Elder Orphans - an October Epiphany

  It doesn’t happen all that often, but I do enjoy finding a new way to make an important point, especially when it comes straight out of the blue. 

 For ten years I have ranted and raved that late-life, our October Years, works best as a shared effort, two of us facing October together. I have written whole books that make that case---following my very senior Tanner Chronicles friends as they stumble toward the relationship they hope will help support them in October and beyond. 

 Having spent so much ink stressing the importance of their search, and its possible impact on their often intimidating future, you can imagine my pleasant surprise when I came across an effective and incredibly descriptive way of defining my friends’ dilemma---in just two words.

 Elder Orphan. Take a moment to repeat those words out loud. To me they have the ring of an epiphany---a striking, suddenly revealed truth. In two short, well-defined words is captured the essence of a  growing, wide-spread October Years crisis. 

 Lest you think my not-so-nimble mind has created that simple, yet startling insight, I am happy to credit a Huffington Post blog by Carol Marak (www.twitter.com/Carebuzz), part of an extended blog series on Aging Alone that addresses Elder Orphan problems and possibilities from a personal perspective.

 As a label “Elder Orphan” is both catchy, and amazingly accurate. It is the term  Marak uses to frame her own unsettling questions. 

 “Who will care for us?” she asks. “Who will look out for us? Dealing with late-life complexities is hard enough in the best of circumstances, But who will help us---the aging, childless, single---when we are alone?”

 Those “lonely ones” are the Elder Orphans. Like their infant counterparts, they are literally on their own at a distressingly vulnerable time of life, and just as much in need of the relational support of a caring “someone.”

 Chances are they are socially and physically isolated, living without a family member or surrogate. They are lonely, often depressed, and dealing deteriorating decision-making capacity. To make matters worse they are not even acknowledged as a group that needs help.

 And what about the help many of those orphans are bound to need over time? According to Ms. Marak a recent AARP report offers little solace, confirming that the demand for elder caregivers continues to grown faster than the supply. In the face of funding shortfalls and rapidly increasing costs, Caregiver per Orphan ratios are steadily declining across the county. Being an Elder Orphan is not about to get easier.

 Though I was operating without that label, I have been telling stories about Elder Orphans for all that time. Perhaps the best example I can offer from my writing is Johnny Blanton, from Best Friends and Promises. He lives in a senior complex, surrounded by neighbors who scarcely acknowledge his presence. Though he would be unwilling to admit as much, in many important ways Johnny has become an orphan.

For all his gregarious instincts Johnny Blanton led a spartan, decidedly isolated existence, the unfortunate result of circumstances over which he had little control. In the course of his four year residency in the County operated Senior Housing Complex he had concluded that his neighbors, as a group, suffered from a multitude of shared failings. To a person they were old, financially strapped, grouchy, and judgmental. Most depressing of all, not one of them subscribed to his long cultivated interest in having a good time.

Wary, unsmiling widows were everywhere. He passed them in the hallways. They crowded the dingy activity room. Without exception he found them to be unnaturally distrusting of his well-intentioned attention. At one time or another he had approached nearly all of them, hoping to spark some degree of interest. He had struck out at every turn. 

Except for Mrs. Perkins, who lived across the hall from his apartment and provided him with a steady supply of day-old newspapers, Johnny had not made one female acquaintance in the entire thirty-unit complex. He took that sad reality, and the slight it represented, very personally.

To make matters worse Johnny’s success at winning friends among the male residents, he called them “inmates,” had been only slightly better. Many were deaf, blind, or immobile---which tended to limit their “good time” potential. The few who still found drinking beer a viable social pursuit were no more affluent than Johnny. After years of having Aaron Peck and others pick up the tab, he was reluctant to cultivate drinking buddies who expected him to play that role. 

As a result, his social life had become seriously constrained. For three years Willie Thomas, who did not drink at all, but played a mean game of cribbage, had been his most reliable ally among the residents. With Willie’s passing the previous December that welcome friendship had been lost.

In his heart of hearts Johnny Blanton was a very social creature. It appeared, however, that in the sterile confines of the Senior Complex his declining years were destined to be lived out in a state of stagnant depression. To his way of thinking it would take a miracle to change that unfortunate situation.

Everyone of us knows an orphan, probably more than one.They sit in the midst of our congregations. We pass them in the supermarket aisles, and rub elbows with them at the senior center. 

It’s been just five days since my friend Dr. Thelma Reese (www.elderchicks.com) sent the Huffington Post article my way. I don’t pretend to have any “Elder Orphan” wisdom to dispense. Yet I realized the first time I read Ms Marak’s post that I wanted that label and what it stands for to be part of my personal October Years dialogue, with you and myself, now and in the future

In the meantime---when you have a chance, hug an orphan..

Is it time to tell your story?

     

  Let me begin with the fact of it. At my advanced November age I am taking on a new cause ---a deeply held belief I’ve written about before, but would like touch on again. 
   I suppose I can seeing your eyes rolling already. The guy is a missionary, with a message to spread. 

