What happens at the end of life?

By Amy Oscar

Blogger’s note: While I don’t typically post other people’s material on my blog site, this beautiful essay by Amy Oscar will resonate with all those who have lived or who are currently living through the end-of-life experience with a loved one or friend.

My mother has never been willing to talk about dying before. In the past, if I mentioned death, she’d turn her head and stare into space.

Yesterday, while I was sitting beside her holding her hand, she said, “I’m scared.””What are you scared about?” I asked.”I’m dying,” she said.”I know,” I said. “Do you want to talk about it – about what scares you?”

She wouldn’t look at me. But she squeezed my hand.”Are you scared because you don’t know what will happen to you when you die?”She nodded.“Do you want me to tell you what happened when Matthew’s dad died?”She nodded.So, I told her that one day, Stanley, who’d been declining for a while, stopped eating and the next day he stopped speaking and the next day, he closed his eyes and after a little while, he died.

“Oh,” she said. “That was easy.” “It doesn’t have to be hard,” I said. And she looked at me, and we smiled.

Read entire essay…

Faith, Christmas and a Sense of Loss

This Christmas is different. As I grow older, I see some things with greater clarity and others less so. The innocence of childhood is still, for me, the essence of the Christmas story. But while the years bring greater perspective and, hopefully, some shred of wisdom, they also bring a keener understanding of the nature of human suffering.

The child in me longs for the naiveté to listen for the sound of sleigh bells and reindeer hooves in the night, if only for one silly, blissful moment. But while loved ones in my own and my extended families struggle with various challenges including mental illness, and many people try to just get through the holidays while missing a loved one who has passed on, there is instead sadness, estrangement and a profound sense of loss.

As I write on Christmas Eve 2022, the free world watches and holds its breath as the people of Ukraine have their way of life destroyed. Even their children have not been spared, their innocence and very lives ripped from them for no reason. Surely their faith has been tested beyond limit.

Yet, an image shown this week on television portrayed a bombed-out city in Ukraine with its citizens, who have lost almost everything, still managing to sing and celebrate the lighting of the Christmas tree in the public square. Their faith was surely shaken, but not destroyed.

Amid a rising wave of antisemitism, Jews around the world will light the eighth Hanukkah candle the day after Christmas, another sign of our collective faith that light will ultimately overcome darkness. I have never been able to wrap my head around the fact that antisemites, who tend to be Christian and racists as well, seem to overlook a minor detail of history – Jesus was a Jew.

The other day an old friend wrote with an update on his wife who suffers with Alzheimer’s. He spoke of the overwhelming difficulty in watching his partner, best friend and mother of his children deteriorate before his eyes. We corresponded about the nature of faith, and how at times like these, it is tested and stressed to the limit.

My friend went on to write that his daughter and her husband had taken in a Ukrainian boy until it is safe for him to return to his homeland, and that the whole family has been embracing and welcoming him. It occurred to me that people of goodwill somehow shine their light in the very darkest corners. They keep faith while spreading hope.

While his own faith has been pushed to the limit, my friend wrote he was praying for only one thing this Christmas…JOY. Some might wonder how a person whose wife is suffering with Alzheimer’s could find it in himself to pray for joy. But it is really no different than the courageous Ukrainians who sang for joy at the lighting of their Christmas tree.

Yes, this Christmas is different for me. I am still learning about the nature of faith, and how to keep faith in the most trying times. Tonight, I join my friend in praying for JOY in the hope that light will ultimately prevail over the darkness, bringing order and peace in the world so that children, regardless where they live, can be children. And so their innocence will be a light unto the world and a continuous reflection of the essence of Christmas.

She’s a petite, seemingly demure young woman, but when Carly Moffa takes the stage in her funky hat, fireworks fly. The Nashville-based singer-song writer and poet was back in her home state of New Jersey this past weekend where she performed at Hawk Haven Winery. It was my first time seeing her perform and she was electric.

The American Idol (AI) finalist is classically trained and it shows in the range of her voice, which celebrity AI judge Katy Perry described as “a big, beautiful folky Florence Welch-type voice, which commands a room.” And command the room she did, at Hawk Haven, with a mix of her own songs and covers of everything from Blues to Motown.

Her own songs like “Sweat It Out” and “I Let the Lion Out” come from a well spring of the creative psyche where Moffa says she “free writes” or “makes stuff up on the spot.” When she free writes, Moffa says, “I’ll play chords, mumble, mess around on instruments and midi sounds without an agenda or plan for a song.”  

On stage she moves, jumps and twirls while playing and singing with a distinctive style and unbridled exuberance. There is a soulfulness and a kind of wistfulness that permeates her performance. Moffa is an authentic, quirky performer with no ceiling to her potential.

