HAP

Dear Tammy, Sounds wonderful. Where did you have it done? Peace, Harry

Friends, Busy days on this end of the woods. Tuesday I was elected co-chair of the organizing committee for the Greater Fall River Relay for Life. Don't know whether that is a positive development or not. We can only hope. Today, I finished the Walking with Jane page--at least for now: www.facebook.com/walkingwithjane. The page is open to everyone. You do not have to be on Facebook. Go take a look and tell me what you think. And please, folks, somebody else post something here. This is beginning to feel really lonely. Peace, Harry

Dear SusieQ, I smile every time I read your name. It brings back pleasant thoughts, despite the fact i never knew a Susie before. Anyway, this is an old Arabic expression. Apparently camels tend to wander off if you do not tie them down. So while one should trust in God, when it comes to camels--and other things one should not concern god with--it is best to make sure of them yourself rather than relying on any outside agency--i.e. God. The other implication--and the humor in the line--is that even God cannot control the will or the whim of a camel. Ornery beasts. Peace, Harry

Dear Becky, We all do what we are called to do. Your last post makes it really clear what your only real option is. So go with it. My wife would say that doing the right thing is easy when our lives are going ok. Doing the right thing is much more difficult when it comes with a real cost to ourselves. My two cents worth. But you do have to do what is right for you. And there are some times where you have to put the oxygen nmask on your face before you can take care of the pperson sitting next to you. Asd i sometimes say to my students: Trust in God, but tie your camel first. Peace, Harry

Dear Becky, Have him get in touch with me if he wants to talk sometime. The one piece of advice my grandmother gave me when I went into the business was: The day you start teaching for money is the day you have to get out. That day never happened for me--in part because no matter what administrators do, it always comes down to teaching the kids and doing what is best for them in the long term. And it didn't hurt that my wife was in the same business and understood exactly what it takes to really do the job. Peace, Harry

Dear Dwayne, No need to apologize. People are clearly reading the thread--they just don't have much to say about it. More likely I just write too much sometimes. And the piece was more me trying to sort ideas inside my head than anything else--so I am not concerned with the small number of comments. A thread takes the direction people need it to take. Don't worry about it. Peace, Harry P.S. Is our group meeting this Wednesday or next?

Dear Tammy, Ah woman, now you've gone and made me cry. You tell his with such wonderful and powerful language. And finally, I truly see the full and awful irony and agony of that day a year ago. You have put into words the full force of what you feel--and have made me fully feel it as well. It reminds me so much of the last 72 hours of Jane's life. We were both so certain she had turned the corner--that she was coming home. And then suddenly, it was over. And all the hope drained away like water through a sieve. How quickly can we move from joy to sorrow--from anxiety over one thing to real and lasting grief from our own sudden tragedy. But I weep for you tonight, my friend. I weep for you tonight--for your pain, for your loss, for the great joy so untimely ripped from your heart. Like Mary, I wrap my electronic arms around you in as comforting an embrace as I can manage. May the clear and beautiful moments of your life together be your anchor this week. And know we are here for you when you need us. Peace, Harry

Friends, Today has been amazing. As most of you know, i have been doing a lot of work raising money for cancer research. This afternoon I got a call from the local Relay for Life chair--who works in the office of Jane's primary care physician--asking me if i would serve on the organizing committee next year. Then, I posted an email to foundation that works on Jane's particular type of cancer. Less than an hour later I got a phone call from them asking me about joining their team for the Jimmy Fund Marathon Walk in September. All the money their team raises will go to funding research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on NEC. I had been in the process of signing up for the event when they called. They have also asked me to do some editing for them on a fundraising packet they are putting together later this month. they also want to go out to lunch so they can get to know me and pick my brain about some stuff. So I went back to putting together my website for the Marathon Walk. I had set a fundraising goal of $500. Before i could finish the website, people had already made $500 in donations. I also got the report on Walking with Jane traffic from Facebook. There were over 6000 hits on the page from the time I opened it late Wednesday night and Sunday when they closed out their record keeping for the week. A younger friend tells me that is a huge number of hits for a single week right at the beginning of things. Thank you, Mary, for your congratulations on my retirement. Peace, Harry

DearPBJB, Thank you. I always feel better when I have been of some use to someone. Jane always wanted to be moving forward, even when she was sick. She did not want to hear about what had gone before--only about what we were going to do next to make things better. The hardest conversation I ever had with her was when I had to tell her there was nothing more we could do--and that I was going to let her go out the way she said she wanted to: that when fighting chance turned to no chance she wanted all the life support removed so she could die with the dignity of knowing. I have tried since to make sure that every day I keep moving ahead. I look for the positives of every day, even in the face of sadness. That is not to say that every day works out, but every day i try not to stare at the walls--try to find some positive thing I can do to move beyond the grief and back into the world. It is never easy. But what is worth doing rarely is. Take solace where you can find it. I am not traditionally religious in any sense of the word. But the work in the living world sustains me. Whatever comes next will have to take care of itself. Peace, Harry