   But before you start for the door please know that in this era of incredibly divisive messages, I am not interested in limiting your right to carry an AK-47, or bazooka, or whatever other “personal protection” device you deem necessary. Nor am I advocating the need to take away the arsenal you have already accumulated. And I am certainly not here to ask if your Parenthood was Planned or not. Those are important issues, but they are not the gospel I am preaching.

  With those disclaimers in mind, I hope you will hear me out before you change channels.

   I will begin with the obvious. If you are the kind who likes to poke around the internet, you have probably noticed how many October and November folks are out there---speaking their piece, asking their questions, and telling their stories. Without the noisy fanfare that so often accompanies Gen-X trends, our Gen-Oct/Nov peers are quietly exercising their new-found ability to speak up and let their voices be heard.

   Spend a few minutes on the web and you realize there is almost no limit to the ways you can have your say. Our October peers are having their say in the form of Facebook posts, blogs, videos, and chat rooms. 
   They are writing and even self-publishing family histories, family travel tales, self-help manuals, non-fictional offerings of every kind, and a multitude of highly imaginative fictional offerings. (Have you checked out the Geriatric/Late-Life Vampire literature?) 

  If you are one of those who feels the urge to be heard, if only by your family and friends, today's blog sites, e-books, and Print-on-Demand paperbacks are well within reach. They can be produced and shared more easily than ever before. 
   An Author’s Page on Amazon, listing a writer’s books and e-books, allowing prospective readers to browse, and perhaps buy, is free. On a personal level, you can bet I enjoy seeing my sixteen paperbacks lined up on my bookshelf. 
   And with this modest blog you are reading now I can connect with October and November friends and potential readers all over the world. I can’t explain why these pages attract a steady, if modest, Russian and South Korean readership. But they do.

   But let’s return for a moment to my stated purpose, the reason for today’s post---the message I’ve come to spread. As a veteran of those story-telling efforts I am hoping to convince my late-life friends that they too ought to be having their say. Be it in the form of opinion, complaint, instruction, or stories---fiction or nonfiction, today’s technology provides a gold-plated, easy-to-use opportunity to say what you want to say in whatever form you choose to say it. It is so easy and inexpensive. So why not speak up?

   At your stage of life you probably have the time to do that. And given your history (whatever it may be), you certainly have stories to tell---if only for a limited audience of immediate family and friends. 
   That is exactly what I have done recently with a couple of my books. They are family stories, for and about my family. For both of them I had five very high quality paperback copies printed, one for each of our children and one for Roma and me. If I never sold another copy I would have accomplished everything I wanted with those books. And I guarantee you, you can do that too.

   Let’s begin with the economics of it. In our younger days, if we had a manuscript that publishers were not willing to underwrite, Plan B was what they called “vanity publishing.” You paid an often second-rate publisher to turn your story into a book and print a given number of copies. The publisher would  require a minimum run, say one hundred books, enough to create some economies of scale. The cost would undoubtedly be several hundred 1970 or 1980 dollars, perhaps more. It was a hefty price. Truth is, you had to be quite vain and a bit flush to afford that.

   Today, as the author of a Print-on-Demand book you can buy your own high-quality paperbacks directly from the POD publisher for $4.00 to $6.00 each. It might be your family history, your personal life story, a collection of poems, the family’s favorite recipes, or the great American novel. You can order exactly the number of copies you want---from one to a hundred---for that same low cost. True, you have to write and edit the material, enter it on a computer, then upload that computer file to the publisher’s template. Your investment is one of time, not dollars. Most of us can afford that.

   But wait a moment, you may be saying. How could you be expected to write a book or tell a story? And what about dealing with agents and publishers---all those experts who work with professional writers? 

   Well, the fact is, you don’t need those folks, unless you have a best seller and big-time marketing campaign in mind. You see, telling a self-published story or creating a collection of articles is a very personal activity. In spite of what the so-called “experts” may say, there is no right way, no wrong way to do that. 
   If you are writing for yourself you are the only one you have to please. You are the one to judge the results. Does it work for you? That is the question. More than that, one of the beauties of Print-on-Demand publishing is the ease of revising and editing any or all of your book at any time in the future.

   What can I say? I enjoy seeing my stories in print. Of course it’s a vanity thing. There’s no denying that. It’s an accomplishment I am proud of. More than that, it has proved to be a most liberating way to spend my retirement hours. As one who writes to please myself, (without worrying about what will sell), I can tell the stories I want to tell, the way I want to tell them. I am the only one I have to satisfy. Within those parameters, anyone who wants to tell their story---about anything, in any way they choose---can do it.

   Please bear with me for a moment as I offer a specific example. It was mid-May two years ago when Roma first dropped her idea on me. I was finishing a story and would soon be ready to start another. 
   “Why not write about our time in England?” she asked. “With all the crazy things that happened to us, it would be fun and funny. And I know the kids would like to have it.”

