Author: chaskemp

It’s been four years. These words are from that time.

Dying is often not easy. These were hard times for Leslie. She underwent profound changes starting at almost exactly 6pm that last (Thursday) night. She went to surgery about 1:30am Friday morning and she passed away back in her room surrounded by pure love about 4:30am. (I’m actually not clear on times, and maybe even days.) I was with her, embracing her, whispering words of love, of remembrance, people she loved, people who loved her, the Song of Ruth…

How momentous it was that I held you as you passed from this earth, this life. Life! I was beside you, embracing you, caressing you, whispering of love and your beauty. How I trembled, knowing what was to come. And then I was calm, I was sorrowful, I was in love. I was strong. I was pure.

You can relax now
Come on and close your eyes
Breathe deeply
I am with you
Oh my sweet, sweet wife.

At every turn I see how incredibly fortunate, how blessed I’ve been with your presence – your love – in my life all these many years.

And at the end, to hold you and whisper these things!

Yesterday was hard. I ran a lot of errands, including taking the wheelchair back to the medical supply place We were minorly ripped off for $50, but fuck it. I thought of how you became weaker and weaker, going from walking slowly but without assistance to needing a walker to needing a wheelchair… I drove by the house on Robin Road where you grew up, where we first kissed.

I got home around 1pm and thought I would take a nap. I was so emotionally and physically exhausted – I was weary as hell – that I lay down on the floor in the front room (I just couldn’t go any farther) and despite being cold, basically passed out.

You never believed me when so many times I told you how brave you are. You insisted that having fear meant not brave. I would say, “Hey man, I lived with some of the bravest men on earth. Being brave isn’t fearless; it’s going in despite the fear.”

To have known you through so many seasons of your beautiful life – from 16 to 70.

I say to myself, “I’m really alone.” Then David calls and I’m not alone. David: you have done/are doing exactly what you said you would do. Thank you.

 

 

In the morning, in bed, with our coffee we watched the sky – clouds grey/slate blue like deep ice and rain and fog below in the near distance over Marin and The Gate but clear above the clouds and here, then some white

and pink clouds at the upper margins, then larger white clouds and blue skies above. The door was open, the room cold, and the bed warm. We were talking of puppies, skies, clouds, love. We made love and when we opened our eyes to something other than one another we were in a light rain cloud and there was a rainbow! Now another! Double rainbow!

We had the usual breakfast of fruit, yogurt, toast, almond butter. I did some laundry, Jean went to Oakland, and I took the 7 bus to the west/downtown side of the UC campus. I walked across the beautiful campus, students everywhere, through Sather Gate into Sproul Plaza (where the Free Speech Movement was born), and now, listen to the music! There is a chorus by the gate, singing beautifully. What song, I don’t know, but I, along with others, was enchanted.

At the far edge of the Plaza, in a corner by the student union there is a piano (“A Gift from People’s Park”) and an older black man was playing… more beauty.

David and I had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant on campus. He told me about some of his work and we talked about what’s happening in our lives, pho in Saigon, Flagging and the upcoming Mother’s Day event, travel plans, about he’s going faster and I’m continuing to slow down, about living dangerously.

After lunch, when I was walking back past the student union, there was a skateboarder playing the piano.

In the evening we went to Vanessa’s for a glass of wine, fish tacos, and our life together.

The extravagant beauty of today.

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Indian Rock is a large rock outcropping in the Berkeley Hills. I’m guessing 60-80 feet high. There were steep steps cut into the less steep side of the rock long ago for people like us. The other sides of the rock have bouldering areas.

We walk to Indian Rock every few weeks, climb to the top and sit and look out on the San Francisco Bay, The City, Berkeley, Oakland, Marin… There are usually 5-20 people on top, and my enduring sense of Berkeley is leaning back on top of the rock, hearing the soft murmur of voices of people behind us, the sun going down over the bridge, maybe having a few sips of cherry cherry wine or a bowl, darkness falling, going down carefully in the dark, being in love. Oh!

I took this photo on Indian Rock the only time I’ve been when it wasn’t quiet. There were five or so punks smoking and playing something by the Ramones. Room enough for us all. Berkeley, what a place!

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(In Dallas) We went to North Park Mall. We stopped at a cookie vendor to get some water. While the person there was filling a cup, a customer asked me, “Are you Mr. Kemp?” “Yes.” She was a former student. We talked some about the clinical course in which we’d been together. After graduation she worked at Parkland L&D for seven years(!) and then consulting with families on obstetric matters. Yeah, that’s one of my students.

