My spouse, Carlin, will inform you that one of many primary causes we have now had a profitable 44-year marriage is as a result of I’ve been in a males’s group for 45 years. There have been seven members within the group once we started. Three have died and 4 of us are nonetheless collectively. Taking a look at an early photograph of the group, we marvel at what a younger midlife bunch of fellows we had been once we first met in 1979. Now I’m 80, Tom is 78, Tony is 77, and Denis is 75.
When the group started all of us lived inside driving distance of one another within the San Franciso Bay space. Tony later moved to Seattle. The remainder of us nonetheless dwell in northern California. As we’ve gotten older, well being points have made it tougher to fulfill in particular person, however we nonetheless handle to make it work. Lately the California members of the group have flown north to fulfill Tony. This time, Tony flew south and we met at Denis’s house in Calistoga. We began the New 12 months with a heart-felt retreat January 10-13, 2024.
I’m an solely little one by start, however since becoming a member of the boys’s group, I’ve been gifted with brothers that I really like and who love me. Now we have assorted abilities and backgrounds. I’m the author within the group. In my most up-to-date e book, Lengthy Dwell Males, revealed in 2023, I described “The Seven Levels of Our Males’s Group” and what we have now gone via thus far. Listed here are our phases:
- Studying to Belief and Open Up.
- Revealing Our True Selves, Fears, and Insecurities.
- Baring Our Our bodies and Souls.
- Studying to Have Enjoyable Collectively.
- Revitalizing the Group.
- Making a Lifetime Dedication.
- Coping with Disabilities, Dying, and Dying.
Lately, together with within the final assembly, we speak overtly about problems with life and demise. My spouse, Carlin, is 85 and all our wives are getting older with us. We’re open about points surrounding our personal end-of-life points in addition to these of our partner’s. Carlin and I’ve been studying an attention-grabbing e book by Sallie Tisdale, a advantageous writer and skilled nurse, who has spent ten years with folks going via the ultimate phases of life.
The e book, Recommendation for Future Corpses: A Sensible Perspective on Dying and Dying, is witty, compassionate, and useful. She says on the outset,
“I by no means died, so this complete e book is a idiot’s recommendation. Beginning and demise are the one human acts we can not observe.”
She addresses points that we’ve all discovered to be scary to debate however are more and more vital in our lives as we age together with:
- What does it imply to die “an excellent demise?”
- Can there be a couple of sort of good demise?
- What can I do to make my demise, or the deaths of my family members, good?
- What to say and to not say, what to ask, and when—from the dying, family members, and medical doctors.
As I wrote in my very own e book, Lengthy Dwell Males,
“Since we determined to remain collectively for the remainder of our lives and to not add any new members to our group, we’re an increasing number of conscious that there’ll come a time when the group itself will die.”
As we’ve gotten older, my spouse, Carlin and I speak concerning the nice present and privilege of serving to one another put together for this final section of our lives.
Ram Dass gives extra steerage in his writings. In his e book, Strolling Every Different House: Conversations on Loving and Dying written with Marabai Bush, he says, “All of us sit on the sting of a thriller. Now we have solely recognized this life, so dying scares us—and we’re all dying. What would it not appear like in the event you may strategy dying with curiosity and love, in service of different beings? What if dying had been the final word religious observe?”
He goes on to say,
“Dying is a very powerful factor you do in your life. It’s the nice frontier for each one in every of us. And loving is the artwork of dwelling as a preparation for dying. Permitting ourselves to dissolve into the ocean of affection isn’t just about leaving this physique; additionally it is the path to Oneness and unity with our personal inside being, the soul, whereas we’re nonetheless right here.”
For many of my life, I’ve been fearful of demise, my very own in addition to these closest to me. It has solely been in recent times since Carlin has handled breast most cancers, heart-valve substitute surgical procedure, and two minor strokes (in the event you can name any stroke minor) that we have now been compelled to confront our fears and in addition to the blessings of our assist for one another as we discover what it means to organize for and have “an excellent demise.”
Ram Dass’s easy phrases have been comforting:
“If you know the way to dwell and to like, you know the way to die.”
Carlin and I’ve been training how one can dwell and to like for 44 years. The lads’s group has been training for 45 years. It’s clearly a endlessly observe.
One other one who has supplied useful steerage is psychologist James Hillman. In his e book, The Power of Character and The Lasting Life, he says,
“Every of us is born with an innate character, the ‘daimon,’ or ‘spirit’ that calls us to what we are supposed to be.”
In reflecting on the later years of our lives, Hillman goes on to say,
“Growing old isn’t any accident. It’s essential to the human situation, supposed by the soul.”
Relatively than the well-known phases of life—childhood, maturity, and previous age—Hillman expands upon the adjustments character undergoes in later life.
“First, the need to final so long as one can; then the adjustments in physique and soul because the capability to final leaves and character turns into an increasing number of uncovered and confirmed till a 3rd piece of the puzzle emerges: what’s left when you’ve left. Lasting, Leaving, Left.”
In our trendy world we put numerous emphasis on productiveness and once we are unable to supply many people really feel that we’re ineffective. However once we give attention to being, on character, relatively than merely on doing and producing, our longer life takes on extra which means. In fascinated about my 85-year-old spouse, this reflection by Hillman gives a extra expanded facet of our goal as we age:
“Productiveness is simply too slim a measure of usefulness, incapacity too cramping a notion of helplessness. An older girl could also be useful merely as a determine valued for her character. Like a stone on the backside of a riverbed, she might do nothing however keep nonetheless and maintain her floor, however the river has to take account and alter its movement due to her.”
When Carlin questions her worth in life now that she is retired and never working, I inform her that her job now’s to easily stroll round city (which she likes to do) and convey her being to the folks she encounters. I discover, too, as I stroll round city, I’ve a brand new job in life as I proceed in my 80s. It’s merely to be variety and loving to these whose paths I cross—associates, neighbors, strangers, canines, cats, birds, timber, clouds—the entire group of life in our little group of Willits.
In our fast-paced world the place we’re all the time so pushed, it’s comforting to know that we will age and nonetheless have one thing vital to supply. Our infirmities are usually not simply indicators of a failing physique, however a chance to deepen our character and put together for our final departure.
“Suppose you alternate the phrase ‘leaving’ for ‘dying’ and substitute ‘getting ready’ for ‘getting older,’” says Hillman. “Then what we undergo in our final years in preparation for departure.”
Hillman gives a distinct, extra hopeful, and fewer fearful manner of shifting from leaving to left.
“We decelerate and go over issues in our minds as a result of there may be a lot to organize. Because the soul comes into the world slowly, taking all of the years of childhood to regulate, so it leaves the world slowly, requiring years of previous age to pack up and take off.”
Carlin and I are getting ready for this final thriller of life. So, too, is our males’s group, as every man take his flip getting ready to depart. When the final member of the group, Dick, was near demise, we talked about what remained after we depart. We each felt there was a spirit that continued after our our bodies had gone.
I advised him if he may talk with me from the spirit world, I used to be open to listening to from him. Every week after he died, I used to be doing my early morning stroll and I noticed lights shining on the prime of a bunch of tall timber. “Is that you simply, Dick?” I requested. I had the sensation it was. Ever since, I image the three males who’ve left the group, John, Ken, and Dick being on the highest branches and the 4 of us which can be nonetheless alive on the subsequent highest branches awaiting our flip to affix the others on the spirit stage.
Love abides. And perhaps demise is just not the top, however the starting of affection manifesting in different varieties. We will see. The group is scheduled to fulfill once more in April. Keep tuned.
Supply hyperlink
