But I'm Pretty Sure It Ruled

I was driving along in a traffic jam in the rain and this song came on and effectively changed my mood. So it belongs here. As Nits would say....sooooooo cute!

Reality Check

So yeah, I've done a couple of errands and (still have a few more to go) and I'm sitting cross-legged on my unbedsheeted bed, thinking about life, the universe and everything and I decided I should like to write a post for this blog. Basically because it's been a while and all I've been doing is excerpting stuff from other people.

Which is all right, I suppose, but for this to remain "my" blog, sometimes, I've got to write something myself. I'm munching on the last of the Toblerone that was a present from this professor I interviewed not too long ago. He went off to Australia before the article was published, came back with a present of a lot of chocolate and a little koala bear.

Nice.

I distributed a bit of the chocolate and kept the rest for myself. It's lasted two weeks which is some record.

I've taken to watching endless episodes of Dharma & Greg on youtube to catch up on all I missed. Firstly, because I found an excerpt on Happy Moonmoon's site (one of my favourite blogs) and I really enjoyed it. I couldn't believe that I had simply dismissed it for all those years. Secondly, because it's produced by Chuck Lorre who's also responsible for Big Bang Theory (nuff said).

My fingers are covered in dried glue right now, because I attempted to mend my Birkenstocks, my black Clarks court shoes (my favourite pair) and my sunglasses. I don't know if I was very successful, but hey, if anything's worth doing, it's worth doing badly. If I still had my book Plain Talk I would excerpt the whole "everything that's worth doing is worth doing badly" bit from that book.

Funny story. I went off to my boss's room and rooted through a box of books that had been sent for review. We would get RM100 for each review. Unfortunately all the books were business-related, but so what? I needed the money.

I really really did.

We were in the midst of the Asian financial crisis. The bosses had cancelled all overtime. So we were working for our basic pay and that was it. I had just started to rent an apartment and the rent kind of ate up most of my salary. I was depending on the overtime.

Mostly I just got depressed and lived on peanut butter sandwiches (cos Mark Victor Hansen had done that when he had no money and hit rock bottom and doing the same thing as the Chicken Soup guy sort of romanticised my misery). About the only productive thing I did about my situation was to write a few book reviews.

So there we have me (again) rooting through that box. I selected three books. Buffettology by the ex-daughter-in-law, Plain Talk by Ken Iverson and another book I can't remember. Anyway, I skimmed through all three and wrote the reviews.

I loved Plain Talk best of all. So much so that I remembered his words and lessons long, long after.

A few years later, when I was no longer paying rent and feeling miserable, when we were well out of the financial crisis and I was interviewing a whole lot of young entrepreneurs who were bootstrapping their way up from nothing, one of them told me he had started a library in the office. I liked this company for so many reasons so I decided to donate my book to them.

Imagine my horror when I found out a few years later that the entrepreneur had ditched building his extremely high-tech, next-big-thing company to sell salt lamps for a multi-level marketing company with his wife. One of the first things I wanted to do was to take back my book. But I couldn't. And now it's out of print. And Ken Iverson is dead.

Anyway, that very long "aside" sort of explains my willingness to do things badly. Like this bookshelf I put up last week. It took me three tries. Maybe four. To get it right. But now the bookshelf is up and full of books.

Arnold is seated nearby scratching himself. I'm wondering whether to put back his cone. He got himself injured in a fight with another dog and the vet had to cut off the flap of skin from the dog bite. It's healing, but still looks red and raw and I have to clean it every day, rub it with his antibiotic cream and stuff a pill down his throat.

The good news is, he's run out of pills. The bad news is it's not as healed as I hoped it would be by now. I've scrubbed him today (he feels all nice and clean) and cleaned his little bed. I've washed the three cushion covers that Maggot turned black by rubbing against them.

Later on I will be going out for a birthday dinner with a friend.

All around me in my room, there are differently coloured mandalas. The room needs to be cleaned somewhat, but it isn't as disgusting as it normally becomes because slowly, slowly, I've been introducing order to this chaos.

Slowly, slowly, to-do lists are shrinking. Yesterday I received a new laptop battery which solves a really irritating problem. (To-do lists are good, to-do lists are my friend).

So anyway, I just wanted to say hey.

Hey!

Surf's Up!