Later I told Jean that I thought one reason students took my clinical course was that they knew if they did well, I would write a good recommendation letter for critical care or emergency internships or labor and delivery at Parkland or Children’s. Some of the decision makers in those settings knew me and knew that students of mine were involved in challenging situations in my clinical course. It was a win-win-win deal: the students who were seeking the most challenging careers were working with me and doing their best to excel in my clinical setting (Agape Clinic) and receive one of the coveted internships and have the greatest possible impact on patients/families lives. About a year ago I was thinking, with pride, about the many students who passed through the Agape Clinic on their way to some of the most extreme healthcare environments in America.

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We had dinner with someone who works at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas (CMC is a premier pediatric hospital). One of the things she does is help parents get oriented to clinics, which is a big deal in that setting. I’ve spent a lot of time at CMC and it has long seemed to me that they’re doing an extraordinary human mission in disease, hope, suffering, healing, science, greatness, and all that.

Big Love to all of you.

I thought about a time when Leslie and I were in the Cambodian refugee community seven days a week – desperate times for sure. Leslie did social services and women’s issues and I did health things. Along with health things, I drove through the neighborhood 1-2 times/day just to know what was happening at different times of the day. One morning I was driving on Carroll near San Jacinto and a woman was on the corner waving me down, holding her limp toddler. I pulled her into the truck and drove fast to Children’s Medical Center. When we got there we were somehow in a business office and a woman who worked there in an administrative job saw how sick the girl was and fast-tracked us through the back door of the ER. She was treated and admitted and then they did the business part. I never forgot that woman.

I’ve always thought that Parkland and Children’s are a nexus of humanity’s suffering and hope.

I would walk out of Parkland – sometimes in the evening, sometimes in the morning – and outside would be like entering a whole other reality than the intense realities of the medical center. In addition to many, many, many hours spent taking people to Parkland clinics and so on (and often going through the whole very lengthy process with them), I supervised students for several years in the psychiatric ER, the in-patient psychiatric unit, and the Mental Diagnostic Center. I was an undergraduate and graduate student at both Children’s and Parkland. I would walk out and become almost a part of the outside world, too.

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The very short story of Chili Boy

…he was ahead of us going through security and something in his carry-on triggered a further inspection by TSA. Our bags were also flagged, so there we all were, momentarily captured, waiting for TSA to screen us. Jean made some friendly remark to the man ahead of us (the soon-to-be Chili Boy), but he just looked at her, then looked away. The TSA person started going through the man’s luggage and pulled out two Tupperware type containers full of, you guessed it: chili. I don’t know what happened to Chili Boy after that because another TSA person started going through my stuff. “What’s this?” she asked, holding up a plastic bag. “Peppercorns. Some are from Hanoi and some from Saigon.” She’s holding the bag up, looking suspiciously at it. “And some are from Hue,” I added helpfully. “Hmmph.” She puts the peppercorns back in the suitcase and tells me I can go.

And that’s the end of the Chili Boy story, except to say, fuck off, mate.

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Jeff and I started hanging out at weapons school in 1965. He was in rockets (like bazookas) and I was in machine guns. After weapons, we went to a holding company at Camp Pendleton. From there we went to the newly (re)formed 26^th Marines. Our infantry company trained together as part of a battalion landing force. It was hard training for several months. Sometimes we’d have a few days off, but no money. We’d take up a collection to send someone to Oceanside, the nearest town to buy a few gallons of Red Mountain vin rose. “Not a great wine,” we’d say, “But a good wine.” We liked to sit on some concrete slabs fairly near our barracks and get prodigiously drunk. Jeff and I fought together in Vietnam. He helped me. He was wounded at Khe Sanh; I in the Hill Fights near Khe Sanh. We did it and we survived. After the war we lived together off and on in Dallas and Carson City. We loved Leslie. We were psychedelic together. We fell apart. Among other manifestations he followed the holy man path much of his life while I did the service scene in hospice and with refugees. We came back together. We went trekking in Texas, New Mexico, and Wyoming. He and David and I backpacked for two months in Southeast Asia. We went to psytrance festivals together – psychedelic again, after so many years! Rolling! Jeff stayed with me for a few days after Leslie passed and he spoke at Leslie’s memorial service…

And now here we are: Jeff, Jean, me. Jean has always reminded me of Jeff – quick minds, big minds, sometimes a little scary. He stayed two nights and like that line in Dylan’s Song for Woody…

“Here’s to the hearts and the hands of the men,
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind.”

