Thursday, July 16, 2009

Close Encounter of the Cardinal Kind

Just before noon I opened the front door, thinking that it might be time to let my calico cat, Alice, back into the house. She had gone outside on a mission earlier that morning. Alice customarily returns home after exploring the environment and waits patiently, curled up on the stepping stones that lead up to the house, for her humans to let her back inside the comfy, air conditioned indoor space.

In addition to Alice relaxing in her usual location, I was surprised to find a not-so-relaxed little fluffy bundle on the doorstep. A small brownish baby bird stared up at me with the most intense expression on its young face, beady eyes concerned and unblinking. She sang a persistent rhythmic "chirp, chirp, chirp" as she peered up at me. My first thought was one of relief that Alice nor any other neighborhood cat had tried to snap up the little feathered morsel. My second thought was that I had to find a way to return this youngster to her parents.

My third thought was that I had no idea how to accomplish this task. As one experienced bird watcher blogged, finding a helpless and seemingly forlorn baby bird on the ground can cause even the most hardened cynic to have fits of compassion. As a pet lover and a nurse, my caretaking instincts immediately took over. I gently scooped the little one up in both hands and carried her into the house.

I grabbed a little wicker basket and placed the baby inside it. She hopped up and perched on the edge of the basket, persistently chirping out her concerns. She seemed to have very definite ideas about how the world should be, and I felt frustrated that I didn't know how to fix things for her at that moment. She could flap her little wings but she seemed to be too young to fly. She didn't appear to have any injuries.

I took a deep breath while the little singer continued cheeping her distress, and tried to consider what options might be available. My friend who teaches in the wildlife ecology program at the local university had recently emailed me stating that she would be away on a Buddhist retreat for the entire month. I called her office neverthless, and the department secretary gave me the phone number for a wildlife rescue agency. I quickly dialed their number, and my heart sank when I was transferred to their voice mail. I left my name and number, and hung up.

I logged on to my laptop and emailed a few folks, including my spouse, about the situation. Almost immediately the phone rang, and Jack was calling from his office to suggest that I contact the Wild Birds Unlimited store. I hadn't thought of that. I hung up and looked up their number. I got a nice young salesman on the line, and he gave me the cell phone number of a wildlife rehabilitation specialist. I thanked him and promptly dialed the cell phone number, as the baby bird continued to watch me with her intense little gaze.

A kind and knowledgeable woman answered the cell phone. I explained my situation. She said to make a little nest in the basket and hang it in a tree outside so that hopefully the parents would find the baby. She suggested feeding it a little lunch meat or cat food with tweezers. My hopes soared as I took in this information. I found a pair of tweezers and retrieved some honey baked ham from the fridge. It didn't take long for the little feathered bundle to convince me that she didn't want even the smallest bits of shredded ham. Her tiny beak snapped shut in a determined way, reminding me of human toddlers pursing their lips to refuse green peas. I got out a can of Fancy Feast Savor Salmon catfood and pulled open the pop top. It took me a few tries to figure out how to pinch up a small amount of the wet ground cat food between the tweezer tines. I offered the little baby a bite. Bingo! Her beak opened wide and I gently dropped the salmon into her waiting throat. My baby hungrily accepted several bites of the cat food.

I thought she might be a wren due to the brownish tint of her feathers, but the rehabilitation specialist told me that cardinal babies start off brown as camouflage and grow their red feathers later. Finding out that my baby was a cardinal made me smile, since cardinals are my very favorite birds.

After feeding the baby, I took the basket out back and hung it in a tree near our bird feeder. I sat down in the backyard garden where we often spend time watching nature, and waited. The baby continued to cheep away, but no parents arrived. My heart sank. A million possibilities ran through my mind. What if a thunderstorm comes up? What if the parents have been killed or for whatever reason have abandoned this little fledgling too soon? Is this youngster going to survive?

Eventually the wildlife rescue center returned my call. I told the agent all of the events of the day. She said that the baby needed to be returned to the front yard, because the nest was apparently in front where I found the chick rather than out back, even though the parents probably regularly visit our backyard feeder. I went out back and retrieved the basket, stopping once again in the kitchen to give the little one a cat food snack. Then out the front door we went.

I had just hooked the basket's handle over a low tree branch when I caught a glimpse of a olive-colored female cardinal perched on the fence bordering our property. Yeah! Maybe that's the mother, I thought. Now we're closer to the nest and on the right track. I went back inside the house.

