Summers on a lake started early for me; here I am at camp in Maine, age 5, summer of 1948

I’d like to explore this with my readers as present reality, not theory, with two examples.…

In February of 2018, I walked into my kitchen early one morning. My husband and I had agreed to get an early start to the gym. He wasn’t in bed when I woke up, so I came out to the kitchen looking for him. There he lay on the kitchen floor, his left arm flailing, the rest of his body seemingly frozen in place, eyes terrified, vomit around him, a melted ice cream carton on the counter. I had to watch my beloved husband experience the results of a very serious stroke. In the hospital, he was given only a 3% chance to survive. Fear, denial, anger, and grief all surfaced. We had been together for 53 years. How could I live without him?

All I could do, for both of us, was to stay present, moment by moment, day by day. The spaciousness of Awareness could acknowledge that we were a part of each other, and I could never lose him. The mundane mind and heart broke with grief at this absence of my beloved best and eternal friend. I had to honor both aspects, with wisdom for the eternal that we are, and compassion for the humans.

Six and a half years have passed (now, in 2026, eight and a half) , as I write. Covid brought a change, with us moving Hal from the nursing home back into our home, somewhat renovated to allow for his wheelchair living. Each day asks me to bring awareness to the present moment experiences for us both, to acknowledge the very real limits of life for Hal, bound to a wheelchair, helpless and unable to speak, and to the timelessness where we can sit together and watch a movie or ballgame, or just sit on the deck and look at the life in the garden, holding hands, feeling the profound connection of our love. There is pain and there is joy beyond telling, as we share life and I tend to his very mundane daily needs. I can only touch the joy if I’m open to the pain. 

Writing today, May 22.; you know I write these a week or two before they’re published, so it’s Memorial Day weekend now. Since 1968, this weekend was the joyous start of summer and usually saw us packing up our tent and food for a long weekend at the lake, and years later, going out to our beloved cabin there, starting in 1990s. Before 1968’s move to Michigan, Memorial Day weekend always led us out of NYC, into the mountains.  I’ve been remembering our joy of the outdoors this morning.

Barbara and Hal atop Mt. Washington, 1965
There is grasping! The dharma teachings remind us clearly that grasping and aversion cause suffering, and yet when the conditions are present these both will arise. Aversion to grasping also leads to suffering! I cannot say “I won’t grasp.” So here I am, grasping at those long-ago summers…

Rafting  and riding in Alaska, 2008,over 50 years after that Mt. Washington photo.
What a gift, to have had these 58 years together.

The day I wrote this I was sitting with Hal on the deck.  He can’t speak. We mostly sit in silence. We were watching one of our sons and two grandchildren swinging on the round swing.  Our daughter-in-law sat near us. We had just had a lovely meal together. The sun was pleasantly warm, sky blue, birds everywhere. Contentment vied with grasping. What is the direct experience of grasping? Tension; mind and body not present in this moment. Sadness that is being pushed away. Yet only when I allow the presence of the sadness, can I truly feel the gratitude of what these years have given.  It all must come together.

I Iook at the joy on our granddaughter’s face, on the swing. In how many lifetimes have I been those children, mothered and grand-mothered those children and millions more, worldwide. We are all, all of those children and parents, in joy and in sorrow. May we all be happy and have peace. Gratitude opens gently, watching joy express in a new generation. Gratitude holds deep as I watch the joy in Hal’s face, watching our family and relaxed on our deck, our joyful home of 55 years, sitting under a now giant spruce we planted 55 years ago, granddaughter swinging from its branches. Joy and sorrow; gain and loss; all non-dual.