He was gone when we got up.

If Jack Kerouac had not lost his integrity, he might have been like Jeff.

Cafe Sans Sodium

We had to start on a very low salt diet. It wasn’t something we thought we should try; we had to do it.

This post is about strategies to decrease salt intake. It is based on experiences in decreasing personal dietary salt and in teaching these concepts at the university level and to patients with cardiovascular and renal disease.

It comes down to this: less salt = longer and healthier life for the vast majority of people. Excess salt intake increases the risk of hypertension, stroke, heart attack, other cardiovascular disease, kidney function, stomach cancer, and osteoporosis. These diagnoses represent earlier death and greater disability before death (more ER visits, more hospitalizations, poorer quality of life, and so on).

Facts and figures

2300 mg salt = recommended daily intake for adults
3400 mg salt = average American daily intake.
2000 mg salt = one teaspoon of salt.
2000 mg salt = our maximum; we usually stay under 1000.
1049 mg salt = 4 ounces of deli turkey!
70% dietary salt intake in America is from processed foods.

Increased potassium dietary intake decreases salt sensitivity and favorably affects BP.

All the measurements are of sodium (Na), which is not the same as salt (NaCl). Many resources use the words interchangeably and so have I. Also, different resources give different food values. So it goes.

General concepts

Really, for most people, excess salt intake is like just another desire – just another bad habit. Salt is like a drug – and it works. It does make food taste better. Whatever. Cigarettes work too, and so do heroin and cocaine, I’m told. And of course alcohol works very well. It’s just that there are all these side effects…

In most cases, eating out means much greater salt intake. Restaurants, especially fast food restaurants nearly always add large amounts of salt to foods. In a later post I’ll note strategies for lower salt eating out. But so long Vietnamese, Thai, and Mexican restaurants. Sigh.

Get a digital scale. The Amazon Basics scale was $10.99 in 2018. For us, the scale improves our quality of life in that we know exactly how much salt we’re taking – and if someone wants a high salt food like aged cheese, just measure out an ounce (28 gm aged cheddar = 230 mg salt), split it, and savor it.

Savor what you have. Don’t worry about what you don’t have. Yes, the potatoes could use some salt. Keep chewing, keep tasting those potatoes. Enjoy what you have. The craving will pass. (Applies to other aspects of life.)

Read labels and use internet calculators. Salt and other contents vary according to brands and sources of information. Looking at several references shows trends and commonalities.

Low salt cooking isn’t just leaving out or decreasing the salt. It’s about finding other ways to ramp up the taste, adding spices or sauce for example. Indian food is great without salt. Thai can be done. Middle eastern can be tasty and very low salt (hope you like garlic; see note re za’atar). Even macaroni and cheese can be good (use gruyere and Swiss, don’t salt the water).

Some prepared foods brands are very salty, while some are not, e.g., the salt content of corn tortillas ranges from 180 mg/tortilla to 10 mg/tortilla! Bread is fairly high in salt and baking bread with less salt is a challenge as more salt = better taste.

Fish sauce – I-yi-yi-yi! One teaspoon = 443 mg sodium. Try using a teaspoon Worcestershire sauce (65 mg) or a quarter teaspoon of nuoc mam for taste.

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Some of what we’ve cooked and served here at the Cafe Sans Sodium: salad nicoise with swordfish; roasted chicken, Japanese sweet potato, sauteed chard with shallots; granola; potato, leek, onion soup with beet, persimmon, lettuce salad; fish tacos, grilled pork loin with garam masala rub, cilantro chutney, yogurt; grilled chicken – several variations; chicken soup, homemade with egg noodles; risotto with mushrooms, lebnah, salad with fennel; hummus and tabouli; pan-fried sole with homemade blackening spices; Thai food, including ginger chicken with onions, green curry, pork with garlic, black pepper, and onions, tom kha; lobster with baked potato and salad; omelet with lobster and gruyere; salad with herbs, leftover meat; meatloaf with baked potatoes, beet greens with shallots (with ketchup on top for total of 300 mg/serving); Goan shrimp curry; ratatouille with spaghetti squash, meatballs, frisee salad and mustard vinaigrette; stir-fry vegetables with tamarind sauce, grilled pork, tabouleh. Almost everything here <300 mg salt/serving.