   Truth to tell, it took a few weeks for me to warm to the possibilities. But when I did, that fun she talked about was just beginning. For the next couple weeks the two of us would sit in the living room, taking notes as we relived those 1972 months living on Ashley Close in Winchester, England. 
   One recollection would lead to another. Before long the notes were piling up---about how we had ended up in Winchester, the life we lived there, the mistakes we made, the wonderful friends we met, and the life-changing experiences we and our children gained. Before we were done we had the stuff of a story---our story.

    By September we had a first draft, a 54,000 word computer file. As I had done so many times before, I uploaded the file to the Create Space template. Daughter Amy, who would not see the finished story until much later, designed the cover using a collage of family photos from our time in England. A week later, after proofing our online file, we made the first monetary investment in our project---$6.50, for a single copy of the paperback, including shipping and handling.

   Long story short. That first copy was used to proofread and edit the entire story. (Additional editing would come later.) A month later, we ordered six copies of the revised story we called A Year of Remember, by Gil and Roma Stewart---for a total cost of $30.05. That Christmas our children received their copies as gifts.

   We had invested thirty-seven dollars, a few printer supplies, and a good many hours doing what we both found totally enjoyable. For that modest price we had produced a fine-looking 254 page book that recorded a special time in the life of our family. Additionally the story, in e-book and paperback versions, was now available to the public on my Amazon Author’s Page. On a modest scale it has become one of our best sellers. In every way I consider that a good return on our investment.

    As for the story itself. Does this back-cover tease sound interesting to you?

“Gil was at it again. At the tender age of 35 he was on track for his third mid-life crisis in five years. For some inexplicable reason he had concluded that he was meant to be a writer. Now he was preparing to move his thoroughly confused family to England in pursuit of his career as a novelist.”

   As I said in the beginning my mission today is to stress again that every one of us has stories to tell, memories to preserve, and personal passions we might like to translate into a permanent, paperback form. For next to nothing we can turn that legacy, which is unique to each of us, into something special for us and our family. 
   If you are like me you will enjoy revisiting the elements you are putting on paper, whether they originate in your imagination or your own life journey. Personally I use CreateSpace.com to publish my books. I like their process and love their customer support. There are, however, several other Print-on-Demand publishers out there. You’ll find them online.

   Okay. with that I’m through preaching. I hope you will consider the possibilities. No one else in the whole world can tell your story. Why not do that yourself? 

October Years - for some that means Going Poor

   Here’s hoping the wild and crazy shopping frenzy we call the Holiday Season has nearly run its course---unless you count gift returns, after-Christmas sales, and a flood of gift-card spending. In any case, I am ready to put all that foolishness behind me and celebrate the real meaning of the Christmas season---the promise that makes everyone a winner.

    Sadly, that is too-often not the way our culture operates. We love to keep score, and worship our “winners.” For the last week or so it seems that every network and news channel has been busy analyzing our national spending habits---who is spending how much on what, and what companies are likely to emerge as winners. 

    Fact is, when you measure any human activity in dollar terms not everyone will win---whether at the spending game or anything else. It was that way when we were youngsters. It’s like that in the world of business, even in the sometimes uncertain lottery that is marriage. In every facet of life there are those we are quick to identify as winners, and those who seem not to win.

    That too is true in the October world of late-life. Many of us have experienced our own age-appropriate forms of “not winning.” Our trials may have arrived in the guise of health, relational, career, or retirement challenges. Whatever the issue, the result was likely to come at a cost---financial or otherwise. You have seen the television commercials offering their dire October question---”Will our nest egg last as long as we do?” 

    And what place, you might ask, do those gloomy questions have in a blog which claims we can thrive in our 60s and 70s, and promotes the relational possibilities of October and beyond? How does the possibility of financial distress fit into a relational story? Without resorting to more complicated reasons, I am willing to settle for the obvious. October poverty is the stuff of real life---both the unpromising fact of it and the way it fuels the urge to have a special someone with you to help deal with it. With those obstacles in mind I created a story I call Going Poor, and I must admit it is one of my favorites.

    I’ve said it before---our October Years can be an intimidating time. When I started working on Going Poor, with its depiction of poverty’s impact on the October soul, I had already written about relationships impaired by divorce and death, Alzheimer’s and heart disease, stroke and decades of separation. So why not explore yet another all-too-frequent element of October life? Why not take a closer look at poverty, in particular what can happen to an October relationship when it bumps into the harsh realities of Going Poor?

    I’m not sure what prompted the story. I suppose it’s a child of our times. We read every day about how many of us are unprepared for retirement, and facing an uncertain, even perilous financial future. Yet by itself “poverty” is probably more depressing than interesting, not a likely subject for most storytellers. 

    But what about the impact of poverty---its effect on the October unfortunates who are constrained by the fact of it and forced to live accordingly? Beyond our basic needs for food and shelter perhaps the most crushing impact of financial hardship is on the human psyche---the emotional price we pay for believing that in a culture like ours, where perceived worth is so often a function of dollars, we have not measured up in the ways we and society expected. What happens to dreams of affirmation and success in the face of late-life poverty? How does it affect self-esteem and willingness to take relational chances? It seemed to me those questions provide the ingredients for an interesting story. 