This is for my friend Shelly. I'm no longer sure she reads this blog, but if she does, I want her to find this video of surfing an epic wave and know that I was thinking of her.

Happy Birthday Mary!

Happy Birthday Mary! In honour of your birthday, I want to post an article that you wrote way back in 1992. I read it then, loved it then and have loved it ever since.

By Mary Chandapillai

MY first impression of the Shanti Avedna Ashram was that of a convent. It sits in an affluent part of Bombay's Bandra suburb, opposite Mount Mary Basilica and next to the Shrine of the Blessed Virgin. The kind of serenity that the crescent-shaped structure exudes in the glow of the streetlights can only come from artefacts of religious significance.

I attached no further importance to it until my companion told me of the "half-way house" nature of the place. In Bombay, a city bursting at the seams with its 13 million people, there is an oasis where those who have terminal cancer could go to die. It is a sort of three-star hotel for the sick poor who otherwise would have to face the end alone, in pain, in hunger, and possibly, without a roof over their heads.

This "hotel" has no pre-determined check-out time. It has comfortable beds, good food, television sets, clean toilets and wide ramps for wheelchairs, and boasts a pain-free existence and a whole lot of tender loving care.

And to this "hotel", Death is a daily visitor. No one knows the hour he'd call, but call he would without fail. Night-time under a November Bombay sky eases in as early as 6 o'clock, and in its shrouded glow I could see shadowed palms and a terraced landscape.

In front of me, on the cream-coloured wall written in red and brightly lit, were the words: "Where there is love, there is no pain." Within the circle of these words, one palm reached out to hold another.

If I had entertained doubts as to the wisdom of entering a house of death at that hour of the evening, they were quickly dispelled. The three nuns who greeted me in the cheery spacious reception area made it seem that a foreigner's request to see the ashram and hear of their work was a daily occurrence.

Sister Bosco, one of the nine nuns who run the ashram, took me up the stairs, patiently answering my questions. The name, she explained, meant Peace (Shanti) Without Pain (Avedna) Place of Rest (Ashram). The philosophy crystallised herein was that pain and death were inevitable parts of the human existence. So, if medicine could not add days to life, the human touch must add life to days.

The ashram is the "love-child" of Dr Luzito de Souza, a surgeon with the Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital in Bombay, and managing trustee and honorary medical director of this hospice. Faced with the constant "Doctor, please don't send me home" cries of his terminally-ill patients, Dr de Souza found it necessary to consider the "quality of death" of those whose end was inevitable.

It was not hardheartedness for relatives to beg that their own not be sent home. Often they had no room, no food, no money and no one to provide full-time care. It is estimated that at any one time in India, there are about 120,000 patients in various stages of cancer - the most common being head and neck cancer, followed by abdomen, breast and genital tract cancer.

The psychological and economic implications of caring for advanced terminal cancer patients had to be considered. The solution - the kind of care that Mother Teresa offers. But to adequately relieve the distressing symptoms of advanced cancer, compassion had to be combined with competence - the ideal hospice care.

So with the help of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, the Archdiocese of Bombay, and a concerned public, Dr de Souza's idea mooted in 1977 became a reality on Nov 2, 1986. Since the ashram's opening, the sisters have helped 1,500 terminally-ill cancer patients between the ages of nine and 70, from 23 States of India, take that final step from life to death.

"Someone dies every day. Sometimes there are three deaths in a day," said Sister Bosco. "Some live only one night after they are admitted. Others a few days, some a month. Only one patient we've had, lived for a year-and-a-half after coming here."

To be admitted to the ashram, however, a patient must be beyond the stage of active treatment. Preference is given to those in need of urgent relief of distressing symptoms. Colour, race, religion, nationality are no bar.

Could a Malaysian find the same care here, I ventured. "We accept anyone who is in need of care." She hastened to add: "We don't treat the cancer here. Our care is palliative. We give them drugs to kill the pain, keep their wounds clean, and help prepare them to meet death at peace with God and themselves. Many of them who come here don't even know what is wrong with them. We break the news to them and help them accept it. Then we do everything we can to make their last days more comfortable."

The wards were indeed comfortable. The floors were clean and potted plants were everywhere. Nuns and attendants propped pillows, changed sheets and dispensed medicine. On the walls were posters which gave comfort and hope. One that stood out read: "Go to sleep now. God is awake."