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Chicken enchiladas, 2 servings (160-180 mg/serving – salt amounts in parentheses)

6-8 ounces cooked chicken – enough to make four enchiladas (120 mg)
4 corn tortillas (40 mg)
1.5 oz gruyere cheese (240 mg for the gruyere we used [160 mg/ounce])
Enchilada sauce – homemade
Chopped onion and cilantro (0 mg)

Moisten tortillas with water and microwave ~15 seconds to soften

Make enchiladas: put a little enchilada sauce on tortilla, then chicken, then roll ‘em up in a small baking pan. When all are rolled, cover with enchilada sauce. Can top with cheese now or after baked.

Cover with cheese if not already. Top with onions.

Sorry about that prepared salsa with tons of salt – Tabasco is the way to go for more heat OR make your own.

You can make your own tostados, frying those 10 mg tortillas one at a time.

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Salt in cheese – again, the key is to savor small amounts of this wonderful food, which, as everyone knows, lies close to the top of the Berkeley Food Pyramid (http://berkeleyfoodpyramid.com/). All values are for 28 gm/1 ounce.

Lebneh*                     <40 mg
Swiss                          40-55 mg
Gruyere                      95-120 mg
Goat cheese               40-146 mg
Monterey jack           153 mg
Mozzarella                 178 mg
Aged cheddar           210-240 mg
Provolone                  250 mg
Feta                             316 mg
Parmesan                    433 mg (1 tablespoon grated = 61 mg, enough for some taste)

*Homemade from full fat yogurt

Homemade lebneh (or lebnah or labnah)

Line a basket with ~ 4 layers of cheesecloth. Pour in a pint or quart of full fat yogurt. The tangier the yogurt, the better. Let the yogurt drain for about 24 hours, pouring the whey off periodically. You can also put the yogurt in a muslin bag, hang the bag from faucet, and just let it drain into the sink. At the end of 24 hours you’ll have lebneh. I think you lose about half the bulk of the yogurt.

Things to use in place of salt (not necessarily salt substitutes)

Mrs. Dash
Za’atar (Sadaf brand green zaatar from Mid-eastern store. This stuff is a real treasure.)
Za’atar, homemade
Dill seed
Tabasco, Sriracha
Fresh chilis, thin sliced
Pickled onions, radishes (pickle in vinegar, no salt)
Spicier, tangier food in general.
Always 3-4 sauces or condiments on the table.

Tamarind sauce (Jean’s invention – helps you get past the lack of fish sauce): 1:1:1 Lemon juice, lime juice, tamarind concentrate (liquid, not paste). The 1:1:1 proportions are just a starting point.

There is a commercial potassium (K+) available as a salt substitute. I haven’t heard anyone say they like it, but I’m sure we’ll give it a try.

Middle Eastern Salad

1-2 ounces homemade lebneh (40-80 mg)
1 ounce goat cheese (146 mg)
Tarragon leaves (0 mg)
Dill or fennel fronds (0)
Mint leaves
Lettuce
Pickled onions (red onions sliced thin, covered in vinegar with a little sugar)
Cherry tomatoes
Sliced cucumbers
Olive oil or vinaigrette

Za’atar
Flat bread, toasted lightly

Pile cheeses in center of plate; cover with herbs and lettuce; arrange onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and grilled chicken.

Za’atar recipe

• 2 tablespoons minced fresh thyme
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
• 2 teaspoons ground sumac*
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

Thai dishes that work with just a touch of fish sauce (<180/serving) include pork with garlic and black pepper, curry made from homemade curry paste (with a food processor it isn’t hard), and tom kha. We’ll keep exploring this.

Pork with garlic and black pepper (2 servings)

8-10 ounces pork (not totally lean), cut into thin strips

1/8 cup cilantro stems
8-10 garlic cloves, cut into thin slices
1 tsp sesame oil1/4 tsp fish sauce
Juice from 1 juicy lime or 2 less juicy ones
½ tsp sugar
Lots of medium-coarse grind black pepperMedium size onion cut into ¼” – ½” wide strips
Tomato cut in ~ 3/4“ pieces
peanut oil

Make a paste of the cilantro, garlic, sesame oil, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar.

Mix and (using the spine of a chef’s knife) pound this into the pork slices and marinate at least an hour.