    Can you imagine, or have you experienced the effects of poverty on a potential relationship? The more I thought about that the more it seemed to me that perhaps no one is more in need of a caring and committed partner than a truly needy person---someone who seems not to be thriving.

    But of course, thriving is a relative term. My “thriving” may strike you as very “unthrivinglike.” (I think I just invented a new word.) True, satisfying relationships can thrive in any home, no matter how modest. Yet poverty and homelessness are bound to impair permanency, an important element of a safe and secure partnership. Add to that toxic mix doubts of self-worth and one's ability to be a provider, and the promise of a healing relationship moves even further out of reach.

    What might that sad state of affairs look like? How must it feel? Of course every situation is different, a unique blend of circumstances. In the following excerpts from Going Poor I depict Lane Tipton’s efforts to deal with the sour hand that life and his own bad choices have dealt him---leaving him poor, with no apparent prospects.

Going Poor - #1

    Lane Tipton was sixty, tired, and broke---nearly at the end of his rope. Asking for sister Sally’s help was a last resort, but he seemed to have no other choice.

    Lane flinched a bit, remembering how much he dreaded those moments when his sister’s questions turned to his unfortunate circumstances. 

    “So how are you doing?” Sally asked again. “Have you been working at all? If I remember right the last time you called you were retrieving shopping carts for the Merchants’ Association, and living in someone’s garage.”

    “I worked myself out of a job.” He was laughing to himself as he switched the phone to his other ear, wondering why she would remember something like that. 

    “A place like Medford only has so many shopping carts,” he continued. “It took  me about two weeks to round up the lost and stolen ones, at least the ones I could find. That earned me a few bucks, but then I was out of work again. As for the garage, that worked out pretty well, until I got evicted.”

    “You got evicted from a garage? That sounds like a first.”

    “I should have seen it coming,” Lane admitted. “Ron had been talking about getting a car for his wife. When he finally did that, there wasn’t room for me and the Honda in the garage. The Honda won out.”

    “So where are you staying now? Have you come up with any new answers?”

    Lane turned quiet, offering no hint of his normally upbeat banter. It took only seconds for Sally to put her own spin on his silence. For years her brother had endured bad luck and hard times without complaint, relying on his characteristic optimism and an exaggerated bravado to mask the hurt. But now, as his stubborn silence continued, she was inclined to believe there was something different at work this time. 

    “Lane. You’ve got to tell me. Does it feel like you’ve run out of options? Is that it?” She paused, wondering how to pry the truth from him. “Come on. I know exactly how that feels. I’ve been there. Remember?”

    His reply arrived in a hushed near-whisper, tinged with a hesitant resignation that was unlike him. “Yeah,” he finally said. “It kind of feels like I’ve hit the wall. There’s not much work to be had around here. There are a couple dozen guys going after every job that comes up. Truth is, an old fossil like me doesn’t stand much of a chance. 

    “The only ones who are hiring are the orchards. They’re pruning this time of year, and looking for young bucks who can run up and down a ladder a hundred miles an hour. I just can’t do that anymore.” He paused, scolding himself for sounding so down in the dumps. Still, he owed her the truth. 

    “The thing is,” he said. “The few shelters in town are turning guys away. They don’t have any more room. There aren’t enough beds to go around. Winter’s coming on and I’m fresh out of ideas.

    “So?” Sally voiced her one word question and waited.

    “So? What does that mean?”

    “It means ‘what are you going to do’? You can’t do nothing, can you?”

    Though neither of them wanted to be the first to put the truth of it into words, each of them understood where their sparse dialogue was taking them. Sally knew well her brother’s reluctance to admit he was giving up. Yet, if he could not force himself to say what needed saying, she would have to do that herself.

    “Listen to me, brother. How many times have I told you that you ought to come back here, back to Tanner. Why not do that now? Stay with me until you get things sorted out. I’ve got room for that. It’s not fancy, but it beats the heck out of staying in some camp out on the Bluffs.”

    “Sal, don’t you kid me. You don’t have room for that. You’re still in the same single wide, aren’t you---the one you had at the other park?”

    “That’s right.” 

    “Which means you don’t have room for another body bouncing around your trailer. I can’t be imposing on you like that.”

    Brother Lane was raising his predictable objections. That was not so surprising. Her challenge was to make him listen to reason. 
    “Don’t be silly. You wouldn’t be imposing at all. In fact, I think I’d appreciate some company for a change. I think I’d feel more comfortable having a man around the place. Who knows what kind of guys are poking around here at night?”

    “And you expect me to scare them off?” The thought of that had him laughing. “That’s not too likely. Besides, how are you ever going to get acquainted with any of those guys with little brother hanging around.? I might end up scaring off the wrong one.”

    “Don’t you fret about that. You won’t find any fellows buzzing around this old girl---at least none that I’d be interested in meeting. That doesn’t bother me at all. Don’t forget. I know very well what the real thing is like. I’ve been there. Why would I ever settle for second best?”

