Shaking Things Up

My room circled in red

Every so often the Creator lets me be shaken up. It’s probably a sign that I’m getting too complacent, that He wants to remind me of my mortality, and that He sustains me in existence just has He does everything else. Not everybody who has read this far believes as I do, but it’s both an enriching and a sobering awareness. Here at Maine Medical Center where I’ve been staying for a few days there is lots of time to reflect. I’ve been taken out of my element and confined in another to ponder what I was doing before I came in and what I’ll do after I go back into the world outside.

It’s Monday morning and I won’t be getting out today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after that. I have little control and it’s blowing a gale out my third-floor window. There are few leaves left on the trees but some cling tenaciously while the branches are blown about violently. I’m right above the main entrance and I see the American and State of Maine flags on the pole out there are torn ragged and are tangled up with each other. Metaphoric? Perhaps the Creator has decided the whole region needs some shaking up.

Flag out my window

Five thousand people work here in this complex. Doctors, nurses, maintenance, and housekeeping staff keep it all running — mostly nurses. They’re very good here and it’s a kind of sisterhood. Because two of my daughters are nurses and they’ve been in here advising me, they connected with the sisters on the ward. Come to think of it, “sisters” is what nurses were called in England back in the day. So now I’m connected. I’m “family” as they put it. Nice.

Friends are watching the properties I’m responsible for in Lovell while this storm blows itself out. Messages and phone calls are coming in to my hospital bed and going out again. Down the hall, men in work clothes with hands accustomed to holding tools are on their cell phones instructing others to move generators around as they’re in here visiting family members.

I’ve always been busy, but thirty years ago I was even busier with a young family and all that goes with it. When my health problem flared up I’d be incapacitated for five or six weeks and discover again that the world could get along fine without me. It was humbling then and it still is. I’m not indispensable. I can be replaced. We all can. It happened five times in fifteen years and now I’m getting a reminder, but this time it’ll only be about a one week I think.

My mother turned 93 last month and five of her eight children helped her celebrate. All of us have taken care of her in one way or another for years whenever she’s needed it. We’re all glad to do it because she took care of us. Now my kids are pitching in for me when I need it. It’s a wonderful arrangement and it used to be the norm, but that’s changing. Visiting the Portland environs regularly the past five years, I’ve noticed far more people out and about with dogs instead of children. It’s a definite trend and a troubling one. Dogs are fine, but as substitutes for children?

Last May, France’s President Macron became the twelfth European Union leader who never had children. Others include Italy’s, Scotland’s, Germany’s, Luxembourg’s, Sweden’s, Holland’s, Latvia’s, Romania’s, Lithuania’s, and the EU President, Jean-Claude Juncker as well. I noticed the trend in my old profession. A fellow teacher leaned over at a contentious staff meeting and whispered: “Ever notice that the teachers who constantly profess to ‘care about the children’ the most never had any?” I looked around and realized he was right. It’s a definite trend and I don’t believe it’s a good thing.

No kids

Raising children can be expensive, time-consuming, heart-breaking, and tedious. It’s also rewarding, meaningful, heartening, fulfilling, wonderful, and sometimes you get grandchildren in the bargain. They’re terrific. All that experience changes us. Rising to the challenges of parenthood improves us and confers wisdom, and to completely deny ourselves is to diminish life. When parents and grandparents make plans, the needs of our offspring get major consideration that is personal as well as professional.

The Maker of us all knows this and I suspect it’s part of His protocol for those who would lead us. Some politicians may not be childless by choice and parenthood isn’t a necessary precondition for wisdom, but it’s a plentiful source of it.

As we rural folks go without electricity and all its amenities for however long during this latest shakeup, we will appreciate them when they come back. Then let us remain in that state of mind as long as we can.

The Good Life

Today I’m healthy, my belly is full, and I’m warm and dry in a comfortable chair as I write. Life is good. My wife is outside doing what she loves, which is working in her flower gardens. My shoulder is paining a bit after pulling at the starter cord over and over to get my lawn mower going after a long winter. Can’t do my usual morning exercises until it heals, however long that takes. As I get older it takes longer, but I’ll be patient. Getting older is one of the things I cannot change and must therefore accept. Considering that the alternative is to die early makes acceptance easier.

Roseann in her garden

Back when I was teaching, my students and I were comfortable with each other this late in the school year, so one day in April or May I’d begin each of my classes saying, “I have good news and bad news. What do you want hear first?” They always wanted bad news first, so I’d tell them: “All right. Here it is: You’re all going to die.” They’d look at me blankly and then one would say, “We know that, Mr. McLaughlin.” “Good,” I’d respond. “Keep it in mind because it will help you appreciate every day.” Then one would ask what the good news was. “The good news is that, at your age, it probably won’t happen anytime soon. There are no guarantees for any of us, but given that I’m more than forty years older than you are, you probably have a whole lot more days left than I do.”

During most of my days, taking pictures has been one of my great pleasures. Lately I’ve been playing around with editing, printing, and framing some of my favorite shots. It’s another aspect of the art that I’m just beginning to appreciate. Getting the right size frame, the proper matte, and dry-mounting photos before framing is time-consuming but quite satisfying when it all comes together. That’s why I was particularly alarmed two weeks ago when the vision in my left eye got cloudy all of a sudden. After a few hours I couldn’t see at all. Luckily I got an appointment right away at the Maine Eye Center with a good ophthalmologist. Tests showed I had a spontaneous bleed caused from a micro aneurysm between my iris and pupil. By the end of the day the doctor pinpointed the tiny bleed well enough that he could focus a laser to cauterize it. Now, two weeks later, it’s back to normal. Though I’ve always admired flowering trees and soft spring greens in beech groves this time of year, after that experience and the long winter we all endured, they’re more beautiful than ever.

Twenty years ago, I started using drug store glasses to read, and four years ago, I finally got a pair of real prescription glasses. Around the same time, I noticed I was saying “What?” a lot at teacher meetings when nobody else seemed to have trouble hearing what was said. Also, my wife was asking me to turn down the television a lot. Last month I finally got around to checking it out, and an audiologist told me I had moderate to severe hearing loss, especially with high-pitched sounds like the voices of women and children. I reluctantly bought two expensive hearing aids a few days before my daughter Annie and her family moved back into their house after staying with us for several months. It was apparent right away that my new hearing devices eliminated any difficulty I had hearing children’s voices and I began to wonder if they worked too well.

Now that we have the house to ourselves again, I’m hearing the clock tick and the refrigerator go through its cycles. At Sunday mass, I heard a beautiful rendition of “Ave Maria” by choir director Heather Sheehan.

The bleed in my eye was likely caused by the Buerger’s Disease I was diagnosed with thirty years ago, or the blood thinner I take for it, or both. It’s a disease of the small arteries and I’ve had several aneurysms in my legs over the years. My brother died of the disease after multiple amputations. If not for a good surgeon and the wonders of modern medicine, I might not have two good legs. I might have been half blind, and wouldn’t be able to hear the song of cardinals or the laughter of my grandchildren nearly as well.

Life is good indeed, and every day is precious.