The music business isn’t for the faint of heart, but when I spoke with her in between sets about her music, I could tell Moffa has the heart of a lioness with a seemingly unwavering belief in herself and her music.

She is also blessed with a loving and supportive family. Moffa calls her mom, Betsy, who was in the audience at Hawk Haven and who has battled multiple sclerosis since Moffa was in middle school, “my person” and a “force of nature.” She speaks about her father Chris with affection, sharing one of his favorite lines with the audience, “I’m just one man.”

When we chatted, Moffa asked me if I had a request. I asked who her favorite artist was. Her response, “different musicians for different reasons.” When she mentioned Marvin Gaye, I requested “Let’s Get It On.” Moffa looked at me with incredulity and said, “I can’t play that. My father’s in the audience!”

Aside from her voice and song writing, there is a profound aspect of her perspective that is uncommon in one so young and that is sometimes characterized as an old soul. In her website Moffa writes, “I think we all have a calling, and the way we get about the business of doing what we were created to do starts by being who we were created to be – just as we are. I think we were all born to live in that sweet spot of who we uniquely are.”

Carly Moffa is just one woman, and this woman is one amazing performer who thrives in that sweet spot of who she uniquely is.  

Ferlinghetti’s Marvelous Intoxicating Liquor

When asked whether poetry still matters today, poet, publisher, activist and cofounder of City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, told an interviewer that, hell yes, it matters.

Poetry, Ferlinghetti said, is “all the disparate elements of the new civilization, the new culture of the 21^st century. One of these days,” he continued, “the brew is going to coalesce into a marvelous new intoxicating liquor.”

Intoxicating indeed. For poetry has always been about evolution and revolution, whether of society or of the spirit. And as Ferlinghetti, who passed away yesterday at age 101 noted, it has always been, and will likely always be, the youth in society who take up the torch and carry it forward.

Ferlinghetti knew of whence he spoke, having nurtured generations of poets and writers including, in the early years, counterculture creatives such as Allen Ginsberg, Neil Cassady and Jack Kerouac among others.

The articulation of a new ecological and spiritual consciousness, Ferlinghetti observed, came out of the youth rebellion. And for decades they came to his bookstore and literary meeting place on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco, Beats, then Hippies, and generations that followed.

He participated in and helped foment a revolution in consciousness, publishing Allen Ginsberg’s, “Howl, one of the 20^th Century’s most famous poems, which led to Ferlinghetti’s arrest for “willfully and lewdly” publishing “indecent writings”.

In Ferlinghetti’s view, poetry was insurgent art, as described in his 2007 work by the same name.

“Poetry as Insurgent Art”

I am signaling you through the flames.

The North Pole is not where it used to be.

Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.

Civilization self-destructs.

Nemesis is knocking at the door.

What are poets for, in such an age?

What is the use of poetry?

The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it.

If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenge of apocalyptic

times, even if this meaning sounds apocalyptic.

You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and Edna

St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are an American

or a non-American, you can conquer the conquerors with words….

These last few years, Ferlinghetti’s words seem especially prescient. “Civilization self-destructs,” and, “Nemesis is knocking at the door.” So, we look to those who would be poets, capable of answering the challenge of apocalyptic times. We need them to reconcile the disparate elements of the new civilization and “conquer the conquerors with words….”

Pumpkin Soup

I’ve been down this road before, but this year has been like none other. Still, we did our best to keep to some of our traditions, bringing home pumpkins from a local farm and placing them on the front porch to mark the fall harvest.

They lasted through Thanksgiving. When we saw one beginning to deteriorate, I moved it into the woods for our wildlife neighbors. The other pumpkin was holding its own, and my wife brought it inside and made a wonderful soup with many different seasonings.

Sometimes I find myself looking for underlying connectors between myself and the natural world. As I finish the last of the pumpkin soup, I’m aware of those occasional moments of clarity when, as John Prine sang in his last recorded song, “I remember everything.”

Every tree and every blade of grass are committed to my memory, every joy and every sadness. The joys and sadness, it seems to me, tie us together in our humanness. Even a perfect storm of pandemic and politics run amuck could never change that.

My experience is not unique. I remember first kisses, sledding on a moonlit night with my young son, the generosity of strangers, the mystery of snow-capped mountains in the distance, and the eternal sound of breakers crashing on the shore. Happily, the joys outweigh the sadness.

The connectors, it turns out, are everywhere to be found when I see with my heart, taking care not to “let my past go sneaking up on me.” In my mind’s eye, I remember every tree, every single blade of grass, and every soup my brown-eyed girl has made for me.

Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht

Tonight, the stars are set against a frigid background of blue. Every year at this time I feel a yearning and a wish for something that eludes me…something that eludes us.

