Thank you for all you do to witness me through this season, to offer your comments and insights in our always enlivening comments section, so full of solidarity and wisdom.
To give up “timelines, control, specialness, language”—oof, these are my lighthouses too. Thank you, Courtney, for not just being a witness to your dad, but for sharing what you witness with us. It helps, it helps, it helps.
Your transparency is refreshing and healing for me to witness. It is a gift to me and the collective. In my experience with Dementia, my mother always knew I was someone she loved. She often called me her sister (my aunt). She crossed over last fall, 26 days after my father crossed. At that point, she was quite non-verbal. People would ask, “Does she realize your dad is gone?” Absolutely she knew. Just like she knew I was someone she loved. I’m convinced that she had access to liminal spaces where she understood events through “different” ways of knowing. The nurses at the care facility said on the night before my dad died, they found my mother crying. She was not in physical pain. She rarely cried. That was around 11pm. He died at 2am, 3 hrs later. They were communicating. She knew.
There are some interesting episodes about Dementia on the Telepathy Tapes that have confirmed what I experienced in witnessing to my parent’s final years and intertwined passing. Your father knows who you are. He will always know. Even if his body can no longer express it in ways that you are familiar with. I believe that to be true.
You are navigating this so beautifully and authentically on the platform that you have created. I commend you for choosing to pause during this season of life and become available for your father in this moment. It is courageous and emotionally exhausting. So much growth, grief and compassion all stitched together by memory and time.
May you love and grieve well. And may our culture reimagine how we care for our elders in their final years as well as our relationship with death. Sending you warmth and love during the “long goodbye”.
I really get this. I often think he recognizes "my people" and maybe his definition of that group just keeps expanding--just one more of the sacred parts of the journey.
I didn’t know that I also prefer the Irish goodbye- and you made me realize how much I would miss. That my way is often to run away to avoid the sadness, when actually sadness is what makes the joys in life so joyful. Your experiences bring up lots of past memories, ones that needed to be remembered.
Thank you for opening up this window -- to allow us to bear witness as you bear witness -- for allowing so much both/and to exist inside the narrative you're discovering. Time stopped and everything felt very quiet and still while I took in your words and pictures (the one of your head against your dad's chest!). I read and re-read the words "This, my dad’s life, is a long, lingering one—full of cruelty and surprise, mirth and assertion now, devoid of attachment and words."💛
Your phrase “what’s left?” reminds me of an author I had read that ended his book with a semi colon. It’s been a year since my wife’s passing and your comments on “bearing witness to one’s presence” until you can’t anymore touched me. There is an elegance to conversations you share with us with your dad. Thank you;
Grateful for all these comments and for the response your vulnerable writing evokes in so many. Our children were young when their grammy(my mom) reached the point of no longer recognizing any of us. We explained that just as our mom wiped diapers and fed us and loved on us long before we had any understanding of it, so could we love on her, laugh with her, or just sit with her (and sometimes cry) whether or not she understood who we were or what we were doing. Bearing witness is what loved ones do. Your dad certainly did that for you and many others. Bearing witness, as you say, is quite often done at those times we are most cognizant that we are not in control.
Courtney, if i could write as beautifully as you, this is exactly—exactly— what I would write. My journey feels very aligned with you and that brings me peace ❤️
Thank you for sharing your experience and time with your dad. Many things you shared were easy to relate to. As I spent time with my mom in her last years, I saw so much grace in people who moved around her, and learned so much from her care givers. I often felt late to responding to her needs. Some days I felt like crying and others like laughing.
"I have also learned that the first moment of truth is not always the whole story."
Oh my, yes.
"Like" is not nearly enough of a response to this heartbreakingly beautiful post.
A spiritual practice, indeed. Thank you so much for being willing to share it, to allow us to be able to witness you, just a little.
Thank you Peggy. I clicked the page open wanting also to say that "like" is not adequate for what touches the heart so deeply.
To give up “timelines, control, specialness, language”—oof, these are my lighthouses too. Thank you, Courtney, for not just being a witness to your dad, but for sharing what you witness with us. It helps, it helps, it helps.
