Dear Friends and Family,This is a two part letter. The first section, "The Elephant in the Room", is about the past few days. The second section is a general November Update.December 4, 2010 "The Elephant in the Room"
When she was a child living in Paris, Cynthia rode an elephant when visiting the zoo. For the past three days she has been calling for the elephant to come and help her. She inhabits the dreams state and the waking state at the same time, spending much of the time lying with her eyes closed, and often saying "help help, help me help me". Need less to say, this is very distressing for those of us near by, and we say "what do you want help with, how can I help you", trying all combinations of words to see if we can elicit a response that would provide us with a clue as to what was the matter and what she needed. Finally she made it clear that some of the time she was not in fact talking to us. She said "it makes me so angry when you say what can I do to help, you can't help". We tell her that if we could bring her the fountain of youth we would do that, but we can't, because there is no fountain of youth.A few weeks ago CW went through a period of giving us a certain look that seemed to say that she really did not believe that we were doing everything that we could to help her. It was a "just who do you think you are kidding" look, and it made our blood run cold. We were relieved when she moved from that anger into a wary acceptance, which happened after her last bout of illness. Alcie Williams Meyers was recently visiting, and on her leaving said something about seeing her the next time, and Cynthia said that there may not be a next time. She said something similar to Linda Campbell, very factual, and without self pity.Three days ago she told Molly that when she cried out "help help" she was not talking to us, but she was talking "to them." Okay, we thought, that's good to know, because the "help help" was hard for us to bare. Yesterday afternoon when I was sitting with her she spoke of a ship that was coming, but she could not yet make out if anyone was on the ship, but she zeroed in on who "them" were, saying she was asking a "Divine Creature for help." Bring it on, I thought.When we sit with her and chat we tell her all the wise things that we read in books that are appropriate to say to people who are in the process of letting go of their bodies. We talk about death and dying in many ways and on many levels. One day she said to me, "when the time comes I will sneak out pretty fast. But what about my shoes?" Her soul, she tells me, wants to stay here, and is not yet ready to go. She worries that she does not know how to die, or know what she needs to do in order to move into the transition out of her body. So she calls for help.Yesterday afternoon Cynthia was calling out to Laidlaw, calling for Laidlaw to help help her. He had been there, she said, she had seen him, "Laidlaw, I don't know how to cross to where you are, can you please help me. We need you Laidlaw, don't go away". This afternoon she could no longer see him, but she could smell the smoke from his pipe, and she went on for some time calling out "Laidlaw, Laidlaw". You know, I never would have guessed that Laidlaw would be the one to help her over to the other side, you just never know where help may come from when you are really in need. I did suggest that perhaps Abby-Lou would make a better guide. "No", she said, "Laidlaw is much gentler, and he really knows his way out of the woods"And the elephant. The elephant has been a reappearing theme these last days. And as I was leaving yesterday afternoon she told me that "we have to make an elephant and ride it downtown." When I returned this evening Laidlaw was not around, but the elephant was still in play. So we made an elephant, and now we have this elephant. But how to cope with the elephant? Much discussion about this. The elephant was the right size, the right size being a medium sized elephant. I told her I would be happy to take care of the elephant. But things were not right, maybe the elephant was too big to ride. She wanted to take the elephant for a walk but it scared her. So we compromised, and said that both Molly and Honey would go with her and that we would just walk along side of the elephant. But where did she want to walk? She wanted to "walk out of the Highlands". And in which direction? "South", she said. So we began our walk south. We walked past the Lloyds house, past the Doner's and past the gas station. Then past the Duttons house and the James' house. Past the Highlands Inn and Mrs Bigglow's house, the Mastens house. "Oh, and Dr McDougal's house" she said, then said, "no, its too far off the highway". And we passed the Westons house (we also passed Harry Leon Wilsons house, but it went unmentioned) and John O'Sheas house, and the turn off to the Flavins house. It was a fine walk we took, remembering each house and each family as we moved along, walking south along the highway, out of the HIghlands. It made me cry. She was tired out after the walk, and ready to go to her bedroom to sleep.When I told Sarah about the elephant, she sent me the following e-mail:I loved hearing about the elephant! It never occurred to me, but of course! - a power animal! A totem! It is worth noting that according to legend, when an elephant feels it is time to die, they start walking, walking, knowing somehow instinctively the way to the proverbial 'elephant