Going Poor - #2

    Lane had returned to Tanner, staying with Sally. There, on a cold, drizzly morning he made his way to the downtown Job Market, where eager, strong-backed young men from the neighboring homeless shelters and hillside camps had gathered---waiting for the trucks and buses that came from the region's farms and nurseries to hire day-workers. 

    “So tell me,” Lane said, turning to the only other fellow waiting in what appeared to be the senior section of the Job Market waiting area. “What are the odds of making a connection here? Is there any work out there for us mature types? I’m standing here in the rain, hoping to make a few bucks before the day is over. I need to do that. It’s been way too long between paychecks.”

    “You can see how it works,” the man replied, rubbing his gray-stubbled face and tugging his cap over his ears. “Most of the outfits that come in here are looking for young guys, like that bunch down on the corner. Those farms have crops to get in, or plants to tend. They need help and they’re not fussy about age discrimination issues and stuff like that. Those young kids, especially the Mexicans, are hard workers. That’s who they’re looking for. Hell, I’d hire them in a minute if I had work to get done.”

    The rain was picking up again, sending the two of them down the wall, under the wider awning in front of the fitness center. “During the summer,” the fellow continued. “There’s plenty of work for everyone, even us old farts. But by now, in the fall, it gets harder. The work has slowed down. The only thing in our favor is a lot of the Hispanics have headed south to California, where there’s more work. Another month or so there won’t be much call for extra help up here. Except for the Christmas tree farms, everyone will be going with a skeleton crew.”

    “Does that mean you’ll be going south, like the others?”

    “I don’t know,” his new friend answered. “I’ve done that the last couple years. Mostly because it’s warmer. But the truth is, I’m at the point where my body can’t take that kind of beating year round. I turned sixty-one this summer. Been dealing with bad knees for years. And they’re sure as hell not getting any better.”

    “You got a place to stay?” Lane asked. “If you decide to winter here?”

    “Yeah, sort of. Another fellow and I have what we call our Penthouse. We’ve set up a tent, made out of plastic sheets, against one of the warehouses on the bluff. It’s not pretty, and sure as hell doesn’t meet code. But we stay dry, even half-warm most of the time. That, along with the Mission House shelter, keeps us going when there’s no work.”

Going Poor - #3

    Climbing the front steps of Sally’s trailer, Lane was home from his first day of Job Market employment. His clothes were soaked, he could not stop shivering, and his back felt like it was on fire. If he actually believed he could hide his distress as he came through the front door, it took about two seconds for his sister to shatter that illusion.

    “Are you out of your mind?” she was asking even before he closed the door behind him. “You’ll catch your death of cold. More likely pneumonia. What were you thinking, trying to work on a day like this?” 

    In no time at all Lane’s jacket, shirt, and tee shirt had been deposited in a soggy pile just inside the door. When Sally turned on the stove-top burner to warm some water for instant coffee, he was there beside her, holding his hands over the propane flame. 

    A moment later, from deep in his pants pocket he produced four twenty dollar bills, a bit damp, but none the worse for wear.   
    “This is what I was doing, Sis,” he said as he carefully spread the bills across the counter top. “I’m getting back in the game. Paying my own way for a change. At least part of it.”

    “And for that you’re willing to ruin your health? What kind of deal is that? Where is your good sense?”

    “I’m not ‘ruining’ anything. I’m just fine. After a hot, soaky shower I’ll be good as new.” 

    Sally had gathered his wet clothes and carried them down the hallway, where the stacked washer and dryer units were wedged into a narrow cubicle. “Now get your shoes and pants off.” She was resorting to her command mode. “And get in the shower before I use all the hot water washing your things.”

    She looked up to find Lane still standing beside the stove, making no effort to remove his shoes. Before she could prod him into action, he was asking for a favor.

    “Do you suppose you could pull my shoes off?” he asked timidly. “I don’t think I can reach them. Even if I got down there, I probably couldn’t straighten up again.”

    Why had she not noticed sooner? Seconds later, on her knees, Sally was still in a scolding mood as she untied his shoes and pulled off his wet socks. “You are out of your mind. When will you realize that you’re not a kid any more? It makes no sense at all, wrecking yourself like this for a few dollars.”

    Taking her arm, Lane helped her to her feet. “Sis, I told you before---I need to do my part. That means bringing home some dollars. It’s not that much, but at least it’s something.”

    “But, you don’t have to .......” Before she could finish her complaint Lane’s hand was clamped firmly over her mouth.

    “Don’t you give me that,” he growled. “I got wet and cold today, because I wasn’t dressed for the weather. That’s what made my back tighten up on me. It’s still messed up. But once I get a hot shower and a little rest I’ll be fine. Then I need to round up some rain gear for tomorrow. I’ll do that after.......”?” 
    "Tomorrow?" It was Sally’s turn to interrupt. “Are you crazy? I’ll bet you won’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.”

    “Yes I will. I have to.” He unbuckled his belt and lifted his foot to let her pull off his pants. “By then I’ll be good as new.”

    I must admit, it was an interesting process, creating a relational story, actually two of them, from such unpromising fabric. Fact is, stories like that---sad reflections of the times we live in---are being played out all around us every day. The challenge was to focus on the inconspicuous possibilities  hidden among the makings of a tragedy. I hope you’ll take time to check it out.