An hour or so later, when I went out to take our dog for his daily late afternoon walk, I peeked through the branches and was disappointed to see that the little one was still sitting on the edge of the substitute bird nest basket. I began to worry that the baby might be alone all night. I decided to bring the little bird back in and feed her again after returning from doggie walking. The dog and I took off down the street.

Jack got home from work shortly after the dog and I got back in from our walk. I invited him to come out with me and retrieve the little one from the front yard. When we looked together through the brush at the tree limb, the basket was empty! We could hear the cardinals tweeting in the trees above us, and I saw one of the adults make a low swoop around towards the back yard, in the direction of our feeder. Placing the baby closer to the nest apparently helped reunite the family. Success!

I wondered what the cardinal parents thought about their little one coming home smelling like salmon, and whether the baby was able to tell her parents about her adventure inside the walls of the human nest that day. Even though I probably won't be able to distinguish her from other members of her species, I hope the little cardinal grows up beautiful and happy and comes to visit us often at our feeder.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Happy Memories of the Fourth of July

It is the 1960s. We all pile into my grandfather's big white Chevrolet sedan and head out for our annual July 4th family gathering. Our destination is my family's cabin on Lake Cumberland in Eastern Kentucky.

As we drive along, we sing old familiar Christian hymns, such as "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder", "Love Lifted Me", and "The Church in the Wildwood". I learned these songs in the Disciples of Christ church where my grandfather is the minister. I'm in the back seat, sitting between my sister and my grandmother, singing harmony. I love these comforting hymns. I know all of the words by heart.

We turn off the main highway. The Chevy lumbers along down the curvy narrow gravel road leading to the cabin. The gravel makes a crunching sound under the wheels. We pull up into the clearing in front of our cabin. My sister and I, clad in shorts and flip flop sandals, jump out of the car and run into the cabin, letting the screen door bang shut behind us. We are happy to be in this serene and rustic place.

The grown-ups unload the trunk of the car. My grandmother starts preparing fried chicken and biscuits in the cabin's small kitchen. My sister grabs a pail, and she and I head out with our Aunt Leafie to pick blackberries for dessert along the gravel road. My dad spots a deer sprinting quietly through the woods.

My uncle Joe goes out to some pick tomatoes he's been growing in a small garden behind the cabin. My grandfather puts on a straw hat and strolls down to the lake. My Uncle Jim, who has driven separately, arrives. He is dressed in business attire, as he just came from his office at the University of Kentucky where he works as a chemical engineer. He climbs into a row boat with my dad, still dressed in his suit and tie. My sister and I giggle at him. I've never seen anyone go fishing in a suit before.

We eat dinner out on the screened back porch. As the sun sets over the lake, we hear a chorus of crickets singing. Fireflies blink their happy little lights in the dusk. Twangy country tunes are playing softly in the background on a transister radio. My dad puffs on an aromatic cherry tobacco blend in his pipe. My sister and I climb into the glider on the porch with our Uncle Joe.

There is no phone or television. We tell stories or just sit quietly together. There are no fireworks in these parts, but we can hear a few distant firecrackers over the lake. We listen to the frogs, whippoorwills, and other sounds of nature. We enjoy spending this time together. It is peaceful here, we are a family, and everything is right with the world.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Lost Child on Valentines Day

I was born to parents who could not love me. My mother died when I was only four years old. My father, a over-educated intellectual with a lot of pizazz and borderline personality disorder, possessed many talents. He smoked a pipe and wore a tiger eye ring. He excelled at watercolor painting and playing the quitar. He had a "green thumb" and was an avid vegetable gardener. My dad enjoyed reading Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Mark Twain. He wove macrame plant hangers and liked to fly a kite at the beach. One talent he lacked was the ability to be the caring and consistent type of parent that a daughter needs.

I've been told that my dad was different as a young man, perhaps before the stresses and strains of married life and earning a living overtook his life. He became an Eagle Scout in high school. He sang duets in the Disciples of Christ church back home in Kentucky with my aunt Leafie, his brother Joe's wife. When he and his brother Jim were undergraduates at Sue Bennett College, my dad was a cheerleader and Jim played on the basketball team. All of this happened before I was born. I'm not sure exactly when he changed from being a person who was fairly normal and engaged with life into the eccentric, detached, and isolated individual that he was throughout my childhood.