graveyard.' What better animal to lead CW to the other side then one that knows the way by heart? Elephants are the only animals other than humans to have a recorded death ritual, and elephants have been seen sitting shiva for days at a time.As for the dreams...when I was there visiting the dreams were almost always filled with people. "Those people" or "These people." My take is that everyone on the other side is waving her onward, that her parents and brothers and friends and everyone who has passed on already come to her and talk with her and want her to come with them. But she is scared and confused, and often she feels trapped between these two worlds, her dreams often involving some type of entrapment from which she cannot escape. She told me about a light she saw out on bird rock. She worried she could not go to it because of the rule about no one going to bird rock since it is a preserve, a sanctuary. I told her we could bend the rules for her, that she was the exception, but after some thought she changed her mind and wanted to stay where she was. I hope the elephant can lead her towards that light.********************************************************************************************November UpdateWhat with elephants and sailing ships, there is never a dull moment here in the Highlands. The month of November was eventful from start to finish. The month began with rain, the world series, and Cynthia's birthday. Cynthia was in good spirits as her beloved Giants scored victory after victory in the play-offs.On Cynthia’s 95th birthday the weather was gloriously warm and sunny. A small cadre of friends and family gathered to celebrate with her and watch the final game of the series. She was cheerful and lucid most of the day, but by afternoon she was fading, and had retired to her bedroom by the sixth inning. We watched the final innings in the living room (it still seems strange to have a television in the living room) and we rushed into her room to bring her news of the big win. “The Giants won!” we cried, bursting in the bedroom. "I just don't believe it" she told us. She was in sleepy disbelief that after all these years of faithful fandom the good ol’ Giants had finally won. Over the next few days we were able to remind her again and again of the news of the win, and bring a smile every time we did.The night of the Giants big victory Sarah and Honey stayed up til all hours following the celebrations going on in the city of San Francisco. Sarah was feeling a little sorry to not be up in the city, as she had come home for Cynthia's birthday, so we did our best to take in the evening's goings on "virtually". We followed a link someone had twittered that provided us with the ongoing chatter of the online stream of the SF police scanner. Through the tweets posted by people celebrating on the streets of SF we were as good as there, taking part in the commandeering of the fire truck at Mission and 23 and watching the fires being set in the streets. Following updates on Twitter and Facebook we could follow the news that no networks were bringing to us.The next day I was describing this amazing "social networking" to Cynthia, explaining how we "virtually were there in SF". She listened, and after some thought she said "I wonder what Shakespeare would have made of all of this?" We agreed that Will would probably be making good use of the various social networking sites and social media platforms. She may be confused, and deeply confused at times, but that interesting mind of CW's still goes on amazing us..Who could have asked for a better present than to have the Giants win the world series in celebration of CW's 95th! A hardy Thank You to the Giants and to everyone who sent Cynthia birthday greetings, which arrived in many forms and formats. All tokens were appreciated, and Molly showed them to Cynthia a few at a time, and several times over. Each time they were new to her and enjoyed over and over. On Cw's birthday we received a photo of Susan Clifford Rayner's new granddaughter, a beautiful smiling baby, and this photo juxtaposed with 95-year-old Cynthia made a complete circle of life.CW sleeps more now then she has in the past few months, snoozing most of the day and waking up at short intervals for meals or a brief visit with whoever is passing through the Highlands. Some days she is lucid, although most days she seems stuck between her sleeping and waking state, in a sort of half-dream. There are often reoccurring themes in these dreams, and they are all too often stressful or fretful ones. We do our best to communicate with her on these days, although it is often frustrating to her as well as us when she cannot explain what she means or needs. There is confusion along with the forgetting. She will often have a thought, begin to express the thought, and then forget whatever it was and drift away from us. Very frustrating. Or she will have the thought, begin to express the thought, and not be able to find the words. Sometimes, if we are in a context, we can help her to complete the thought or locate the missing word.One afternoon as she lay on the hospital bed in the living room gazing out to sea, she started to speak, "I love, I love, I love...." Her words came slowly, "Yes", I said, "You love, you love, you love..." Suddenly she made the connection to her words, "I love that rock!" she said.and she smiled. "I love that rock". Bird rock was shining in the sun. So I spoke to her about the