Sunset across the Bay and behind Golden Gate
I was driving David home from high school one day. On Forest Lane we passed a bad traffic accident. There were emergency vehicles there, so we didn’t stop. When we got home we learned that two of his friends – Eric and Jamie – were in the car. They had been taken to Parkland Hospital, a terrible sign as both Presbyterian and Medical City were closer than Parkland (but Parkland has a Level 1 trauma center).
We drove straight away to Parkland. There were some of David’s classmates and a few parents there in the ER. We learned that Eric and Jamie had both died. The school chaplain was there and he was talking to the boys, trying to explain what had happened and seeking some kind of meaning in it. The boys seemed to tune him out. Then one of the parents who was also an infectious diseases doctor from Parkland began explaining to the boys what had happened. He gave them the unvarnished truth and didn’t try to explain why the accident happened or look for meaning in it. I could see them responding to him. He offered to take anyone who wanted in to see the bodies. Some went and some did not. Eric’s family came.
Eventually David and I went home, shaken to the core. That awful emptiness.
There was a series of memorials – several big ones that everyone came to. Jamie’s in an Episcopal cathedral, Eric’s in the Restland chapel. Over the next year there were other memorial events, all of them attended by Leslie and Scott’s mother, Oneida; by the time of the last memorial event, the school was represented only by the headmaster, Leslie, and Oneida. The stalwarts. Leslie visited Eric’s grave every year until she passed.
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We were having coffee and talking in bed this morning – talking about how we sometimes have to work to integrate health-illness experiences with life (the story of our 2019).
And how integration is necessary for positive resolution of Erikson’s final stage of psychosocial development, ego integrity vs. despair. In other words, as we go through the challenges of aging and the end of life, are we able to integrate those challenges with our changing life? Integration (and acceptance) as we near the end of life leads to Erikson’s ego integrity and wisdom.
Sun dog in Montana. We stopped twice in Big Fork to take a nap on a baseball field. The sun dog was there once when we awakened. The only one I’ve ever seen.
And how at Baylor we taught that a central goal of care was integration of the health/illness experience.
And how integration is an integral part of every trip. If we’re open to integration it unfolds over subsequent days, and actually, over months and years – all the way to this moment. The integration process was/is of equal importance to any visions and insights.
While we were talking I got a text. Ordinarily I wouldn’t interrupt our times together, but David is in Europe and I wanted to see if he was texting. It was David Overton, letting me know that Ram Dass just passed away at age 88.
David Overton and Ram Dass at Lama Foundation – New Mexico about 1987
When Ram Dass was 65 he had a massive stroke that took away his abilities to talk and walk. Eventually he was able to talk (with difficulty) and use one arm. He never walked again. He continued to serve as a hospice volunteer and inspire others with his integrity and strength. This is an example of ego integrity in the fierceness of aging and illness.
We’re having a ceremony on New Years Eve – saying goodby to a very hard year (yet in many ways a beautiful year) and hello to a beautiful New Year.
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I recently finished a book titled, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. It’s a powerful and often horrible book that reinforced my belief that overall it was harder in WWII than in Vietnam (not that VN was easy!). I wondered what it would be like to read what I’ve written about combat, not as the writer and in terms of reliving it, but reading it without reference points in the same way I’d read With the Old Breed. My conclusions: we still didn’t have it as hard as those guys, but still, wow, that’s some hard-assed shit.
Photo from The Old Breed
From a review: on one level, The Old Breed refers to the veterans who fought and survived the early days of the war. On another level, The Old Breed for the author is “a paean to what has gone before him, to that which exceeds him. He is there to play his part, to serve with courage… One could have been swallowed up in the ‘chamber of horrors…’”