October 6, 2009
Everything is changing rapidly now; the farmers have begun to harvest the bean fields so the squares of grey-gold acres are changing into a duller, flatter grey.
The sumac is bright, the honey locusts are flinging down their small golden leaves, and the sound of the wind has begun to change as it blows across bare branches. More than anything, it is that sound that bespeaks winter’s coming most eloquently. The morning frost silenced the crickets, so there is a different sort of silence across the meadow and forest.
I ended my brief affair with Prednisone after visiting with a young doctor at the Clinic who said very solemnly that long term use of the drug always extracted a cost to the body, and that looking at my present physical state, I didn’t have anything to give. He suggested that using the morphine based pain killers were less likely to do damage. Of course I brought up the issue of addiction, knowing well that I have a dependency on the meds to keep on living in a reasonable fashion. There must be a screaming stress inside the bone marrow as all systems keeping pleading for more, more, and the disease prevents the work to take place – this in turn means that there is a lot of pain generated from deep within. I have only gratitude for the opiates that permit me to sleep and to keep functioning. I think there must be a line between addiction and dependency because the doctors say not to worry about that. (Perhaps it is because an aging, retired Lutheran school teacher with terminal cancer doesn’t fit the profile.)
So life goes on at Sanctuary. Alphie always rejoices anew at the opportunity to walk through meadow and forest, and Charles wears many hats as he prepares the place for winter; the mower man who clears off the asters and goldenrod and lilies now that all blooming is finished, the orchids into the greenhouse man, the window washing man, the chimney cleaning man, etc. I like best of all the man who put the full organ sound to “As I soar to worlds unknown”. When he plays it, one goes up and out in all kinds of glory, and who could ask for more?