Fry the pork in a tablespoon of oil in a very hot wok or skillet for 5-10 minutes until the marinade is cooked off and the meat is done. Add onion and tomato and fry for a few more minutes. At the end it’s good if the meat is browned and has some crispy edges.

Serve with steamed rice and salad made of cucumber, red onion or shallots, and chillis in vinegar with about one teaspoon or so sugar (however sweet you like it).

References

Farquhar, et al. (2015). Dietary sodium and health: more than just blood pressure. Journal of the American College of Cardiology 65(10), pp. 1042-1050.

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017). Sodium and dietary guidelines. Online: https://www.cdc.gov/salt/pdfs/sodium_dietary_guidelines.pdf

 

 

 

 

The Night Before Christmas

In 1986 Leslie and I bought a nice edition of the Night Before Christmas for David (Baby David at the time). I read the book to him that Christmas Eve and every Christmas Eve since. Oh Lord, it was hard the first Christmas after Leslie passed away – don’t think, just focus on the words. Oh, life! What a life!

Photo: Reading the Night Before Christmas: Charles and David; me; Chinh (a friend joining us for Christmas); and behind us, Mary, my niece.

Thank you in six parts (all incomplete; all complete)

God

Thank you for this day
Thank you for life
Thank you for love
Thank you for the sky, the sun, sunset, sunrise
Thank you for seas
Thank you for mountains
Thank you for rain, winds, clouds
Thank you for flowers, vegetables, fruits
Thank you for young people old people babies hippies students neighbors
Thank you for soft voices

David

Thank you for being our son
Thank you for loving Mom, for loving me
Thank you for more than 33 years of joy
Thank you for taking care of business
Thank you for San Francisco
Thank you for your good counsel
Thank you for teaching me so much about computers
Thank you for good travels(!)
Thank you for Flagging and all that goes with it
Thank you for taking time week after week after week

Jean

Thank you for our beautiful life together
Thank you for our bed in the morning light
Thank you for sacred meals sacred moments sacred lying together
Thank you for misty gardens
Thank you for Berkeley
Thank you for your soft, warm skin
Thank you for beautiful hot loving sacred sex
Thank you for art
Thank you for these dreams and visions
Thank you for this romance

 

Leslie

Thank you for loving me
Thank you for our life together
Thank you for believing in me
Thank you for standing by me
Thank you for going steady with me (for 50 years!)
Thank you for teaching me how to be a good parent
Thank you for inspiring me
Thank you for our travels
Thank you for making love with me
Thank you for so many years of romance – romance that never died!

And

Thank you, John, for all you have done for me – what a beautiful brother you are!

Thank you, Jeff (photo below with Phana), for being my best friend since we fought in Vietnam
Thank you, Ron and David for years of food and fellowship
Thank you, Barbara, Nora, and Shirin for being faithful friends to Leslie and me
Thank you, Jim and Elisabeth for opening me and helping me through troubled times
Thank you, Kay and Ally Fiesta for always remembering me
Thank you, Charles for being a good son-in-law
Thank you Atrium Obscurum (and Chris) for the many journeys
Thank you, John, Peter, and Bill for welcoming me to California
Thank you Janet, Nancy, Sherry, Amy, Amie, Courtney, Susan, Linda, et al. for welcoming me into your tribe
Thank you, Kristina for loving me
Thank you Dan Foster, Stephen Gaskin, and G-5 (especially Jim and Chuck) for teaching me
Thank you, Facebook friends

Thank you, Phana (in photo with Jeff)
Thank you, USMC and my brothers-in-arms
Thank you neighbors

Jean

Thank you for the endless arching of this endless summer from Berkeley to Mendocino

to Dallas to Santa Cruz to San Francisco to Vancouver to the golden afternoon of Big Sur to Marcia’s house to Indian Rock to The Temple to Flagging to the Edge of the World, to Yosemite (walking with faeries in the forest) to the beach the seashore the waterfront to La Honda to Esalen(!) to Wilbur to massage class to New York to Spain to our beautiful life in Berkeley to Colorado into Wyoming into the place where Jean became so much and arching across the beautiful Snowy Range(!) into Hong Kong into India into New Mexico into Colorado and back to the Paradise of Berkeley. This is the train (taken from old post).

When David and Jeff and I went to Vietnam in 2005 it was Jeff and my first time back in VN since the war. It was David’s first time to be in Cambodia. For Jeff and me it was not as emotional or cathartic as one might expect from men who had been in heavy combat with all the killing and dying that happened right there where we were visiting in 2005. Why?

