there is illness, or death itself, the death issue holds center stage. But death also lurks behind our joys and our concerns.

     Let’s start with joys, where often, but not always, we can hide the death issue. When the family or friends are together…everyone is safe..alive. Enjoy a delicious meal…I am healthy. Buy a new couch or car…I have a future. We talk in positives.

     But with concerns, the negatives appear and with them, the link with the death issue. Someone made it home safely…they didn’t die in a car accident. The chemo is working… they are going to keep living.  Depression is taking over…what can we do to help them?

     You may be asking what this has to do with silence, solitude and simplicity. Is this what she thinks about up there alone at the cottage? Well, yes. Let me explain. In order to make sense of my life (I believe this is true for everyone), to find meaning, to step out of my ego, to find God, to … (you fill in the blank), I have to face the death issue. In fact, it comes up ‘naturally’. I can’t avoid it, although I can deny it and try to stay clear of it. (One way to do this is enter the medical world and pretend that medicine and doctors are gods.)

    For me, in the silence, solitude and simplicity of the cottage, the death issue transforms into a life issue. How do I live with meaning, purpose and peace at the moment, at my particular age, with my unique situation? By facing my mortality, answers come. Not all the answers and not all the time, but hope is a constant, that is very good.

I’m waiting for a 2:30 dentist appointment to reattach the cap on my left top wisdom tooth—the one that came out on the very day that it’s companion, the right top one, was pulled. What a bother this all is because I want to beat the traffic to the cottage. More to the point, I want to be at the cottage. But here I sit, with another opportunity to practice patience. Of course I’m mighty aware that impatience has no place in an atmosphere of silence, solitude and simplicity. The life-long challenge is to experience the 3Ss no matter what the circumstance--all the while knowing that ‘fight or flight’ will take over if need be. Surely, waiting for a dentist appointment is not in that category, so patiently I wait.

Email sent to my wonderful dentist:

The good news is that the right top wisdom tooth that you extracted on Monday is completely healed.

The bad news is that on that very same day, the cap on my left top wisdom tooth came out--as I was eating soft foods. Um.

The good news is that I have the cap in a very safe place.

The bad news is that I can’t make it in to see you until Monday.

The good news is that I don’t feel any discomfort at all.

You’ll have to admit that this is quite coincidental. That wee cap must have responded in sympathy to her little buddy. Right now I am sitting in the mystery of it all at my cottage by the sea in Maine.

I drove up to the cottage yesterday after a 8AM visit to the dentist to have my wisdom tooth extracted. I hated to see it go, but it was loose and effecting it’s neighbor, so having it pulled was my only good choice. I am leery of going to too many doctors and specialists and having too many blood tests or exploratory tests (such as ultrasounds), especially when they are ‘prescribed’ as routine and preventative, not because of any problematic symptoms. The dentist and optometrist, however, are my exceptions, and I’m keeping a eye, or rather an ear, on my hearing.

     A few weeks ago I met an acquaintance from my early teaching days who told me that since the birth of her last (fourth) child forty years ago, she has never been back to a doctor. “Just eyes and teeth,” she told me. Admittedly she is in good health (as I am): her attitude resonated with mine.

     Another friend told me that her mother, who died at age 96, claimed that she was living so long because, “I don’t let anyone have my blood.” No blood tests, no meddling, no medicine.

     I try to stay away from doctors and medicine as one of the simple ways to keep my life simple. For example, my body didn’t have to wonder what all that flu vaccine was doing inside, because I did get a flu shot. “Why put ‘poison’ into a healthy body?” I asked myself and since I couldn’t come up with a satisfying answer, I avoided the needle prick and possible shot symptoms. I figure that if I get the flu, my mind/body/spirit will deal with it. All worth the chance.

     I can’t count the number of times a headache as disappeared after I didn’t take a Tylenol. Since I don’t watch TV very much, I don’t learn about all the physical problems I might have and the meds I can take just in case. I do my best to live with a ‘no med’ policy. I take a few vitamins, and for the most part I eat healthy, although I love chips and anything salty.

     I don’t mean to sound arrogant or invulnerable. I have two friends who had successful brain surgery this past year, and believe me, I’d have done the same in their situation. I’m just sharing some of the ways that I try to lead a simple life, which in some small measure means not giving attention to medical issues that don’t exist. I want to lead an intentional, and yes, a simple life, not a long one. I am not interested in living in the medical world, now, while I’m healthy, or later for any extended period of time when my body breaks down. That being said, I did have Novocain at the dentist yesterday!

First I want to report that I am happily home for the Thanksgiving week.

     Yesterday I spent a fair amount of time at the hospital, sitting at the bedside of a 92 year old friend from church. I left her at 8 PM and she died peacefully three hours later. I left her knowing that she might die, but I also believe that I left her knowing that she was not alone.

      This has me pondering solitude and the dying process. Common wisdom tell us that people do not want to die alone. Or is it that we, the living, have decided that is so? The answer is yes and no.  We can’t control when a person dies, nor if we will be with them when they take that final exhale. We don’t know what they really want, nor very likely do they. At best, we can follow our intuition and offer them the comfort that they are not alone.

    When my friend was alert she told me how comforted  she was that I had come—how our conversations helped her. I believe that that reassurance continued as I sat with her when she wasn’t alert (we are told that the hearing is ‘last to go’). She knew I was there;  she was not alone.

    I’ll never know for sure, but I have faith that I am on the right track about this. As someone who likes solitude, I’d like someone to accompany me when I’m dying. Not every minute, but I don’t want to feel alone, and a part of that has to do with physical presence.

Although nobody has ever said that the dentist’s office exudes silence, solitude or simplicity, but my dentist comes as close as possible to creating such a setting. When I arrive this morning for preparation for a crown for my wisdom tooth, I was given a post-it and asked to write jot down something that made me smile today—for me it was the dentist’s wisdom and welcoming personality. Next I gave the assistant a CD (“Elizabeth the Queen: Life of a Modern Monarch” by Sally Bedell Smith), and for the next hour and a half hour, thanks to ear phones and CD player provided by my dentist, I became absorbed in the courtship and early marriage of the then Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

    We can’t always avoid noise and complex situations, nor can we avoid the dentist. But we can do things to ease the tension confusion, especially with a dentist like mine. Thank you, Dr. S.