I became somewhat like the concept of a Lost Child, as defined by therapist and author Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse. The lost child is often quiet, withdrawn, and aloof. Because lost children are so often overlooked, they tend to feel lonely, depressed, and rejected. They frequently have difficulty connecting with others and prefer to be alone. The lost child may be perceived by others as being unsociable. Because they try so hard to stay invisible, they are often overlooked by people who might be able to help them.
The Lost Child role is characterized by shyness, solitariness, and isolation. Inwardly, he or she feels like an outsider in the family, ignored by parents and siblings, and feels lonely. The lost child seeks the privacy of his or her own company to be away from the family chaos, and may have a rich fantasy life, into which he or she withdraws. The lost child often has poor communication skills, difficulties with intimacy and in forming relationships, and may have confusion or conflicts about his or her sexual identity and functioning. Lost children may attempt to self-nurture by overeating or using drugs or alcohol.
Wegscheider-Cruse writes that the solitude of a Lost Child may be conducive to the development of his or her spirituality. This certainly rings true for me. This afternoon finds me perched on a little wooden meditation bench with a small circle of people in a Zen Buddhist sangha. Today is Valentines Day. Part of this afternoon's meditation involves savoring the sweetness of chocolate. We share Hershey's Kisses and Ghiradelli Squares.
It is a balmy Florida pre-Spring afternoon. Our sangha meets in a classroom at the Unitarian Universalist Church. We have the classroom door and windows open during our meeting in order to enjoy the nice weather, and we can hear the soothing sound of a bubbling fountain in the church courtyard. We also hear a barred owl hooting softly in a wooded area. White dogwood and redbud trees near the church are beginning to blossom.

During meditation, my thoughts drift to the past and my family of origin. I am the only surviving member of my nuclear family. Both of my parents and my sister are gone now. As I meditate, tender feelings for them arise and make me smile. All of the hurts and disappointments of the past are gone. I am still here, living on earth in a human form, and I carry my family with me in my heart.

The Lost Child may develop a rich inner life and creative mental pursuits, if self-esteem issues do not shut down all efforts at achievement. The lost child commonly has few friendships, and may have difficulty finding a marriage partner. Instead, he or she might try to find comfort in material possessions or pets. This pattern of escape may allow him or her to avoid seeking professional help, and remain stuck in social isolation.

I found Jack through my spiritual community. We met at our church in 2003 and were married last year, right before Valentines Day. We have just celebrated our first anniversary. It is a very special time for us. Being with this sangha makes it seem even more special, since our wedding ceremony was in the Buddhist tradition, complete with lotus blossoms adorning our wedding cakes and the Heart Sutra chant sung by our friends.

Our sangha goes on a walking meditation through the Memory Garden behind our church. As we walk contemplatively along the brick path, I gaze at the lovely camelias blooming all around the garden. Camelias have been planted in memory of church members who have died. I read the names posted on plaques next to each camelia plant. I remember many of these people who were fellow members of my spiritual community. They lived their lives and now they are gone.

I am still here. Thoughts flow through my mind as I meditate. Someday I too will be gone. How would I like to use the remainder of the time that I have left here on earth? What would I like to accomplish and what would I like my legacy to the world to be? How do I want to be remembered? What can a Lost Child do to make the world a better place?

I have no ready answer for those questions. I believe that the answers will come to me through continued meditation and spiritual practice. I am 50 years old and still dreaming of the future that I want to create. Maybe eating chocolate will help!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Doggie Heaven

Our blue heeler (Australian Cattle Dog) Lily went to "doggie heaven" last night. She was 13 years old. Lily was born in 1996 in Lacrosse, Florida, a small rural area located near Gainesville. When she was born, she was the largest puppy in the litter. I sometimes wondered over the years about what became of her litter mates, whether they were still living, where they were, and what kind of lives they had.

Lily's mother belonged to a gentleman who was a correctional officer and vocational instructor in the "Iron Triangle" of prisons (Florida State Prison, Union Correctional Institution, and New River Correctional Institution) in Bradford and Union Counties. His job involved training inmates to manage herds of cattle on state-owned pasture land, for a company called PRIDE (Prison Rehabilitative Industries Diversified Enterprises). Lily's mom worked in the fields with her owner. Lily's father belonged to a Jacksonville veterinarian who helped to formulate one of the popular brands of pet foods.

In her early years, Lily enjoyed herding a small group of polled Hereford beef cattle and Nubian milk goats in a rural area just west of Gainesville. She later moved with me into a Gainesville suburb, and transitioned from working dog to being a pet of leisure. She enjoyed long naps on our old brick patio under a Chinese elm, going for walks in the neighborhood, and protecting our home. Lily was terrified of fireworks, so New Years Eve and the Fourth of July were her least favorite days of the year. She was a bright dog, and worked out a deal with the Gainesville Regional Utilities meter reader to allow him into our backyard only in exchange for a Milkbone. True to her breed, she tried to nip the heels of most everyone who crossed her path. She loved tummy rubs, squeaky toys, and rawhide chewy bones.