(I can speak only for myself.)

After I came home from VN I would run something like a video in my mind at least once every single day. It had a title: “How Donohue Got It.” It was a replay of how my friend, “Lurch” Donohue was grievously wounded and I was beside him when he died in the dirt in a little clearing with bullets snapping past. The every day video gradually came to an end after I attended one of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ Transitions Workshops. This was before hospice, probably 1976 or 77.

The workshop was in a former convent in San Antonio. There were 70-80 people there, with approximately 1/3 having a terminal illness, 1/3 having lost a loved one, and 1/3 being involved in the care of people with terminal illness (nurses, doctors, chaplains, etc.).

The process of the gathering was that first we went around the room with each person saying why they were there. People started telling the truth from the beginning. The truth was that we were all there because of our pain: the pain of being close to death, of losing love, of seeing people die, of disappointments, of judgments, and so on.

As the workshop unfolded, everyone had the opportunity to testify to their own pain and loss. Anger was a part of that – I remember that there was a mattress in the middle of the room and a 1.5-2 foot length of heavy garden hose. As we expressed our pain we were encouraged to express the anger through words and other vocalizations (groaning, screaming, crying, whatever) and using the hose to pound the mattress – it was very cathartic! Part of the process was also that when someone was crying, we were generally discouraged from comforting that person. The idea was that comfort could stop the experience of deep emotion and interrupt the path to healing; and that often comforting was as much for the comforter as it is for the comforted. Comfort came later. A lot of deep emotion was experienced and shared. We all got well beyond our previous comfort levels with respect to our own and to other’s pain.

I shared how Donohue was killed with the group and as noted above, the daily video subsequently came to an end. I’ve come to realize it wasn’t Donohue alone I’d been grieving for; it was all of us, the living and the dead.

I also shared my sadness that it had been years since I had been truly high in the moment in reality, such as in entheogenic journeys (amazed to discover how much of an issue this was).

 

There were breaks for food, sleep, and meditation sessions with Stephen Levine. The rest of the time people were telling their stories, letting go of the pain. We went from about 8 in the morning until 2-3 the next morning. Sometime in the night of day 3 I broke through to the present. I stayed in that state of vastly expanded awareness (high in the moment) for the rest of the 5 day workshop.

40 years after the war and almost 30 years after the workshop I went back to Vietnam. I went back to Dodge City, back to where 1/9, “The Walking Dead” got its name, to the river, to Hill 55, back to where Donohue and Laws and Georges and others died. I laid down one last time in the dirt by the padi. Later I held hands with an old communist fighter (he was about my age) and drank an orange soda and then a shot of rice liquor – “To Vietnam!”

The 100^th anniversary of the end of WWI just passed. The President of the United States dishonored himself by skipping the ceremonies because it was raining. Here are poems/expressions of unbearable pain and bravery that Trump could never understand. Could never understand even their existence.

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AFTERMATH: March 1919

by Siegfried Sassoon

Have you forgotten yet? . . .
For the world’s events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow

Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you’re a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same – and War’s a bloody game . . .
Have you forgotten yet? . . .
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you’ll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz –
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench –
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, “Is it all going to happen again?”

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack –
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
as you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads – those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet? . . .
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you’ll never forget.

Siegfried Sassoon was decorated for bravery in a battle on the Western Front. He “became a focal point for dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the continuation of the war in his “Soldier’s Declaration” of 1917, culminating in his admission to a military psychiatric hospital…” (Wikipedia)

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Dulce et Decorum Est

by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And toward our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen was decorated for bravery after voluntarily returning to the War. He was killed on the Western Front a week before the end of the War. He also wrote Anthem for Doomed Youth, Futility, and other powerful poems.

The title Dulce et Decorum Est is taken from the Roman poet Horace and means “it is sweet and honorable…”, followed by pro patria mori, which means “to die for one’s country.” The link below is to someone giving a reading of Dulce et Decorum Est.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qts3K3KznN4

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Notes from the past few months: writing, current events, lunch with David, love letter, women, Henri Nouwen.

Photo: CK, CB, DK at Indian Rock. This is one of Berkeley’s magical places. It’s a 30 minute walk from home, then clamber up 60-70 feet on the rock, then the quiet, friendly voices one hears at this place.

I’ve been caught up in a writing project and the awful news of these days. These are days when principles and morals are under direct attack – as is democracy in America. I’m tuned in to quite a few news sources and I spend a lot of time reading and so on. It’s not an elevating activity!