Your transparency is refreshing and healing for me to witness. It is a gift to me and the collective. In my experience with Dementia, my mother always knew I was someone she loved. She often called me her sister (my aunt). She crossed over last fall, 26 days after my father crossed. At that point, she was quite non-verbal. People would ask, “Does she realize your dad is gone?” Absolutely she knew. Just like she knew I was someone she loved. I’m convinced that she had access to liminal spaces where she understood events through “different” ways of knowing. The nurses at the care facility said on the night before my dad died, they found my mother crying. She was not in physical pain. She rarely cried. That was around 11pm. He died at 2am, 3 hrs later. They were communicating. She knew.
There are some interesting episodes about Dementia on the Telepathy Tapes that have confirmed what I experienced in witnessing to my parent’s final years and intertwined passing. Your father knows who you are. He will always know. Even if his body can no longer express it in ways that you are familiar with. I believe that to be true.
You are navigating this so beautifully and authentically on the platform that you have created. I commend you for choosing to pause during this season of life and become available for your father in this moment. It is courageous and emotionally exhausting. So much growth, grief and compassion all stitched together by memory and time.
May you love and grieve well. And may our culture reimagine how we care for our elders in their final years as well as our relationship with death. Sending you warmth and love during the “long goodbye”.
I really get this. I often think he recognizes "my people" and maybe his definition of that group just keeps expanding--just one more of the sacred parts of the journey.
I didn’t know that I also prefer the Irish goodbye- and you made me realize how much I would miss. That my way is often to run away to avoid the sadness, when actually sadness is what makes the joys in life so joyful. Your experiences bring up lots of past memories, ones that needed to be remembered.
Thank you for opening up this window -- to allow us to bear witness as you bear witness -- for allowing so much both/and to exist inside the narrative you're discovering. Time stopped and everything felt very quiet and still while I took in your words and pictures (the one of your head against your dad's chest!). I read and re-read the words "This, my dad’s life, is a long, lingering one—full of cruelty and surprise, mirth and assertion now, devoid of attachment and words."💛
Thank you, Rebekah. Means so much coming from you, a writer who writes bodies and both/and so beautifully.
" The unknowing practice is the whole thing." Yes, this. Thank you.
Your phrase “what’s left?” reminds me of an author I had read that ended his book with a semi colon. It’s been a year since my wife’s passing and your comments on “bearing witness to one’s presence” until you can’t anymore touched me. There is an elegance to conversations you share with us with your dad. Thank you;
If I may, let me share a writing by Jane Kenyon to which I am drawn after reading Courtney's essay;
Otherwise
I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise.
I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day just like this day.
But one day, I know, it will be otherwise. J
That last paragraph. Just beautiful. Thank you, Courtney.
Thank you so, so much to share with such honesty and sensibility your experience.
A testament to love! What’s left? Still a lot. Thank you!❤️
“I have learned to ask not, “Does he know me?” but “What’s left?”. 💖
Thank you so much for sharing beautifully your love and care of your dad
Tears, Courtney.
Your love - and your tribute to love - are beautiful.
Thank you for sharing these thoughts with us.
Grateful for all these comments and for the response your vulnerable writing evokes in so many. Our children were young when their grammy(my mom) reached the point of no longer recognizing any of us. We explained that just as our mom wiped diapers and fed us and loved on us long before we had any understanding of it, so could we love on her, laugh with her, or just sit with her (and sometimes cry) whether or not she understood who we were or what we were doing. Bearing witness is what loved ones do. Your dad certainly did that for you and many others. Bearing witness, as you say, is quite often done at those times we are most cognizant that we are not in control.
Thanks for inviting us to share your journey.
Courtney, if i could write as beautifully as you, this is exactly—exactly— what I would write. My journey feels very aligned with you and that brings me peace ❤️
Holding you in my heart always, Mary.
Thank you for sharing your experience and time with your dad. Many things you shared were easy to relate to. As I spent time with my mom in her last years, I saw so much grace in people who moved around her, and learned so much from her care givers. I often felt late to responding to her needs. Some days I felt like crying and others like laughing.