Lily is survived by her human parents (Shelby and Jack), her 11 year old canine colleague JD (an Australian Shepard mix), and three cats, Bridget, Alice, and Sandy. Our home feels a bit empty, as this is the first day that I have ever lived in our house without her. I am sad that she is gone, and my life is certainly richer from having known and loved a blue heeler. As Buddhist friend Genkaku said, Lily, we will miss you to tears, but we thank you for the smile in our hearts.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Life in Poetry and Pastels

I plop down on our red leather sofa with a stack of catalogs I recently received in the mail. I put my feet up and start leafing through the catalogs. Several attractive outfits catch my eye in Lands' End and L.L.Bean. One particular item makes me do a double take. It is a baby doll style top, with short puffy sleeves and an empire waist. The fabric is a soft floral pattern with pastel blooms of pale pink, light aqua, and pear green. It looks like a style that my sister used to wear. It makes me feel a familiar twinge of missing her.

Carolyn has been gone more than a year now. I think I'm adjusting fairly well to the situation. Shortly after her death, New York City psychiatrist Dr. Ivan Goldberg, whom I have known for several years on an internet professional listserve, told me that he was depressed for long time after his sister's suicide. I have held his statement in my thoughts to remind myself over and over that when I'm feeling blue, my sadness will one day come to an end.

What kind of person was my sister? Like many other baby boomers, she loved Simon and Garfunkel music and long straight hair. She wore her hair in that same style from her college years until she was over fifty. Carolyn and I went to see Neil Diamond, another one of her music idols, in concert back in the 1980's. One year on my birthday, she sent me a little teddy bear holding a small silk balloon in one paw on which the words "You're Very Special" are printed. The bear stills sits on my bookshelf, reminding me of her.

Carolyn enjoyed poetry, especially the work of Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Milay. She was a university librarian for twenty-five years. She loved Granny Smith apples and Zero candy bars, and she hated cold weather. She adored Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and Siamese cats.

My big sister helped me in several ways over the years. She helped me get my first job, as a pharmacy technician at an Eckerds drug store, when I was a teenager. She had worked there as a cashier one summer when she was home from college, and she introduced me to the store manager. Although she was a Christian and believed in a male God, she gave me the first book I ever read on feminist spirituality, "When God Was a Woman" by Merlin Stone. When I got a divorce at age 30 and was struggling financially, she co-signed an application for an American Express card to help me rebuild my credit.

I should have known how things would turn out, but I’m not sure that I could have done anything to change the ultimate outcome. Carolyn had been in psychotherapy from time to time over the years, and had been prescribed antidepressants on a couple of occasions. During her last Christmas, in 2006, she sent me a prized work of art as a gift, something I thought she would never give away. It is a Georgia O'Keeffe inspired abstract of a cow skull, done by the late Alabama artist Anne Ward Huey who died in 1988 from lupus-related kidney failure. Carolyn married Anne's widower in 1990. Their marriage lasted 17 years. The two of them shared an appreciation of the late Anne's art. They were in the processess of divorcing when my sister died. Carolyn did not want the divorce.

In a phone conversation in early 2007, Carolyn told me unexpectedly that she was going to repay me a long outstanding personal loan of a thousand dollars, and sent me a check in the mail a few days later. Maybe she was getting her affairs in order and this, too, was a sign of what was to come, but I failed to recognize it at the time. She seldom complained about her marital problems, and I did not know until until after her spouse left her in September, 2007 that he had threatened to do so many times throughout their marriage, beginning right after their wedding in 1990.

Both Carolyn and her spouse were Enneagram Type Two. The Enneagram is a theory of personality development written by the Sufis over a thousand years ago. According to this theory, people become one of nine personality types, based on their early experiences.

Type Twos, known as the Helper or the Giver, are described by Enneagram teacher Renee Baron, as being motivated by the need to be loved, appreciated, and needed. They take pride in their ability to make people feel special and to anticipate and to fulfill other people’s needs better than anyone else. Twos appear cheerful, self-sufficient, and confident, and are often unaware of their own needs. Healthy Twos are warm, generous, empathic, enthusiastic, and nurturing, They relate easily to people, enjoy giving to others, and are capable of unconditional love. Unhealthy Twos can be manipulative, clingy, indirect, possessive, martyrlike, and preoccupied with gaining approval.