Dear pbjb, You might find the post I wrote on My Last Day At School useful. Part of what is there was inspired by this particular thread. Peace, Harry

Dear Dwayne, You are welcome, but no thanks are necessary. Just doing what I do. Just as you do what you do here. Peace, Harry

Dear Mary, We missed you. Peace, Harry

Dear Mrs. B., My wife's father and sister have a very tough time coming through the door. They used to come by every Sunday before Jane's mother died. It took months to get them back into the rhythm of that following that death. It equally took months to get them through the door after Jane's death. And they rarely come without a specific invitation--and then not always. I think it may have to do, as you suggest, with too many memories. But it does make it hard. Peace, Harry

Dear Mary, Some times people are idiots. And this abusive wing-nut needed a swift kick to a specific part of his anatomy. You tried to deliver that swift kick, but he was too blind to have any impact on. The grocery kid deserves all the praise you could heap on him. He probably sees that kind of idiot on a regular basis--and is generally abused and has to take it. Your compassion--even when you were in a tough state--has always marked you out. Thank you for being you. And Kathy, thanks for giving Mary the hug she needed today. And Mary, there is no dark side to trying to defend someone who is being abused. People like this guy make my blood boil. Peace, Harry

Friends, Today was the seven month anniversary of Jane's death. Last Spring we planted some blue ballon flowers in the perennial bed. They bloomed--barely--in early October and Jane barely got to see them. I expected today to be awful, but when I went out on the deck this morning I could see that they had opened overnight. They were one of Jane's favorite types of flowers and i tried for years to get them to take--even weakly. And there they were this morning--weeks ahead of where i expected them to be. Seeing them reminded me of a walk I took with my Grandfather back in the 1970s. He was 83 at the time and felt he was in frail health. It is the only time I remember him seeming even marginally mortal. Much of the time i was there he talked about how he had provided for my Grandmother and set up a fund to continue buying his grandchildren's college text books. He talked about how he had deeded over the farm as a park. And then, one day, we were out for his daily walk. We came up the street toward his house and stopped in front of a little bare patch in the lawn. "I don't know that i will be here in the spring to fix that," he said. "But i have some seed in the garage in any case." When we put seed in the ground we do not know what will become of it--or if we will see it bear fruit. We already knew Jane was pretty sick when i set out those balloon flower plants. We knew too much by the time they blossomed. But today they took a day that was headed for a really bad place and made it somehow more bearable. I was sad she was not here to see them look like something other than a handful of scraggly blossoms. But they reminded me we are all constantly creating a future for those around us, even if we do not get to see the full fruits of our labors. The Walking with Jane page on Facebook, if i am reading the numbers correctly, is already generating more than 200 hits per day on the links to Dana-Farber and other sites dedicated to neuroendocrine cancer. And the site is only about three days old. That different kind of seed seems to be sprouting in some interesting ways. And it is bringing me word from people we have not heard from in years. Hope you have all had good things happen in your lives today. It seems like we are all facing more challenges than usual this past week or so. It is easy in these times to lose sight of the fact that there are small blessings in our lives every day. Especially in hard times, we need to celebrate the positive moments. Peace, Harry

Dear Melina, The subconscious forgets nothing. You now know there was a good reason for how you feel. Try to relax into the pain and the day. But we all do understand you. No apologies necessary. My own anniversary is in less than two months--and i already look at the date with real concern. To be on the date... As Carol says, kiss his picture, dance with him. Not just our bodies are joined in true marriage. Our souls become as one. Today you both mourn the loss of his body. But your spirits remain joined. Take what comfort you can in that. We are all with you when you need us. I will think of you often today and send you all the positive energy i can. Peace, Harry

Dear Dwayne, Hang in there. More trials than Job around here lately. If you need anything, let me know. I am not far away geographically. For those of you who don't accept coincidence well--there are three of us out here in MA within ten miles of each other. Strange little world we live in. Peace, Harry

Friends, Today I closed the book on my high school teaching career. In cleaning out my room I came across a collection of photographs from 20-25 years ago. Let's just say i laughed a lot. Then one of the younger teachers came in and looked at them as well--and she laughed just as hard as I had. And someone suggested that we try taking our Walking with Jane Tour to local farmer's markets. And I was only 200 yards from home when it started to rain here--which gave me just enough time to get home and close the windows before the deluge hit. we had over an inch in under an hour. Let's just say i think someone was looking out for me, because i had turned off the computer before going out instead of just putting it to sleep--and we lost power for exactly the amount of time that fries electronics if they are on at the time. Peace, Harry P.S. Remember folks it takes positive energy to maintain positive energy.

