My spouse, Carlin, will inform you that one of many principal causes now we have had a profitable 44-year marriage is as a result of I’ve been in a males’s group for 45 years. There have been seven members within the group after we started. Three have died and 4 of us are nonetheless collectively. Taking a look at an early photograph of the group, we marvel at what a younger midlife bunch of fellows we had been after we first met in 1979. Now I’m 80, Tom is 78, Tony is 77, and Denis is 75.
When the group started all of us lived inside driving distance of one another within the San Franciso Bay space. Tony later moved to Seattle. The remainder of us nonetheless dwell in northern California. As we’ve gotten older, well being points have made it tougher to satisfy in particular person, however we nonetheless handle to make it work. In recent times the California members of the group have flown north to satisfy Tony. This time, Tony flew south and we met at Denis’s house in Calistoga. We began the New Yr with a heart-felt retreat January 10-13, 2024.
I’m an solely little one by delivery, however since becoming a member of the lads’s group, I’ve been gifted with brothers that I like and who love me. We’ve got diverse expertise and backgrounds. I’m the author within the group. In my most up-to-date e-book, Lengthy Stay Males, printed in 2023, I described “The Seven Phases of Our Males’s Group” and what now we have gone via to this point. Listed here are our levels:
- Studying to Belief and Open Up.
- Revealing Our True Selves, Fears, and Insecurities.
- Baring Our Our bodies and Souls.
- Studying to Have Enjoyable Collectively.
- Revitalizing the Group.
- Making a Lifetime Dedication.
- Coping with Disabilities, Dying, and Dying.
In recent times, together with within the final assembly, we discuss overtly about problems with life and loss of life. My spouse, Carlin, is 85 and all our wives are getting older with us. We’re open about points surrounding our personal end-of-life points in addition to these of our partner’s. Carlin and I’ve been studying an attention-grabbing e-book by Sallie Tisdale, a effective creator and skilled nurse, who has spent ten years with folks going via the ultimate levels of life.
The e-book, Recommendation for Future Corpses: A Sensible Perspective on Dying and Dying, is witty, compassionate, and useful. She says on the outset,
“I by no means died, so this complete e-book is a idiot’s recommendation. Beginning and loss of life are the one human acts we can’t observe.”
She addresses points that we’ve all discovered to be scary to debate however are more and more vital in our lives as we age together with:
- What does it imply to die “a superb loss of life?”
- Can there be a couple of form of good loss of life?
- What can I do to make my loss of life, or the deaths of my family members, good?
- What to say and to not say, what to ask, and when—from the dying, family members, and medical doctors.
As I wrote in my very own e-book, Lengthy Stay Males,
“Since we determined to remain collectively for the remainder of our lives and to not add any new members to our group, we’re an increasing number of conscious that there’ll come a time when the group itself will die.”
As we’ve gotten older, my spouse, Carlin and I discuss in regards to the nice reward and privilege of serving to one another put together for this final part of our lives.
Ram Dass presents extra steerage in his writings. In his e-book, Strolling Every Different House: Conversations on Loving and Dying written with Marabai Bush, he says, “All of us sit on the sting of a thriller. We’ve got solely recognized this life, so dying scares us—and we’re all dying. What would it not appear to be if you happen to might strategy dying with curiosity and love, in service of different beings? What if dying had been the final word non secular observe?”
He goes on to say,
“Dying is an important factor you do in your life. It’s the good frontier for each one in every of us. And loving is the artwork of residing as a preparation for dying. Permitting ourselves to dissolve into the ocean of affection isn’t just about leaving this physique; it is usually the path to Oneness and unity with our personal inside being, the soul, whereas we’re nonetheless right here.”
For many of my life, I’ve been scared of loss of life, my very own in addition to these closest to me. It has solely been lately since Carlin has handled breast most cancers, heart-valve substitute surgical procedure, and two minor strokes (if you happen to can name any stroke minor) that now we have been compelled to confront our fears and in addition to the blessings of our assist for one another as we discover what it means to arrange for and have “a superb loss of life.”
Ram Dass’s easy phrases have been comforting:
“If you understand how to dwell and to like, you understand how to die.”
Carlin and I’ve been working towards how you can dwell and to like for 44 years. The lads’s group has been working towards for 45 years. It’s clearly a ceaselessly observe.
One other one that has provided useful steerage is psychologist James Hillman. In his e-book, The Power of Character and The Lasting Life, he says,
“Every of us is born with an innate character, the ‘daimon,’ or ‘spirit’ that calls us to what we are supposed to be.”
In reflecting on the later years of our lives, Hillman goes on to say,
“Getting older isn’t any accident. It’s essential to the human situation, supposed by the soul.”
Quite than the well-known levels of life—childhood, maturity, and previous age—Hillman expands upon the modifications character undergoes in later life.
“First, the need to final so long as one can; then the modifications in physique and soul because the capability to final leaves and character turns into an increasing number of uncovered and confirmed till a 3rd piece of the puzzle emerges: what’s left when you may have left. Lasting, Leaving, Left.”
In our fashionable world we put quite a lot of emphasis on productiveness and after we are unable to provide many people really feel that we’re ineffective. However after we concentrate on being, on character, reasonably than merely on doing and producing, our longer life takes on extra which means. In serious about my 85-year-old spouse, this reflection by Hillman presents a extra expanded side of our function as we age:
“Productiveness is just too slender a measure of usefulness, incapacity too cramping a notion of helplessness. An older lady could also be useful merely as a determine valued for her character. Like a stone on the backside of a riverbed, she could do nothing however keep nonetheless and maintain her floor, however the river has to take account and alter its move due to her.”
When Carlin questions her worth in life now that she is retired and never working, I inform her that her job now’s to easily stroll round city (which she likes to do) and convey her being to the folks she encounters. I discover, too, as I stroll round city, I’ve a brand new job in life as I proceed in my 80s. It’s merely to be sort and loving to these whose paths I cross—mates, neighbors, strangers, canines, cats, birds, bushes, clouds—the entire neighborhood of life in our little neighborhood of Willits.
In our fast-paced world the place we’re all the time so pushed, it’s comforting to know that we will age and nonetheless have one thing vital to supply. Our infirmities will not be simply indicators of a failing physique, however a chance to deepen our character and put together for our final departure.
“Suppose you alternate the phrase ‘leaving’ for ‘dying’ and substitute ‘making ready’ for ‘getting older,’” says Hillman. “Then what we undergo in our final years in preparation for departure.”
Hillman presents a unique, extra hopeful, and fewer fearful means of transferring from leaving to left.
“We decelerate and go over issues in our minds as a result of there’s a lot to arrange. Because the soul comes into the world slowly, taking all of the years of childhood to regulate, so it leaves the world slowly, requiring years of previous age to pack up and take off.”
Carlin and I are making ready for this final thriller of life. So, too, is our males’s group, as every man take his flip making ready to go away. When the final member of the group, Dick, was near loss of life, we talked about what remained after we go away. We each felt there was a spirit that continued after our our bodies had gone.
I informed him if he might talk with me from the spirit world, I used to be open to listening to from him. Every week after he died, I used to be doing my early morning stroll and I noticed lights shining on the high of a bunch of tall bushes. “Is that you simply, Dick?” I requested. I had the sensation it was. Ever since, I image the three males who’ve left the group, John, Ken, and Dick being on the highest branches and the 4 of us which are nonetheless alive on the following highest branches awaiting our flip to hitch the others on the spirit degree.
Love abides. And possibly loss of life isn’t the top, however the starting of affection manifesting in different kinds. We will see. The group is scheduled to satisfy once more in April. Keep tuned.