The writing project is cleaning up and reformatting all my blog posts. There are about 350 posts, all with photos that require work to reformat. I’m making a book for David and one for Jean.

Several times a week I have lunch with David near his new office at UC Berkeley Law. For the past two years we’ve been meeting 3-4 times/week in The City, but now that he’s teaching part-time, we meet in Berkeley. From home I walk up about a block to the 7 bus stop on The Arlington. It’s a 20 minute ride to downtown Berkeley. Then I walk across campus, feeling grateful that I’m having lunch with my son and that I live in this magical university city. Talk about exciting! One of my regular stops is the Life Sciences building where I groove around the halls, absorbing the extravagant energy of this place.

Photo: Vote Peace (note flags at half mast for people murdered in synagogue)

When David and I finish lunch I walk back across campus, always including walking through Sproul Plaza, the birth of the Free

Speech Movement. Today, a man is holding his own peace vigil. Berkeley – Yeah!

A couple of days ago Jean received a beautifully affirming letter from Peter Winslow. It was a love letter to Jean and to her husband, David Leach. What a life!

When you hear the music ringing in your soul,

And the feeling in your heart just grows and grows.

The precious gift of each unrepeatable day.

Jean finished the 4^th of a series on women. This one represents women in Bali. The others include Spain, Turkey, and Japan. This is the first of her art works that I’ve been around for from beginning to end. What a life!

Photo above right: Bali woman

I was in Dallas a few days ago. John and I were sitting in the front room where he saw a tattered piece of paper on the desk. “Do you want this?” he asked. Yes, I’ve carried it or had it in front of me for 40 years. It was an integral part of founding and directing hospice; it goes like this:

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

Photos above. Left John and “the girls.” Right: Phana and Bella. I helped Phana in the last year of her life. Countless journeys for chemo, other medical things, shopping, intense talks about the end of life, the meaning of life… BUT, here’s the truth of the matter: yes, I helped her, but she helped me at least as much as I helped her. She gave me meaning and purpose when my world had crumbled after Leslie passed away. A young woman dying of cancer; an old man grieving for his beloved wife. What a partnership. What a life!

Lot of death these days. Chuck, Bryce, Miriam. It really is a hard road, daddy-o. Four of the men in the photo of my Bible study group have passed.

Photo left: Bible study;

I’m spending more time working in the garden: the Sungold tomatoes were brilliant, the strawberries were excellent, the herbs keep us in pesto, z’atar, etc., the herb is excellent (especially the Sour Diesel), and the flowers are spectacular. I’ve now ordered 50 bare root strawberry plants to be delivered in early spring.

Photo: Jean in front garden.

 

 

 

 

 

I decided to post this despite not having enough photos of David. David’s childhood photos are all prints and they’re in Dallas. When I’m back, I’ll scan some and then complete this post. Some of what follows is a repeat of parts of this post: https://ckjournal.com/david

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I love my house. All the years with Leslie, then Leslie and David. Loving days. Happy days, growing together as a family – so much time.

I look around. Our home.

It was built in 1931 – three bedrooms, two baths, two kitchens (the house was built to have an apartment in part of it), LR, DR, kitchen and breakfast room. There is a good-sized front/side porch and a cottage (hippie) garden in front. My Mom died there, as did my brother, Tom. My brother John lives there now.

When I’ve been away it takes about three days for the house to reopen in my presence, alive in the present and into the past… Leslie and I were in the midst of the best years of our lives and then David was born propelling us into even better years. Leslie taught me how to be a parent, a good parent.

David was a water baby – bathing in the sink when he was tiny and a

little later playing in a plastic tub in the shower, playing in his Grandmother’s sink for hours and hours. Later, when he was 3-4-5 we would walk to the Y and swim the summer days away. Playing with Katie and Mary Beth like little brown fishes. He and I would swim down to the bottom of the deep end and pop up as far away as we could to surprise Leslie.

When he was about two months old, A Cambodian grandmother named Pov Lon and her granddaughter, Keo came to live with us to help with David for several months – until the betel nut stains on the pillows became too much for Leslie. Lon and Keo moved in with Keo’s Mom in a two story frame house known as “the mansion” in the Cambodian refugee neighborhood. There were 6-8 other families living in the mansion in rooms divided by blankets. David spent many days there, always being held or in a hammock, rocking back and forth, back and forth… Years later I took care of Keo when she was dying of breast cancer.