Meaning? What does that mean?

You’re right. You may have seen this before. Remember, I’m in a recycling mode these days.

Many of my heros---from Viktor Frankl to Wayne Dyer---have stressed the importance of living a life that has meaning, whatever that means. If you are the kind to be drawn to such things, perhaps these October Years provide the time and mind-space to consider that question---what does the notion of “meaning” mean to you?

First of all, whatever it means I happen to believe that the “meaning” of your life is a very personal thing. I don’t think it’s a “one-size-fits-all”  thing. At the same time I realize that for some folks the subject may be theologically “out of bounds”---already prescribed by their faith and beyond the realm of allowable exploration. Yet in the course of my reading, writing, and meditation---as well as in the stories I have imagined into being---I continue to explore that ground, trying to make sense of the “why” of life. 

In the process I have come to realize that meaning is not measured by the success and acclaim we so proudly list on our personal resume. Instead, it is better judged by what we allow to motivate us, the reflection of what is most important to us. If that is true, it would seem that I, in my Soul, in the core of my being---whatever you choose to call it---must bear responsibility for my own “meaning” search.

Truth to tell, during the spring and summer of my life I seldom stopped to wonder if my life had meaning. Those years were filled with their own sort of busyness---some of it important, some not so much. Still, for many of us, perhaps most of us, there comes a time, often in our October Years, when we pause to consider the purpose of our stumbling efforts. Even then, the process is seldom a formal interrogation, with pointed questions in search of direct answers. Rather, it is by recounting our own personal story that we come face to face with clues that may reveal whom we are meant to be.

Because the experience of “meaning” is so personal there are endless ways to illustrate its impact on our lives. Dr. Frankl and Dr. Dyer each had their own way of describing it. But depicting ones search for meaning does not require theological or philosophical jargon.

In the following excerpt from Family Matters , Dan Padgett is on his back-road tour of the western outback when he meets a fellow who is willing to explain his personal “meaning” in terms Dan had never considered.

              

                        

    The Stone Bridge Saloon was not a spacious watering hole. The bar itself seated just three on high wobbly stools. Fortunately, since I appeared to be the only customer, seating was not a problem. I had scarcely sat down when the creaky rest-room door on the far side of the room opened and a balding, jean-clad cowboy limped across to the bar to plop himself down on the stool next to mine.

  “Howdy, friend,” the newcomer mumbled, taking the glass the lady behind the bar held out to him. He took a long drink, then turned to me.“Buster Henshaw here. Don’t believe I caught your name.”

   “It’s Dan. Dan Padgett.”

  “Glad to meet you, Dan.” He raised his glass in my direction, then put it to his lips. Seconds later, with a single long gulp, in was empty. Pushing it back across the counter, he explained, “Gertie was hoping to get a little business from that bull-riding thing down the road. So far it’s just the two of us.”

   “I expected to see more folks,” I nodded, taking a stale pretzel from the dish Gertie pushed my way. “Especially after all those signs  advertising The Battle of Stone Bridge I passed out on the highway. But so far I haven’t seen anything that looks like that.”

   Buster took a moment to fondle, I believe that’s the right word, the refilled glass Gertie slid across the bar to him.“That’s Pokey Turner for you,” he said between sips. 

   “No one knows how to squeeze a few bucks out of a bad idea better than that old bandit. Folks around here know it’s the wrong part of summer to find enough riders and decent bulls for a dinky little bull-riding show like Pokey’s. All the good cowboys are out on the circuit. So he rounds up a few kids and a couple of worn-out old-timers, pays them ten bucks to ride a couple used-up steers, and puts on his show. I guarantee you he don’t get many repeat customers.”

   “I don’t think it would matter how used-up the bulls were,” I offered. “From what I’ve seen on the tube, riding a bull is a tough way to make a few bucks.”

    Something seemed to have set Buster thinking. He sat staring into his beer, until I asked. “You ever done that? Bull riding?”

   “Oh yeah.” There was a remembering look in his eye. “I’ve done that. Rode most everything with four legs. But I don’t do bulls any more. I might try the buckin' horses again, come the county fair. But not the bulls.”

    “Horses are easier to ride. Is that it?”

    “Not really. Either way it hurts like hell when you hit the ground. But it’s a lot better to get bucked off a horse than a bull. At least that horse won’t try to run you down when you’re on the ground. Not the way a seriously-mad bull will.”

    “So, how old are you, Buster?” 

   “Well sir, I just turned fifty-one. I expect that’s close to a hundred in ‘rodeo years.’ About thirty-five of those years been spent on ranches all over the Outback---from Provo to the Canadian line, Ogallala to Boise. Hell, I’ve done it all---trailing cattle, pulling calves, breaking mustangs, and baling hay. For a lot of those years I’d schedule my jobs so they didn’t interfere with my rodeoing. That’s really what I lived for in those days---a good bull, a good brew, and a good woman. Not necessarily in that order.”