Maybe it’s because this is the season of light when all things seem possible. Yet Earth, under our stewardship, has not fared well. She has suffered irreparable damage caused by our misguided perception of progress, fueled by ignorance and greed.  

Jesus said, “Whatever you do to my brethren you do to me.”  And yet so many of our brothers and sisters continue to suffer. Children, our most vulnerable and most in need of our care and protection, go to bed hungry and are abused in unspeakable ways. Wars are still waged in the name of who knows what?

But even in times of despair, we have shown ourselves to have the capacity to transcend our circumstances and embrace hope. I can’t think of more hopeful words than those first sung on Christmas in 1818 in a church in Obernforf, Austria: “Stille nacht, heilige nacht – Silent night, holy night.“

Father Joseph Mohr, who wrote the lyrics and Franz Gruber who composed the melody could not have known that their creation would ultimately be translated into 140 languages, and that it would shine as a beacon in a weary world for almost 200 hundred years, even during one of our darkest hours.

Almost a century after Silent Night was composed, World War I raged in Europe. On Christmas Eve in 1914, Silent Night was sung in French, German and English during a Christmas truce by troops facing each other on the front line. It was the one carol that the soldiers on both sides knew.

In that moment, men who had been mortal enemies hours earlier, put down their weapons and for a short time, shared the gift of hope. Hope, that the war would soon end. Hope that they would survive the conflict and return home to their loved ones.

This Christmas, my yearning for something that eludes me…eludes us, notwithstanding, I choose to focus on the transformative power of hope. I look with great expectation for the day, though I know it will not come in my lifetime, when a lasting truce is declared wherever there is ignorance and strife.

It will be a day when a lasting global truce is reached in the hearts of men and women around the world. A day when we lay down our ignorance, our hatred and our fears and embrace the gift of hope.

For me, that is the essence and the meaning of Christmas. “Stille nacht, heilige nacht.”  

November Rose

Finally, it was cold and there were scattered pockets of first frost. As I made my way along the Delaware River in the early morning, a dense fog hung over the swift-moving current and mystical elements of the natural world gradually revealed themselves.

A lone duck stayed close to shore near the place where the Aquetong Creek flows into the Delaware. Several miles upstream, where the creek springs forth from its subterranean source, there is a profound spiritual connection; the Aquetong Spring was sacred to the Leni Lenape Indians.   

I am drawn to the Delaware River in a way I cannot fully explain. That morning, as the fog began to lift, the river whispered to me: Everything you need is within you.

In such moments of clarity, I believe it is possible to connect with the Divine that is around and within us. Ernest Hemingway observed of nature, “It is what we have instead of religion.”

As the fog began to lift, I saw her standing defiant in the face of the coming winter: November rose, a reminder of nature’s eternal resilience. Spring will come again to the Delaware River Valley. There will be rebirth and renewal.

For now, the edge of winter approaches and the days grow shorter. But we need not “rage against the dying of the light.” Each season offers an opportunity to connect with our divine selves.

And so, I mark my time not in years but in the passing of the seasons, each with its own song, its own message. Evidence of the Divine and a brief, tantalizing glimpse of eternity. November rose.

Rediscovering Our Timeless Selves

What did you do as a child that created timelessness, that made you forget time? There lies the myth to live by.  – Joseph Campbell

As children we moved through time effortlessly, as if the constraints of time that bound adults did not apply to us. When we freely associate with that thought, one of the words that comes to mind is freedom. Freedom from the responsibilities that we would learn to take on in time as we grew to adulthood. Freedom from the stresses that in later years would become our constant companions. Freedom to be fully present in the moment because our minds were uncluttered.

Then we started school and suddenly time mattered. Getting to school on time. Completing work assignments on time. Being on time for the school bus. Getting to soccer practice or ballet lessons on time. We studied language and science, history and mathematics, subjects that would inform our ability to be productive and contributing members of society. Invaluable knowledge, indeed, even as our minds were becoming cluttered.

As our ‘timeless selves’ matured on the road to adulthood, time became our master, and with good cause. After all, no one would argue whether time is of the essence when a surgeon operates on a trauma patient whose life hangs in the balance, or when a pilot makes important last-minute adjustments before safely landing a flight with several hundred passengers.

So how do we answer Joseph Campbell’s question, what made us forget about time when we were children? I’m reminded of the story about two scientists who visited a Buddhist monk to pose questions they found perplexing.

The monk offered the scientists tea and proceeded to pour it until their cups were overflowing. Puzzled, the scientists pointed out that their teacups were overflowing. The monk agreed and told them their minds were like the teacups, filled to overflowing, and that they should empty their minds and then return with their questions.  