Leslie’s office was a few blocks away and I was in the community a lot, so we could both come by a few times a day. David’s siblings, Bunchoeun, Phana, and Soda also were there some, as they lived nearby. I’m guessing Choeun was about 8, Phana 5, and Soda 3. Thirty years later I took care of Phana through many days of cancer treatment and into the days of her dying.

David slept in a crib in his bedroom. He cried when we put him to bed, so one of us always slept beside his crib. The pediatrician said, “Let him cry it out.” We tried that for about three minutes, which was as close as he ever got to “cry it out.” He was colicky in the evening and the only thing that soothed him was going for a walk, so every night there we were, walking Baby David. When the weather was bad we’d walk in the corridors of JL Long Middle School a block from the house. Big-time good times.

From the earliest days we arranged our home for David. In the living room I built a carpeted three-step stair leading to a 2’x3’ platform and then three more steps down. The sides had walls and there was a little hidey-hole beneath. Later after he could zoom up and down the stairs, I exchanged that for a huge (4’x4’x8’) heavy-duty cardboard box full of pillows and stuffed animals. The couch was a boat and there were wagon rides all over the house.

After the high chair (always at the table with us), we put a child’s table with two little chairs in the kitchen. We usually ate at that table. David learned his ABCs at the table and when he was in K-1, did his homework there. Since there only two little chairs, I always sat on a milk crate. That was back when I could sit on a little box for long periods of time.

David had big heavy bunk beds (David Overton helped carry and set them up). The bottom bunk was like a cave full of “babies” (stuffed animals) and pillows. In the evenings he and I would sit in the cave and I would tell stories about “Little Wolf and his Daddy.” We would have adventures in the snow and forests and mountains and then there would be a big snow storm and we would be holed up in the cave and would let assorted (stuffed) animals in for shelter. One of the animals was Critter, who was always starting trouble, and Sandy, the biggest bear would talk tough and then of course, David’s oldest bear, Cookie Baby, would get everyone calmed down. Sometimes we would put on plays for Leslie, with the biggest hit being “Running Bear” sung by Critter.

David’s room usually had a tent set up in the middle of the floor. Often the whole room was a “fort” made of blankets and tapestries and tables and chairs. Always Goldy would get into the tent with us or whomever was there and when she would pass gas everyone would pile out laughing.

We all three liked to pile up in Leslie’s and my bed – we would read and talk and sometimes David and I would have huge battles trying to push each other off the bed and when it looked like the other guy was going off the edge, the one winning for the moment would shout (for reasons unknown) “Big Door!”

In the back yard I built (with help from Chuck Maxey) a big tree house with a “secret entrance” that only big kids like David and Katie could use. There was a pulley and bucket that Leslie would put food in for the children to haul up. We were always trying to get Goldy to “Put the ball in the bucket!” but it never happened. We would laugh and laugh and she would just stand there with the ball in her mouth. There was a zip line from the tree house to the corner of the yard. “Don’t let go!”

After Christmas we scoured the neighborhood for discarded Christmas trees, which were used to make vast “tree forts” – with tunnels and rooms and children and dogs everywhere.

We would go for long walks along the Santa Fe railroad tracks with David riding my shoulders much of the way. Other times he would bushwhack along the steep 20-30’ high berms. Sometimes we’d get as far as the “big black bridge” – a railroad over White Rock Creek. Several times I climbed up a 50’ supporting pillar and belayed David up, then got quickly off the bridge, as the trains were still running then.

We’d take canoe journeys up and down the creek – above the lake almost to LBJ Freeway and below the lake until the woods and meadows gave way to neighborhoods where street people were hanging out.

My Mom lived in the back cottage. In her last few years of life she was at peace with life. David was a part of that – hanging out with her – standing on a step stool and playing in her kitchen sink, hanging out in her bed, having snacks like candied pecans, orange cake, cookies from Neiman’s. There were back porch get-togethers, back yard parties, holidays, and countless hours spent together – what a life for all of us.

He was with her the night she died (cancer) in the cottage – before and after, my beautiful child. My Mom and I journeyed  together about four weeks before she died. After that she had much less pain and unhappiness.

David and my Mom and I went to Little Gus cafe for breakfast almost every Saturday. We’d eat and talk with one another and with other people. David especially enjoyed stuffing endless napkins in a glass of water.

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This was the house I came home to in the morning after Leslie passed away at Baylor.