rock, how every day we looked out at that beautiful huge rock, how the sun lit up the rock in the early morning and we could tell the time as well as the weather and the time of the year when we looked at that faithful old rock. Her view of Pt Lobos and the ocean, the changing sky, this view sustains her through her long days of dreaming and waking as she prepares for her passage. (Ah! and if only we knew where that passage would lead us. The great mystery. She is often frightened of this unknowing. We remind her that she has lived a good life and has been loving and kind, We remind her that everyone crosses the lonely valley by themselves.)Cynthia took sick the week before Thanksgiving, having become too weak to inhale her respiratory medicine. There were a few bad night when Cynthia’s was having a lot of difficulty breathing and we all feared for the worst, and braced for a very different type of Thanksgiving. Luckily, thanks to Molly’s tireless attentiveness and our wonderful crew of in-home care givers, we were able to switch CW to other medication that seems to have alleviated some of the respiratory distress.Despite this, Thanksgiving was joyful, and the house was bursting at the seams with friends, family, and food. With record low temperatures hovering just above freezing, it was certainly a Thanksgiving to remember. With the house full of people, we spilled out of the house and into the garden for the actual meal, stringing Christmas lights and lighting "Mr Heaters" to transform the patio into a festive dining room. We assured our foreign visitors that this was as authentic a Thanksgiving as you could ask for, eating under the stars and in the cold. CW was still exhausted from being under the weather a few days before, and stayed down the hall in her warm room, where we were all able to come and pay her a visit.We had what we called "a relaxed Thanksgiving", having agreed not to let the small stuff upset us. And in fact it was very relaxed. So relaxed that when my oven was failing I just turned it off and abandoned the turkey until the next day. Luckily there were two other turkeys. The brave "20-somethings" sitting outdoors in the patio made for a luxurious amount of space for the rest of us dining in the living room.Of course the big change this year was our missing Cynthia at her usual place at the table. We felt her absence deeply, but we survived, we did it without her, and it was just fine. Molly, our Thanksgiving General, was elated that "we did it!". We toasted Cynthia, and we toasted our community of family, friends and loved ones, feeling very blessed to be together surrounded by such love.Most everyone reading this will remember being at a party in the Highlands, where the music was loud and went on until the wee hours. Cynthia was never bothered by this, which I always felt to be a miracle. But no longer. During much of the long weekend she grumbled in her bedroom, wishing "all of these people would go home." We did our best to keep our voices down during dinner, and the after dinner dancing was moved next door to my house, which worked out very wellWhen Cynthia took ill just before Thanksgiving she was given a course of prednisone. This was a blessing for her physical health, but after 4 or 5 days the psychotic side effect of prednisone reared its ugly head and there were some very long and unpleasant days. I was very happy that Sarah was here, as her patience is far greater than mine or Molly's, 2010 having been a tough year on us all. But what I started to write is that in the past few days we have noticed a big improvement in Cynthia's mental functioning. The prednisone seems to have mended her neural pathways, or at least improved her mental functioning. The past few days CW has been able to think more clearly and express complete thoughts. She is being able to find her words. And this is a major blessing for us all, because as she is moving closer and closer to her spirit body taking leave of her physical body, we are able to talk together in meaningful way, meaningful for both Cynthia and ourselves.Last week the Hospice Chaplain came to speak with us, to discuss what we could expect in the days and weeks to come, and what arrangements needed to be made. It is impossible to think of CW not being here, perhaps because the Highlands is so steeped in her ineffable spirit that she will never really be gone; that every room, every inch, every flower pot, every teaspoon, has something of Cynthia in it. Never has someone become so intertwined with a place as CW is with her home, here at the Carmel Institute.And so we remain, camped out on the borderlands with our mother and grandmother, awaiting the crossing.Much Love,Honey and Sarah WilliamsPS. A quick update on Sarah. She has recovered from the surgery she had in September and we are all relieved to have it behind us. She has found temporary employment in Palo Alto at a travel site start-up. When she was recently home for a week and was going through a box of old papers, she found journals relating stories of afternoons at Grandmas, of walks on the beach and the sea air, stories that told how Cynthia had made a sanctuary for us all. When I was telling CW about the stories Sarah had found, and reminding her that she had opened her heart and made a home for so many people, she thought about this for a moment, then said, "Well you know, it's because I really like people".
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