   “You ever been married?” I asked. “Sounds like rodeoing would play hell with a relationship.”

     “A relationship?” my new friend repeated with a laugh. “Now there’s a big-city word if ever I heard one. Fact is, I was married---three times. Had three kids that I know of. Don’t remember that I ever had a ‘relationship,’ but I did have three wives. The best of the bunch was Elsie. We were together almost a year, ‘til she made me choose between my job at the grain elevator and the Four Corners Stampede, down in the canyon country.”

   “And you had to decide? Between a rodeo and a job?”

   “Yeah I did. And I gave it quite a bit of thought.” Buster paused to nod his thanks to Gertie for the beer she handed him. “But you see, I’d won four-hundred bucks down there the year before. Took first in a short go-round. How could I pass up a rodeo that had been so lucky for me?”

   “So you went back again?” His dejected nod confirmed that much. “Did you win anything that time?”

    “Nah. I ended up with a couple busted ribs. Couldn’t do much of anything for a month or two. By the time I got back home Elsie was long gone, along with the cutest little girl you’ve ever seen.”

    “Do you ever see her? The daughter, I mean.”

    “I have no idea where she is. She must twenty-five or so by now. Probably has babies of her own.”

    Buster set his beer down and half-turned to greet the lanky fellow, a cowboy from his Stetson to his boots, standing in the doorway. “Howdy, Tom. Good to see you again.”

    Tom answered with nothing more than a touch of his hat brim as he followed Gertie out to the front counter. 

    “Ole Tommy and I go way back,” Buster explained. “We started out together up on the North Fork. Went to lots of rodeos together. Had some good ole times. At least we did ‘til he went to work for old man Brunner on the Cold Hand Ranch. After that we didn’t see much of him, especially after he married that Carrie Braxton gal. She was a sweet thing. A heck of a barrel racer too.

    “Anyway, I’ve run into ole Tommy a few times over the years. Heard that they had a couple kids and built up a nice little spread of their own. Near as I could tell he was always working. Didn’t have time to rodeo.”

    I watched as Buster turned silent again, perhaps wondering how things had worked out so well for “Ole Tommy.” Finally, I had to ask, “You ever wish it had been like that for you? You know---a real family, a place of your own.”

   “Sure,” he nodded. “There were times I wished it could have been that way. The thing is, stayin’ in one place that long just wasn’t in me. My old man used to thump me around a bit when I was a kid. By the time I turned sixteen I’d had enough of that. So I hit the road. I was a damn good ranch-hand. Everyone knew that. Finding another job was always easy. So I just kept moving around, from one place to another, riding bulls when I could. 

   “Then, after I’d slowed down a bit, I moved on to broncs. Anymore, I don’t even do much of that. It got to where I couldn’t ride nothin’ but a barstool.” I caught a flash of his gap-toothed grin. “Hell, I’ve been bucked off one of them a time or two.”

     “I can tell that rodeoing must have been hard on your body,” I said. “Seeing how you limp like that.”

    “Yeah.” He offered a sad little laugh, trying to make fun of what was not a laughing matter. “It’s my hip, you know. It’s kind of messed up. Been bent, broke, and stepped on.”

   “Damn. That must hurt, whether it’s a bull or horse, or even a bar stool. If it hurts like that, why would you keep doing it---even a little bit?”

   “You’re right. It does hurt. Sometimes a lot.” By then his grin was about as sad as his laugh. “But what most fellows don’t understand is how good it feels when you make eight seconds. Hearing that buzzer---and knowing that you’re still up there and not on the ground. Let me tell you, that’s worth a lot of hurtin'.

   “Anyway, the doctor in Butte told me I needed a new hip, a ‘replacement’ he called it. He also said that I needed health insurance. Turns out, if I don’t have the one, I don’t get the other. It’s the pits for sure. But I guess it’s the price I paid for doing what I was born to do. I was meant to be a cowboy, and this is how a lot of cowboys end up. That’s a fact.”

    I left Stone Bridge that afternoon thinking sad and sometimes envious thoughts of Buster Henshaw---of the hopeful young man he must have been, and the sad and tired old man he had become. Yet even that late in the game he was still claiming to have lived the life he was meant live. A part of me had wanted to argue that point, to help him understand that “what was meant to be” was not suppose to leave him broken and hurting. 

    I’d gone a few miles further before I settled on the truth of it. It wasn’t my place to judge Buster and what he was meant to become. He had made his choices, and followed what had meaning for him. In his eyes he had been true to himself. What more could I add to that? By the time I had chased away the last of those Stone Bridge thoughts I was wondering if Buster’s choices held any lessons for me. 

    Here’s hoping that your October Years are a time filled with your own personal brand of meaning, the kind that satisfies you. I like to think that by now we’ve earned the right to decide what “meaning” means to us. They tell us that we mustn’t die with our music (meaning?) still inside us. I happen to believe that, even if our “music” is telling silly stories, or getting bucked off a bull or a bar stool.