Carolyn helped her husband a great deal in the early years of their relationship when he was going through some difficult times with his health and his career. She came to the rescue in a big way, shouldering most of the responsibility for the couple's obligations and living expenses. In the last years of their marriage, when Carolyn needed assistance and expected a return on her investment, her spouse didn't want to reciprocate. Family members postulated after her death that Carolyn may have been manipulatively self-sacrificial about the help she had given him. When her spouse later found himself in the position of being expected to help his helper, he didn't want to be there for her and bailed out of the marriage. Enneagram expert Don Riso describes the relationship between a pair of unhealthy Twos as a "macabre dance of death". The outcome of this dance was my sister's death.

I am learning to deal to the fact that life can bring us changes that we don't see coming and do not want. I thought that I would have my sister for a lot longer. I didn't want to go through life without a sister, but I found myself without her at age 49. She was never really able to share with me the true depth of her anguish about her marriage.

Some changes are gradual and creep up on us over time. In our backyard yesterday, I was surprised to notice that a very large tree stump was missing. I had a 70 foot tall sweet gum tree cut down in 2002, because the lawn was often covered with so many prickly balls that my dogs couldn't romp without stepping on them and ending up with sore paws. I was sad to see the huge tree go. The original owner of our mid-20th century modern style house, a University of Florida architecture professor from Switzerland, planted it when he built the house in 1957.

When the tree was removed, it left a stump about three feet in diameter. Over time, the stump rotted and tall green bamboo shoots grew up around it. Yesterday I peered through the bamboo shoots and found the splintered remnants of the decayed stump.

I guess I didn't notice changes in my world over time, like the sweet gum stump decomposing and my sister's distress exceeding her ability to cope. Carolyn preferred living in a dreamy world of poetry and pastels, and to paraphrase Don Riso paraphrasing Othello, she didn't love too wisely or too well. She didn't want to think about things like making a "Plan B" for her life if her marriage didn't work out.

I struggle to find peace and meaning around the whole situation, and sometimes I still can't quite believe that Carolyn is gone. Life is fragile and we never know what the future will bring. Although I'm adapting to life without a sister, I'm still trying to find ways to put her death into perspective. I think my journey along this path will be long before I find a way to completely heal the loss.

Thursday, January 1, 2009

A Happy New Year

When I was a child, my paternal grandparents, who were Disciples of Christ ministers in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, were among my favorite people. To me, they represented everything about the world that was good and true and kind. I saw them as being vitally important to their small rural community. There were no psychotherapists in those parts and Prozac hadn’t been invented yet. Whenever a parishioner became ill, their tobacco crop failed, or their tractor broke down, my grandparents were always there to help. I remember seeing my grandfather hike down the hill from the parsonage to make pastoral visits at Marymount Hospital in the mornings, and I watched him write his sermons as he sat at his big oak roll top desk. My grandmother taught a Bible Study class on Wednesday evenings, and she even had her own radio show on a Christian station for awhile, providing messages of hope and comfort for listeners. She tirelessly cranked out bulletins for the Sunday services on an old mimeograph machine in the church basement, and sometimes she would let me help her pick out beautiful images of religious art for the bulletin cover. I saw their work as being the most important thing in the world.

My grandparents met each other in a holler known as Grassy Creek, when she was 16 years old and he was 17. They got married and started having kids. Many years after they had passed away, I found out something very interesting about them. My grandfather wanted to be a farmer, but he didn’t have any money to buy land. My uncle Jim, one of their three sons, told me that when he was a small child, he remembered seeing them sitting together at their kitchen table, leafing through college catalogs and trying to choose a course of study. They decided to enroll together in Lexington Theological Seminary to earn their ministerial degrees.

So I realized that they didn’t receive a divine calling to be ministers. Their decision to spend their lives serving a faith community was voluntary rather than demanded of them by a supreme being. It was a conscious choice. As a liberal Unitarian Universalist, this insight made me appreciate my grandmother and grandfather even more.

I am a continuation of my grandparents. Although my chosen profession is in the healthcare field rather than the ministry, I hope someday to provide spiritual care for others. Jack and I got out of bed early this morning, and drove a bit bleary-eyed to a Tibetan Buddhist First Light New Years Ceremony, where we meditated, chanted, and lit 108 beautiful candles with a small group of people. In this type of ceremony, prayers for peace are made at the beginning of the first day of the new year. With groups participating worldwide, Buddhists greet the first light across the planet in a continuous wave of prayer. I cannot think of a more important or meaningful way to spend New Years Day. Whenever I engage in spiritual practices, I feel my close to my grandparents, I am peaceful and happy, and all is right with my world.

Peace and Happy New Year to all!