Friends, I closed up my classroom today for the last time. Afterwards, I went out for Chinese food, just as Jane and I always did on the day we finally finished packing up. My fortune cookie had no fortune in it. I choose to believe that means the future is suddenly completely open and beyond any divination method to predict. Of course it could also mean I have no future. That is the danger with all forms of true prophecy: the meaning is always double-edged. In another strand there is a debate over whether this is all there is or not. That, too, is a double-edged proposition. If we believe in an afterlife where we will be judged--and live our lives in fear of that judgement--then our lives are driven by that fear. And if it should happen that there is no afterlife--and we have lived by fear, all that we could have done may be stunted. Yet if we live our lives as though there were no afterlife--taking what we want when we want it--living as though there is no last judgement--then our world becomes a place driven by greed and personal desire. I have no desire to live in either world. And so I work to create structures based on acting out of love that is neither amore nor caritas. i do not deny the idea of romantic love--the evidence of it in my life is far too strong. Nor do i reject the idea of the love of god--or deny its existence in any way. Again the evidence for its existence is equally strong in the history of my life. But neither is a way I can govern my entire existence. The spiritual and sensual worlds are fascinating and necessary places. But life is more than a series of spiritual or sensual incidents and adventures. I see Jesus Christ not as God but as a man so fully perfected in himself that we can perceive no difference between him and what we call God--which is logical because we are all a part of God and God is a part of all of us. With divinity within us, our ability to approach divinity in our persons is there for all of us. But whether you accept that idea or not does not ultimately matter. What matters is a single line from the Gospels. Christ says there is but one commandment: love one another, for all the other commandments are summed up in this one idea. I have tried to build my life around that statement--not out of fear nor out of hope--but out of the belief that whether God as defined by any religion exists or not--whether there is an afterlife or not--that actions formed out of the love of the universal other create a better environment for all of us to live in. It formed the core of my teaching--and was at the core of Jane's teaching as well. Neither of us much cared about the rituals of any faith. We were content--and are content--in the knowledge that no truly just God could condemn our lack of ritual in the face of what we tried to do with and through our lives. And if there is no God--if there is only evolutionary survival of the fittest--and as someone wrote here elsewhere, those reports of an afterlife are merely our minds playing tricks on us to accept our deaths--and those signs we think we see from our loved ones equally self-delusional ways to help us deal better with our loss--then despite our lack of children of the body our actions will have created a better world for other members of the species to survive in. We will have increased their chances of survival by helping to create a world in which war and violence are less likely than they might otherwise be; a world in which a young woman can have the same aspirations as a young man; a world in which, to steal from Martin Luther King, a person is judged not on the color of his skin, but by the content of their character. Our lives were governed not by faith in God or fear of God or love of God but by love of humankind. We loved logic and reason. But we also loved compassion and the hopeless cause that no amount of logic or reason could justify. How many times should we have walked away from the school we taught at? How many times did budget cuts leave us with little or nothing to work with? How many schools would have welcomed us at far greater salaries? But, like George Washington Carver, we put down our buckets where we were. We put them down there because that was where the need was greatest for who and what we were. We put them down there because those children needed us in that place and in that time if they were going to have a shot at being more than what people wanted to deny them. We put down our buckets where we were because love bade us do so--and there is no arguing with that kind of love. But now, today, I am done with teaching high school students. Today, we were both supposed to be done with teaching high school students. The pain of that burns deep scars into my heart tonight--scars from which a part of me wonders if I can ever recover. In two days, it will be seven months since my partner in this great love left her mortal form. Words cannot express the depth of that loss--which those of you here know far to well. Even were I not to retire, it would be a long while before I could be the teacher that I was in that setting. And it is time for me to move on. Our relief has arrived in the person of a number of younger teachers with unique gifts that are--or will be--every bit as great as ours--whose love of our children will nurture them and help them to grow beyond the limitations others may try to set on them--who understand that nothing is impossible--that no standard is too high--until you have pushed beyond what you believe are the limits and into the impossible, to paraphrase Arthur C. Clark--that with love, all things are possible. And I know my heart will heal--and that even while it is healing there is work that I can still do--both here and elsewhere. Love will guide me there--as it alway has. There are lives to save, souls to heal, and candles beyond measure to light in the world before I rest. The vineyard is always there. And the person in charge is always hiring. Peace, Harry

Folks, The water bottles for Walking with Jane arrived today. They look pretty good. My back seems to be healing nicely, albeit slowly. A former student I have not seen in 20 odd years wrote to me today and reminded me that not everyone gets 21 decent years together with anyone. And I finished the Walking with Jane page on Facebook. Peace, Harry

Dear Tammy, Four teenagers, one adult, on the road. New Hampshire. And you survived to tell of it. In fact, you enjoyed it? Can't get much more positive than that. Peace, Harry