Fractured families --- today and yesterday

We miss our family when they go off on their own. And we look forward to the times we can gather them together. Of course, it's been like that forever---sons and daughters grow up, spread their wings, and leave the nest to seek a life of their own. By the time we reach our October years we understand that. And we know too that often as not their leaving is a bittersweet moment---weighing the excitement of their hopeful beginnings against our own sense of loss.

I suppose that ambivalence is to be expected. After all, we raise our children with the implied understanding that one day they will strike out on their own. If we are so inclined we can cite biblical injunctions to justify their departure. It is that reality, that parting, that makes preparing our offspring to go off on their own one of our most important parental tasks.

It's happened in our family, and probably yours too---those days when we watched our children leave for some other part of the country, taking the next steps in their own lives. Though we had mixed feelings about their going---we realized that moment had been waiting for us for a very long time. Those partings happen often in today's mobile society, where families are apt to be spread all over the country, and beyond.

In most cases the "leavers" depart in good spirits, excited by fresh and hopeful possibilities, a new life chapter about to be lived out---with new chances to create their own future and continue their "becoming." In that light how can we, the ones left behind, begrudge their willingness to take a chance? Still, though we would never stand in the way of their growing and becoming, there is often a part of us that resists their leaving---at least a little bit.

In a very real sense they are a part of whom we are. In ways we often fail to understand we have depended on their presence to make our own life complete. Though we have no right or inclination to hold them back, we can't help but wish they would stay, or at least not move so far away. Those are the urges that separation produces. I suppose those feelings are as old as mankind.

Of course, in our world of interstate highways and on-time airlines that sort of parting need not be a permanent thing. There will be  opportunities for periodic reunions. Additionally, with today's connecting technology the sting of enforced separation has been softened. The internet and wireless communication, in all their many forms, have made staying in touch with separated family easier and more immediate than ever.

But now I ask you to pause for a moment to shift gears, to gather those thoughts of family partings and come with me to a another time, when leaving the family nest was apt to mean something very different.

You see, a year ago Roma and I spent days tracking her OregonTrail ancestors over flat, straight Nebraska highways and crooked, dusty Wyoming backroads---from the broad Platte River plain to the Continental Divide. We visited impressive interpretive centers and hiked along riverside trails---seeing first hand the challenges those pioneers travelers endured.

Though it was a satisfying and eventful journey, following the Oregon Trail to its Oregon terminus, at some point along the way I found myself dwelling on a wave of melancholy thoughts---October questions I had never seen anyone  address before. Those questions, and their sad answers, were a fact of pioneer life that guidebooks and documentary videos seem to ignore.

Think of it this way. For just about every Oregon Trail pioneer family that sold off most of what they owned to raise the hundreds of dollars their "Oregon dream" would cost, there were family and friends who remained behind---who gathered to say their good-byes as the hopeful travelers started off on their adventure. 

There were times, of course, when the departing travelers left no one behind, when the family remained intact. One of Roma's ancestors joined a wagon train made up entirely of more than 300 members of their Baptist church. The congregation emigrated en masse. And surely there were times when parents and even grandparents, perhaps too old to be undertaking such a venture, joined the overland company simply to avoid being left behind. 

Still, more often than not, families were destined to be separated---some leaving, some staying behind. In those days of wagon train travel, when that happened those parties could expect to live the rest of their lives on opposite sides of the Continental Divide.

For some of those left behind that emigration separation was not an entirely new experience. Chance were, only a generation or two earlier they or their parents had made a similar break---a shorter journey over the Appalachians to the OhioValley and beyond. That too had been a time of separation, of leaving home for good.

For the Oregon Trail pioneers that parting, that leaving for the “Promised Land,” was framed by the all-too-likely reality that they and the family members who remained at home would never see each other again. The odds of parents, who stayed behind to tend a farmstead in mid-America, ever seeing the son, daughter, or siblings who had moved half a continent away to the far-off reaches of a mysterious place called Oregon, were slim indeed. 

Think about that for a moment. How would you deal with that sort of parting---watching a son or daughter, a brother or sister, ride off to a new life that in all likelihood would never again include you? From the moment they turned their back on you for the last time, your only contact would be in the form of long letters from far away. Your relationship would be sustained by fond memories and words on paper.

Consider for a moment that harsh and very permanent kind of parting. Take a moment to imagine that your son or daughter is standing in the doorway, suitcase in hand, preparing to leave---forever. How does one get their mind around that?

Yet, in the name of creating a more promising life, they were leaving their family and past behind. It was the only way. And for those who were left behind? The more I think about them, the more I realize that there were two very different sets of heros taking part in that migration drama. 

Of course those wagon-train pioneers, the ones who made the long trek, endured a hard and dangerous journey. Theirs was the stuff of legends---the story of brave men and women, many of whom did not live to see the promised land. Because of their efforts our country now stretches from sea to sea. In a very real sense it was their willingness to leave their families, friends, and the life they knew that made it possible. 

Still, in a way I had not expected to find, I realize that those wagon-train pioneers were not the only ones to pay the price of separation. In ways that make present-day family separation tame by comparison, our October predecessors paid a price few of us would be willing to pay.