In San Pablo, we visited Eula. She is bedridden. She was in the dining room of the establishment with Murielle and Wendy when we arrived. She is frail, but doesn’t look radically different from when I last saw her several years ago. She was quite dazed initially, not recognizing F. But by the time we left, an hour or so later, she seemed considerably more alert and cognizant. Bret sat with her for a long while, holding her hand. F then sat with her for ten minutes or so.
It’s a sad sort of place, a “convalescent home” / hospice. Of the dozen or so residents who came to lunch, all were women. Murielle sez that 90% of the residents never leave their room. “There is only one resident I’ve seen who looks like she might actually leave this place alive!” She reported that she has seen only 3 male residents.
Such a bleak ending for Eula. Sad have been the last several years for her, from what I’ve seen.
What makes for wakeful hours such that they constitute a meaningful life? If she were coherent enough to grasp the question and formulate the answer, would Eula say that her post-bypass life has felt meaningful to her? I suspect not.
Her brother, Jay, was diagnosed a decade or so ago with a similar heart ailment. He decided to NOT have the operation and was dead not too long afterwards. Does Eula wish she’d not have had her bypass surgery?
Bret reported that Alice does not talk in that whispery, baby-talk tone of voice, which is all I’ve heard issue from her mouth, when she talks with him. “That’s her public audience voice, that she puts on when she steps out of her nightgown.”
Lots of thoughts about the Jaunarājs triumvirate, who so dominated the formation of my world view. I am more deeply understanding that for none of them did I exist as a separate being. Rather, for all three, I was a white sheet hung on the wall, upon which to project their own shadow movies. Because of their own profound Wounds, they could not see beyond their own injuries. For all 3, I was the incarnation of the various fears and lackings.
Of course, their patterns left deep and lasting tracks upon my soul, because of who and how I am.
My challenge is to understand the various Beliefs and Patterns my interactions with them established inside myself, and then to re-work these Patterns and Beliefs into a life that suits me. As they all three put their lives on hold, so they pushed and prodded me to do the same with my own life. Truly, any thoughts that attempt to incorporate any of the troika into current waking relationships, have as a necessary aspect that I preclude living my own life. Relationship with them could happen in no other way. It feels like being any degree of who I am around them will cause the illusion of relationship to shatter. And so, I have no relationship with any of them in the outside world. Which feels like it allows me to live.