Post Sixty-Five

ON PAYING ATTENTION

Every so often a movie comes along that clarifies something for me that has needed clarification. Collateral Beauty is such a movie. Movie critics are not impressed. They are generally unimpressed with movies that are steeped in symbolism or movies that deliver a message the critics believe should be obvious to everyone. But I regard beautiful movies that put me back in touch with important truths as a gift to my heart. There are times when I need help remembering important things.

Death is certain. Time is fleeting. Love permeates everything - even the most difficult of experiences. In the five years since Terry's death I have had to relearn this lesson many times. My first response to her loss was to deny the new reality and continue living in the past. This recent presidential election has shown us that grief can also come to those who are confronted with other types of disruptive change. A changing economy has caused many to grieve for a world that no longer exists. Donald Trump's backward looking slogan, "Make America Great Again" offers the false promise that he can address their grief by putting things back the way they were - or rather back the way we imagine they were. But there is no going back. Relief for our grief can only be found in accepting the new reality, appreciating the beauty and the love of the past, and anticipating the beauty and the love that is yet to come.

I lose site of this from time to time. That's when a movie such as Collateral Beauty comes along to remind me of things I already know. Death is certain. Time is fleeting. Love permeates everything for those who have eyes to perceive it. 

Dave Gladstone

Post Sixty-Four

A SPECIAL KIND OF  VALENTINE

I have not offered an entry in this journal in eighteen months. My silence has been intentional. I have been busy trying to move ahead with my life. These postings have seemed to me in that period to be a tether to the past I have lost and a hindrance to my gaining a grip on life in my new reality. The entry below, marking the death of Terry's father, Harold, seemed like a good place to stop.

My life has moved ahead in those eighteen months. A new grandson has been born. His name is JD (Joe David).  Grandson Theo and grandson JD together have taken my hand to gently lead me forward. Every day's an adventure with Theo and JD.

My life has also been blessed by the presence of Jane Heithoff. Although we are separated by many miles, we see each other as frequently as we can. We came together after each of us suffered a loss. We pledged kindness, gentleness, understanding and fidelity to each other. Some time ago I described it as "dancing in the dark". It remains an apt metaphor.  

Recently Jane paid a visit on Valentine's Day. We spent the day taking nick-nacks down from on top of the kitchen cabinets. We cleaned them. We polished them and we placed them back in a new arrangement. As you can see from the pictures to the left, they gleam.

Terry and I placed these nick-nacks above the cabinets in 2005 when we finished the construction of our beloved Lake Louise cottage. The copper was Terry's special decorative passion. They have stood there ever since watching over all that has happened in this place over the past ten years. Many of the nick-nacks are kitchen souvenirs from decades past: commemorative syrup bottles, obsolete coffee percolators and other such things.

I found comfort in seeing these items in the kitchen everyday. They reminded me of happy Saturday mornings making pancakes for the family crowd or Harold making Sunday morning omelets. I never noticed that these objects had long since lost their sparkle. For ten years they collected dust and grease from the kitchen. Jane noticed it right away.  It was her suggestion that we spend the day taking them down, cleaning them and restoring them to their proper shine.

Now that the task is accomplished it occurred to me that this exercise also has meaning for the task of rebuilding one's life after the death of a spouse. It may take the presence of a new love, a different love, to restore and polish the memory of the life that has been lost. Perhaps it is in reclaiming the future that the past can once again shine through - not as a reminder of the loss and the pain, but rather as a celebration of the beauty that was shared and that forms the foundation for happiness ahead. Perhaps. I have my gleaming kitchen nick-nacks to ponder.

Dave Gladstone

Post Sixty-Three

The Cadence Concludes

Harold Niles died in his sleep on August 1, 2013 following a period of declining health. Harold was 92.  I have been unable to post a reflection on his passing until now. Terry and her entire family of origin now rest with the Lord.  My four year experience as primary caregiver is now over.

Here is what I wrote to the Lake Louise Christian Community at the time of Harold's death: Even with his fading memory, Harold liked to tell people that he first saw Lake Louise when he was seven years old. He liked to brag that as a teenager he was the first to construct a hydroplane to speed across the water of Lake Louise. Harold chose the Lake Louise Camp beach as the place to ask Mary Cutter to be his bride in 1942.  They were married in 1943.  Harold was well known for his booming bass voice, his beautiful singing, his ability to fix almost anything mechanical, his mischievous smile, and his inability to turn off the television.

