It’s odd posting one’s shit to someone

On your 60^th birthday, an unusual present arrives in Northern Ireland. It is a poo kit. A bulky envelope with little windows and flaps with intricate instructions which involves providing three samples of one’s poo. You are even given little cardboard spatulas to paste your shit into three little windows on stiff cardboard. It’s odd posting one’s shit to someone. It’s almost a “happy birthday now you are 60, shit will happen” and “we want you to send us your shit so we can tell you exactly what sort of shit you are in!”  I hesitate to do the deed.  Given how messed up my blood has been these last two years I am not particularly optimistic about my poo.  If my lifeblood is looking dodgy who knows what my poo will flag up.

Generally, I don’t mean to complain. After all, I have so much to be grateful for.  Especially the wonderful people in my life. But the big discovery, so far of being 60, is that shit happens. To good people and bad.  It comes in all shapes and is usually not what you expect.  I used to complain about the elderly being uniformly sad and angry while the young seemed happier, more hopeful like friendly puppies full of life.  Now, I begin to understand why. 

As you get older people approach you with rubber gloves and blood vials.   Your hearing gets worse, your eyesight falters and normal tasks become like intelligence tests designed to trip you up.  A friend of mine recently had to give a stool sample and was instructed by his doctor that he only needed to bring a sample the size of his tiny fingernail.  Obviously, people had been bringing in plastic bags and Tupperware containers full of poo for him to test.  Hence his insistence on nothing bigger than the nail of his smallest finger.  The doctor mentioned his fingernail three times for emphasis. The sad truth is that with age you can morph into the type of person who is quite capable of lugging a stool sample the weight of half a bag of potatoes into a surgery. 

The young often have no idea of how tricky it is for the older person in a hospital.  Even parking, locating the right floor, consulting room, hearing instructions, remembering details are all fraught with confusion.  I reckon that’s why we tend to adopt an unshakeable demeanour. So that if the doctor announces that we have an alien inhabiting our abdomen we tend to respond with “Well, I’ve had a good run so far. I mean I’ve been blessed with a good constitution all these years. So, I can’t really complain, now can I?” We tend to be infinitely grateful for the unexpected kindness of the medical staff and rather stoic if they seem indifferent or even hostile. After all, there are so many of us older ones filling surgeries in waiting rooms in hospitals up-and-down the country. We know the system is weary of us with our blood and poo all over the shop. Samples being sent here and there via postal systems and even being couriered to expensive labs. We want to apologise for all the shit. But there you go, such is life. 

Pretty soon we may well morph still further into entities that cannot deal even with our own shit. Others will have to wipe and clean us. Then, we will long for these heady days when our shit was our own and in our own hands not others! (that just did not sound right!) But, there is a wonderful symmetry to it all. After all, we come into this world unable to deal with our own shit as babies. Others do it for us. Then, we grow in our ability to deal with shit. Afterwards, we can have babies of our own who we, in turn, teach this fundamental skill of life.  Ultimately, this ability can gradually be lost so that we become again dependent on the services of others as we were in the beginning.

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The good news is that all this shit will eventually stop. The even better news is that this amazing journey, shit and all, is a wonderful love filled escapade that you get to share with so many loved ones. Despite all the shit, I wouldn’t have it any other way. May you have joy along with all the shit that comes. May you grow wonderful roses from life’s richest fertiliser!

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world

I have not written anything in weeks, perhaps months. Sometimes my lack of creativity is a result of anxiety, stress or upset. I usually find my mental state is in direct proportion to my creative output. But actually, this past period, Christmas and the New Year, has been a wonderful time with family and friends in Northern Ireland.

2018 was not a great year, I have to say. I lost far too many family and friends. I remember loved ones living or dead each morning and night. I write their initials down as they are recalled. The list is burnt into my memory with repetition but this year suddenly a host of new initials have been added.

I recall what my dad used to say in his 80s, “I have more loved ones in the next world than here, in this one”. It was a strange sensation, he said, to dream and be surrounded by those who have loved you and awake to find them gone. What is the mystery of this dream world where emotions run riot and our subconscious thoughts, past experiences and even future seem to flow together?

Because of such precious time over the festive period with loved ones I came back to Malta buoyed up with injections of energy and love. Wonderful conversations have worked their magic. Laughter quieted down the worries of this world. Instead of longing for all the things I don’t have there is a powerful sense of gratitude for all that I have been given.

Then, in the New Year this second week, news arrives of yet another loss. A dear friend who I visited only a week ago has died. When I called he had been in bed at home and was bone tired. When roused he lifted his head and opened his eyes seeming to recognise me. Then, he lay back into a deep restful slumber. Suddenly far, far away in a dream world and a better one. He was a Buddhist for much of his life and had meditated for an hour each day. It made him ever centred and calm.            

People brought him their problems because of that still centre. He was an excellent counsellor. Not one of the ‘new age’ bunch that prattle on “tell me more” without any valuable input of their own. Fear of litigation has created a new species of counsellor who say nothing for fear of doing harm. Given their lack of real experience and sometimes questionable motives it is perhaps not wrong for this to be their aspiration!

But real counsellors like him listened intently and then spoke to the issues raised. He never claimed the guru status or assumed he knew all the answers. The views he expressed were not channelled from a mystic source. Instead, they came from years of experience in healthcare, management and life. They were often insightful, at times unexpected, but always useful. The fact that his words never came from a desire for power or control but instead from a deep understanding and humility made them all the more welcome.

Utterance has the power to destroy or rejuvenate but real understanding can bring progress and healing. His honesty and humility allowed real consultation to take place and important truths to emerge.

For all those we have lost I find myself mourning their absence but also celebrating their loving presence in my memory banks and heart.  Today, when another dear friend’s funeral takes place in N. Ireland I am reminded of these heart-wrenching lines by a Pulitzer poetry prize winner.

“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay