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My mom passed away in September of 2011. A month later I was in line at a supermarket and my phone rang at the check out from a dear friend in NYC...who NEVER calls, so I knew something was up and I knew who it was about...Ernesto. My friend Ted was on the other line, sobbing. I couldn't make out what he was saying, other than, Ernesto's in trouble. He is in the hospital and has been clinging to life for the last 24 hours...apparently he has kidney failure and is in stage IV prostate cancer.
I about fell to my knees right then and there because what ELSE was going to hit me...yes me...silly as it sounds but here a friend was suffering, and yet so was I. To love is to suffer, to loose is to suffer and to be here on earth - alive is to suffer.
However, two years have passed since that phone call. And Ernesto has just entered the hospice after what I can only attest to as a Renaissance. He had two full, fat, juicy years of absolute grace. He traveled first class to Italy with Ted (the man who called to tell me of his sickness) and his partner...and he had fresh love filled days of grace daily. Attending Mass daily...with his boxer dog. He walked in the park (Central Park) daily and and receiving communion sometimes twice a day. He had a friend making him special cancer super foods...he fed the birds. He was given free meals at the local diner because they love him so, and he had all his friends rallying for him to be well, to eat well and to live well. I visited twice from the west coast to the east - spending solid wonderful time with Ernesto in galleries, stores, on the streets of NYC and in church together. It was nothing short of miraculous.
Then he got sober - not only from the news of his illness, but he decided no drugs no alcohol - and he developed amazing, solid new friendships the last few months of his life and he became a holy holy example of redemption.
For the last two months he has had two surgeries to hopefully ease pain, a heart attack and countless blood clots. They moved him from the second hospital two days ago to a hospice center in NYC and tonight he asked (when he was lucid), if God was mad at him because he hadn't taken him yet...then he went back into his dream land.
He wakes periodically; as one who is being administered astronomical doses of anti anxiety drugs and liquid Morphine wakes...and tells of the spirits he is talking to - but that are not approaching him...and his want of travel, to get on a plane, a train or some mode of transportation...which Hospice workers say is very common.
What isn't common, is this man. This wonderful man. He is going to be dust soon...and I wouldn't be who I am today if it wasn't for the many wonderful people I have known and loved and nursed to their deaths. So to be bereft from the loss of Ernesto, is to be honored to have known and loved a person so deeply - it is a glimpse of the face of God's love for us...in his gift to us in each other.
I just wonder when Ernesto will leave. Right now...I am talking to him in my heart of prayer...because I feel the essence of him is now another type of physical...the metaphysical. Thanks for reading my post. And thanks in advance for any one who responds to my post. I know many of you are in the throws of pain and suffering. And I am with you. In the light of this awful misery. But I am also in awe of the divinity of human kindness and grace.
I about fell to my knees right then and there because what ELSE was going to hit me...yes me...silly as it sounds but here a friend was suffering, and yet so was I. To love is to suffer, to loose is to suffer and to be here on earth - alive is to suffer.
However, two years have passed since that phone call. And Ernesto has just entered the hospice after what I can only attest to as a Renaissance. He had two full, fat, juicy years of absolute grace. He traveled first class to Italy with Ted (the man who called to tell me of his sickness) and his partner...and he had fresh love filled days of grace daily. Attending Mass daily...with his boxer dog. He walked in the park (Central Park) daily and and receiving communion sometimes twice a day. He had a friend making him special cancer super foods...he fed the birds. He was given free meals at the local diner because they love him so, and he had all his friends rallying for him to be well, to eat well and to live well. I visited twice from the west coast to the east - spending solid wonderful time with Ernesto in galleries, stores, on the streets of NYC and in church together. It was nothing short of miraculous.
Then he got sober - not only from the news of his illness, but he decided no drugs no alcohol - and he developed amazing, solid new friendships the last few months of his life and he became a holy holy example of redemption.
For the last two months he has had two surgeries to hopefully ease pain, a heart attack and countless blood clots. They moved him from the second hospital two days ago to a hospice center in NYC and tonight he asked (when he was lucid), if God was mad at him because he hadn't taken him yet...then he went back into his dream land.
He wakes periodically; as one who is being administered astronomical doses of anti anxiety drugs and liquid Morphine wakes...and tells of the spirits he is talking to - but that are not approaching him...and his want of travel, to get on a plane, a train or some mode of transportation...which Hospice workers say is very common.
What isn't common, is this man. This wonderful man. He is going to be dust soon...and I wouldn't be who I am today if it wasn't for the many wonderful people I have known and loved and nursed to their deaths. So to be bereft from the loss of Ernesto, is to be honored to have known and loved a person so deeply - it is a glimpse of the face of God's love for us...in his gift to us in each other.
I just wonder when Ernesto will leave. Right now...I am talking to him in my heart of prayer...because I feel the essence of him is now another type of physical...the metaphysical. Thanks for reading my post. And thanks in advance for any one who responds to my post. I know many of you are in the throws of pain and suffering. And I am with you. In the light of this awful misery. But I am also in awe of the divinity of human kindness and grace.
You're only focusing on the physical. The spiritual is far grander and more wonderful than we can even surmise here! In a few hours, this man will be free of his suffering and will come into absolute ecstacy of grace with the Almighty and all those souls who have passed before him!
Keep looking upon his wonderful spirit! He may just visit you periodically in your dreams, from all those first-class places he enjoyed here on Earth! In dreams, we can create whatever reality we desire.
Sounds like his pain is being managed and he is "dying with dignity". It is hard for us who are watching - that type of acceptance can be an up hill battle...these past two years were a gift to him...and to all who shared in it.
It will be hard when he leaves...