Campbell’s myth of timelessness isn’t about avoiding life’s responsibilities and educating and preparing ourselves to reach our full human potential. It is about rediscovering the sacred place within ourselves that is timeless and that we frequented as children. It is a place that does not exist in yesterday or tomorrow; it exists only in today. We reach it by clearing our minds of all the clutter that has accumulated over the years, being fully present in the here and now, a place where, happily, we forget time, however briefly.    

Saying Goodbye and the Power of Faith

I have been fortunate to call Steve Kutner my friend since we met at the tender age of 14. When he passed away just over a week ago after a difficult struggle with leukemia, I, like many others who cared for him, felt relief amid the sadness.

Steve was among a dozen or so of us who have maintained our friendship over the years. I like to think of us as a unique group of men of a certain age, although we’re probably beyond what is considered “a certain age.”

We are unique not so much in that we forged a strong bond during our formative years at St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary in Long Island, New York, but in that we maintained it over the years despite the miles that separate us from New Hampshire to Texas. As one of our friends once put it, “We knew each other in our pre-adult personas.”

Despite attending seminary school, becoming a Catholic priest wasn’t in the cards for Steve or the rest of us in our immediate group of friends from St. Pius.

We went into fields from education, business and psychology to law and communications. We married and had families, some divorced and remarried. And most remained committed to the Catholic faith including Steve. It was a comfort to him until the end.

One of our high school teachers and mentors, Rev. John Martin, celebrated Steve’s funeral Mass. In his homily he said that during Steve’s illness, he was asked by a family member, “Why is Steve suffering so.”

Father Martin’s response to the question surprised me, and I wondered if it was the same answer he would have given all those years ago as a young priest teaching at St. Pius.

“With all my years of theological training,” Father Martin, who is now in his eighties said, “I could only respond, I don’t know.”  He went on to say that on one of his visits with Steve during his final days in Sloan Kettering, Steve told him, “I’ve always tried to do the right thing.”

Father Martin asked all of us present to look into our hearts and recommit ourselves to always trying to do the right thing.  “God is within each of us,” he said, and he reminded us of the words of Jesus, “‘Whatever you do to others you do to me.’”

As someone who stopped practicing Catholicism some 40 years ago, I sometimes struggle with the concept of faith. Father Martin’s reference to the God within each of us resonated with my beliefs that have evolved over a lifelong spiritual journey.

I believe the essence of love and faith is recognizing and honoring the God within each of us, whether we are a different color or ethnicity, speak a different language, have a disability or disorder, worship a different God or no God at all, love a member of the same sex or opposite sex.

There could be no more poignant example of the power of faith and love when, at the end of Steve’s funeral Mass, one of his daughters who has Down’s syndrome reached up her arms to hug Father Martin, and he bent down and gently kissed her.

On that sun-drenched Saturday morning in a church in Valley Stream, New York, I felt God’s presence among my friends of a certain age, among Steve’s family, and among all who loved him.

Farewell old friend.  I will miss you.

A Christmas Wish and the Journey Home

Some years ago, a man I worked with at the New York City Board of Education who I greatly respected told me that most people just want to live their lives peacefully and with dignity. Over the years I have found Jack Wengrow’s words ring true no matter the era or current fashion.

Today we live in turbulent times when living peacefully is not always easy or even possible. Times, when our most humanitarian inclinations notwithstanding, the dignity of the individual is often trampled. Perhaps that is the way it has always been.

At this magical time of year, despite all that has transpired in the world, in my life and in the lives of family and friends, I still feel a sense of hopefulness. The music and tidings of joy proclaim a prevailing spirit of goodness and kindness that will ultimately transform the world.

Jesus, like the Buddha, was a light unto the world who transcended the limitations of religion. He spoke to the side of us that longs for peace and righteousness to prevail so that no one has their dignity violated. Jesus taught a better way, as did the Buddha. To live with compassion and love for one another isn’t a Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu or Muslim ideal. It is a human ideal.

I hope one day we can embrace each other as pilgrims, and respect and honor the unique journey that each of us is on. We are all moving toward a distant star in our hearts, and there are many ways to reach it; there is no one true way. Despite all our differences, it may be that we are seeking the same thing after all, and when we discover it, we will have found our way home.

The French novelist Marcel Proust wrote, “We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, for our wisdom is our point of view from which we come at last to view the world.”  Wisdom, as the “Serenity Prayer” reminds us, is our point of view that enables us to recognize the difference between the things we are able to change and those we cannot.

My Christmas wish is that all the citizens of earth will one day live their lives in peace and with dignity. For family and friends, as we continue our respective journeys in 2018, may we have the courage to change the things in our lives and in our world that we are able to change, the serenity to accept the things we cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Namaste and Merry Christmas!