Dear Tammy, Thanks. I will check further into this tomorrow. Beginning to fade. Peace, Harry

Thanks Mary. I missed you guys last week. Harry

Folks, It's been more than a week since I was here with enough energy to write even a little. I figure I owe about a week's worth of positive energy here. But folks, we really need o do this more than I see here. This kind of positive energy takes at east a little input to keep moving. And with all the bad stuff going on i have been reading here on other posts, we need to regenerate the positive energy. So here goes: My brother and niece were able to come in for my retirement dinner and the Relay for Life. We had a good visit and got caught up on the family business and what we are doing to keep it moving from our various locations and jobs of the moment. I spoke at the Relay in the Luminaria ceremony. Afterwards people told me people who were walking stopped to listen to what I said. And a woman came up to me as I came off the stage to tell me she had lost her sister to NECS in December. This brings to eight the number of cases in the local area I have learned of since last September. So much for this being a rare disease. Then I read in a post to an article about the Relay about another person with this cancer locally. All of this just underlines the need for the foundation I am working on and all the things that go with it. We raised almost $4300 through the two relays and they let us combine the money in terms of team earnings, so we ended up with a silver ranking--not bad for our first go round and doing all of it in about a month. We also got the team spirit award for the event. More importantly from the point of view of this site, i got to spend a lot of people that i really care about--including a former student I have not seen for 15 years who lost her husband to a heart attack just after they had their first child. It was a very precious night for both of us to have someone to talk to who got it. That was also the night of my retirement dinner. Our team was tiny and we really wanted to keep someone on the track at all times for the whole relay. Another team loaned us 12 kids to cover for us while we were at dinner. Then, at the dinner, I asked people to come and walk a lap with Jane. Nearly everyone did, arriving just in time for the Luminaria. Last week I commuted up to Boston every day to help teach a class for young journalism advisers. They learned a lot, I think. But I had lunch with one of them one day whose mother is a terminal cancer patient. She expected to be called away at any moment, but wanted to be there. We got through the whole week--and she left to go be with her mother at Hospice Friday afternoon. Friday, after I took my niece to the airport to go visit her mother and father in Seattle for a week, I got a call from two friends about going to dinner. i told them I expected to be stuck in traffic and that they should go without me. But the traffic I expected never materialized and we got to have dinner together afterall. Last night, I sucked up my courage and went to look at the fan page my students have constructed for me over the years on Facebook. I had never been there before. It felt wrong to go look when they were my students--at least some of them--currently. And, as I told them, my ego is big enough. The whole thing made me cry. Then i started to put together a Facebook site for myself. To do the things I have to do next means I need to leverage every piece of technology I can master--and every skill I have developed in other areas over the years as well. I finished phase one last night at about 1 a.m. I got up this morning to put together a Facebook page devoted entirely to Walking with Jane. I finished the broad strokes of it tonight just before I logged in here. Both pieces of the project have gotten very positive reactions so far. And i have two people who want to help put together websites for both Walking with Jane and another project I am trying to launch. One part of that will be a support group modeled on this forum for people with carcinoid syndrome and their caregivers. So despite some really awful down moments--we all get them--this has been a very positive week in my version of Lake Woebegone. Even when we don't realize it, we are moving forward. Today is marginally better than yesterday--and when we crash, we do not crash quite as hard as the last time--or at least I want to think so. As my wife would say, even in a barn full of manure i have a positive outlook. I know there has to be a pony in there somewhere. So let's all get back on the horse. What thing that says progress has happened to you this week? As my friend Callahan likes to say, "shared sadness is decreased; shared joy is multiplied." We seem to do really well with the first half of that. We need to work on the second half. Peace, Harry

Dear Melina, I've been elsewhere for a week and a half. Not quite your Canada trip, but it got me out of the house. I understand your slugs and how just one innocent--or not so innocent thing can set things in negative motion. Yesterday, it was seeing a groundhog head into my fenceless garden. I have to build a new fence--and sooner than I want--or maybe can--given that my back has gone out all at once. And there are other things that need doing. I felt overwhelmed. And this morning on my walk I encountered a couple about my age out doing yard work together as Jane and I would have been doing to day, if... But just as i was ready to crash i got hit in the leg by the water from a sprinkler. It felt good in the heat of the morning--we hit 90F today. So i looked up to see where the water was coming from. this poor woman was all apologetic. But i laughed and said it would have been better if it had come up a little higher. She laughed and I laughed and it lightened the day a bit. I don't know about your slugs, but diatumacious (I have no idea how to spell it) earth spread on the ground does a very nice job on slugs on this side of the pond. See if you can find some. It might take out your critters the way it does the ones here. As for my ground hog, I may have to introduce him to some coyote pee. Peace, Harry