During World War II Harold served in the Army Air Corps and was trained as a technician on the Norden bomb sight.  Following the war Harold began a 35 year career with Ford Motor Company as an automotive engineer.  He was an expert in fuel formulations and instrumental in developing new fuel formulations for the high compression engines that came into service in the 1950's.

Harold was preceded in death by his son, Stanley (Tom) Niles ; his daughter, Terry Gladstone, and his wife Mary.  He is survived by his son-in-law David Gladstone, his daughter-in-law Denise Niles, four grand children Carl, Mary, Nathan and Nicloe, and one great grandchild, Theo.  

I will most remember Dad as an entusiastic and powerful singer.  The family joke was that I was accepted into the family because I was a tenor and I completed the quartet.  In 1963 Deaborn First UMC made a recording of all their choirs.  On that recording Dad sings the solo in a pretentious old style Easter anthem entitled Light's Glittering Morn. The text of his solo follows.  An excerpt from the recording is linked below.

That Eastertide with joy was bright,

The sun shone out with fairer light,

When to their longing eyes restor'd

Th'Apostles saw their risen Lord:

He bade them see His hands, His side,

Where yet the glorious wounds abide;

These tokens true which made it plain

Their Lord indeed was risen again.

Harold Niles sings LIGHT'S GLITTERING MORN

Post Sixty-Two

Theo Leads the Way

June 22, 2013

It's been six months since I last posted a journal entry.  Winter has come and gone. A new season of camps at Lake Louise is underway. Mary and Andrew are leaving New York state and moving back to Michigan.  Anna has passed her boards with flying colors.  Carl has begun his tenth year of Motown Mission.  

The winter at Lake Louise was dark, cold and long.  At one point I would have told you that it was not possible for the snow piled up around my cottage to melt away.  I really thought that there would still be snow on the groung through the end of May. But the snow is gone.  And summer is upon us. Life moves on.

I still think of Terry all the time.  There are still moments when I expect her to walk in the door.  But I also am finding real joy in my job as Executive Director of Lake Louise Christian Community and I truely feel that I am making a contribution to its future.  Life moves on.

Theo lives that statement.  He is no longer the slightly premature infant he was on the day he was born. For six months he has made it his business to adjust to his radically new reality of being born.  Everything he does is an exploration of the world around him.  He gains new capability everyday.  He discovers joy in the crinkle of paper and the squeek of a toy.  There is no holding him back. Theo leads the way by engaging his new reality.

I have decided to follow Theo's example.  What was is now gone except for cherished memories and our adult children who are making their own way in the world. Those will remain with me for the rest of my life.  Now I too must learn to live in a new reality.  The only way I can do that is to engage with the reality, explore the possibilities, and embrace joy wherever it may be found.  Perhaps this is one way to be, "born again."

Dave Gladstone

Post Sixty-One

Dancing In The Dark 

Jim Rule is a friend and colleague who also lost his wife of 38 years to cancer.  The experience moved Jim to write a book entitled, Letting Go of Forever.  I did not understand that title for quite some time. Now I get it.  Jim knows, and I am learning, that death means letting go and finding out who you are in a life without the one with whom you have shared an identity.  

I have a friend.  Her name is Jane.  I am making room in my healing heart for her.  We come together having both experienced loss and finding ourselves in a life situation we never expected and never wanted.  We are each discovering who we are as individuals without the identity we once had. We have made a pledge to each other that we will be kind, honest, and tender as we make our way through this unfamiliar lifescape.  We have kept our promise to each other.  As a result we have experienced joy and found a lightness of heart we thought was lost forever.  It is a kind of turning, a redirection of focus from what was to what may yet be.

Dancing in the Dark is an old song that expresses this moment well.  This is Dancing in the Dark from 1931 by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz rather than the song recorded by Lady Gaga or Bruce Springsteen.  Jane and I have come together in the darkest of moments and have joined in a new dance.  We are determined to appreciate the moment and to find happiness in the here and now.  Consider these lyrics:

Dancing in the dark till the tune ends
We're dancing in the dark and it soon ends
We're waltzing in the wonder of why we're here
Time hurries by, we're here and gone

Looking for the light of a new love
To brighten up the night, I have you, love
And we can face the music together
Dancing in the dark

This is a new dance with a new partner in an altered circumstance.  What I know is this - Life is shorter than one might expect.  There is wonder yet to be revealed. Facing the music is best done together with one you love.

We're waltzing in the wonder of why we're here
Time hurries by, we're here and gone
And we can face the music together
Dancing in the dark

Dave Gladstone

 Click here and listen to Bing Crosby sing the song. 

Dancing in the Dark