Getting On With Life After A Partner Dies

A friend of mine sent me a NY Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/health/15brod.html?scp=1&sq=Jane%20E.%20Brody%20Personal%20Health&st=cse) “Getting on With Life After a Partner Dies” written by Jane Brody.

The article describes how she and other widows and widowers have coped with the loss of a partner by filling up their days and trying to turn their loss into something positive.  She goes on to site examples of different people whose energy and attention turned to concrete accomplishments after the loss.  She writes experts call this phenomenon “psychological resilience”.

Read more

Keeping An Eye On Our Ego

Here’s another devastating side-effect of the ego; I know everything and therefore I don’t need to listen to anyone and so I stop learning.

When I was in my early twenties I spent some time with a man who was incredibly smart and well read.  But he had a problem; he thought he was leaps and bounds smarter than anybody else so he never dialogued with anyone.  He only “monologued”.  A couple of years later this man and I went our separate ways and I didn’t see him for four years.

In the four years I didn’t see him, I continued to ask questions and to listen to what others thought and had to say.  So when I saw my old boyfriend to catch up, I found myself sitting in front of the same man I had separated from four years earlier.  He said the same things and thought the same way.  He then didn’t seem so smart and well read anymore.  He seemed like a man who had become stuck because he thought he knew it all.

A certain dose of ego is healthy in the sense of allowing us to assert ourselves without fear.  But ego that wraps pride around itself  is terminal as it kills the self.

I like to keep my ego in check and so I often ask myself when my feathers get ruffled if I’m justified or if it is my ego feeling frail.  If it is the latter, I tell myself: “pipe down, it’s for your own good.”

Sit Back And Enjoy The Ride

The world is a huge place; believe me, you will never know what’s coming your way.  That is life’s beauty and life’s fear.  But regardless, you are at the driver’s seat and sometimes you get to steer and sometimes you don’t.  That reminds me what flight attendants say before a flight: sit back and relax.

That’s what life is about.  Truthfully you just never know.  I’m at a cross road and I’m excited but I’m also a non-believer.   I mean, I don’t believe in fate or destiny.  And how can I believe that no matter what happens, I’m ready for it?  But deep down I know the truth: I am.  I’m going with the flow.

Today I got a call from someone who needs a liver transplant.   Many years ago he was an enlisted man and a needle went from man to man standing in line as soldiers and now he has Hep C.  The man behind him is dead and my man needs a liver, and who knows what goes on with the man in front of him.  He is still struggling with the whys.  The truth is there is no why, there is only what it is.  Get ready.

I told him to get busy.  I told him to move to another city where liver transplants happen faster.  I told him if he didn’t, eventually he would get really sick.  He said he didn’t want to be a burden to anyone while he got ill from liver failure.  I told him point blank not to worry about it; if he went into liver failure he would die fast with no time for anyone to waste their lives taking care of him.

I once knew a woman who was dying after getting new breasts.  She got one of the first ones and hers leaked.  Her cells stopped having the ability to expand and shrink.   Think about it.  Everything in our bodies contract and expand.  Her lips were frozen, her face was frozen and eventually her organs were frozen.  She died.  I wept.

We never know.

I once knew a woman doctor who was taking care of a dying old man who was the father of a Greek man.  After the old man died, the son wanted to thank the woman doctor for her care.  He sent her a note but she didn’t received.   Months later she finally got it and called him.  They went out – that was fifteen years ago – they are still together.

Twenty years ago a woman laying on a couch in Mexico City, and met a man from France.  He fell in love with her.  She took her time.  Twenty years later, they hate each other.

In Rio de Janeiro, I got a dog for my parents: it didn’t work out and I brought the dog to Los Angeles.  The Brazilian mutt became an American citizen and he doesn’t even know it.

I once met a man who changed my world and after he did he died. That is life; unpredictable, wonderful, and mysterious.   It is precious and as I have said before; ask anybody fighting for their lives, if life is worth living.  No bullshit.

Sit back, relax and hold on to the steering wheel.  You are buckling up for the ride of your life.

I wish you, and I wish myself much strength and wisdom to live life fully.  That’s what it’s all about, trust me.  Happy 2010.