The five-level building has two wings to house male and female patients. The wards have provisions to accommodate 50 beds. There are also six rooms allocated for patients whose spouses or relatives want to stay with them. These rooms come with attached bathrooms.

To help, the sisters have a staff of 18 girls, all hand-picked from Kottiyam in Kerala, the south Indian State where the Sisters of the Holy Cross have their mother house. I couldn't help but marvel at the kind of dedication and love for mankind that must come into play to be able to give comfort and hope to those who had none.

At that moment we passed a gaunt, 50-year-old man gasping for breath. A nun stood close, watching for signs of further distress. "He won't make it through the night," said Sister Bosco.

In another part of the ward, a man lay watching television, seemingly oblivious of the reality that was ever close. Opposite sat a 47-year-old, in light-hearted banter with his visitors.

"He was admitted this morning. He has a seven-year-old son. His wife was inconsolable when they came in. They had used up all their savings for treatment and even after that he was still going to die," said Sister Bosco.

Upstairs in the women's wing, five nuns and two helpers huddled round a frail woman. They were draining the blood that kept flowing out of her nose and mouth. "She'll die soon," Sister Bosco murmured.

As we passed, I saw a nun hold the dying woman's lifeless hand and whisper words of comfort. A little away sat the patient's sister bent in grief, her body turned away from the scene of death before her.

Walking back we stopped at the bed of a 25-year-old. She had a large tumour growing from her left cheek forcing its way out through her mouth. Seeing us the woman smiled and raised her hands in a Namastee.

"Look at her," Sister Bosco said, "when she came in she was crying in pain. Now she is happy."

One-third of the ashram's patients die without their families around them. But they don't die alone and they meet death peacefully. I witnessed that for I had come face-to-face with death and yet had sensed no fear in the air, just a strange peace, as if the passing on was just a walk into sleep.

"Some of the patients who come here want to die in their own homes so we discharge them, and give them what medication we can to help with the pain in their last hours. Eighty-five per cent die here. The bodies are then washed and taken to the prayer room downstairs. The funeral rites are performed according to the religion of the person," Sister Bosco said, showing me the prayer room.

I was expecting a chapel, but found a room with cushioned stools lining the walls on either side. On the wood panelling facing the visitor was a septagon joining seven metal blocks on which were symbols of the different religions practised in India.

As if sensing my surprise, Sister Bosco said: "We try to help everyone who comes here find peace with his Maker according to his own convictions."

How much does all this care cost the patient? Not a dime! The ashram is run purely on donations. "We need at least 20,000 rupees a month. The medicines are very expensive," I was told.

The pain-killer is morphine which is also donated. The ashram is managed by a board of trustees and sustained by the generosity of people who care and believe that here is a much-needed project. But being a practical organisation, it is working towards setting up a minimum corpus fund of 50 lakhs.

The Shanti Avedna Ashram is testimony to one man's conviction that it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. It was a dream nurtured in faith and kept alive by a burning desire to give back to others something that had so amply been given him.

Today, the Shanti Avedna Ashram has two branches, one in Goa and another in Delhi. That night, as I walked away from the ashram, knowing that the two people I had seen in the throes of death would be no more by night's end, I fully understood the wisdom in a quote I'd heard not long ago:

"...Every man's death diminishes me
For I am part of mankind.
Therefore ask not for whom the bells toll
They toll, my brother, for thee ..."

Maybe All You Need To Know Right Now Is...

Maybe all you need to know right now is that this night will pass. Just like the rest of them.... You won't always be this restless, this lonely.

To A Restless Little Brother Calling For Mama In His Sleep, Victoria Ford

Winners Never Quit and Quitters Never Win

Wasn't it Richard Bach who said we teach best what we most need to learn? Well I need to learn the following lesson...because I quit, and quit and then quit some more. The moment things get tough and I am uncomfortable and I feel unloved, unwanted and unappreciated, I quit. I don't even try to make things better. So you can imagine how the following story by Lisa Nichols in her book No Matter What resonated with me:

At fifteen, a big source of unhappiness in my life was my performance on the swim team. I loved to swim and had been swimming competitively for about three years, but I was ready to quit - not because I'd satisfied my desire to swim but because I was horrible at it. My favorite event was the 100-yard freestyle, but I always seemed to come in dead last. I had a shelf full of honorable mention ribbons, those awards that mean "Thank you for showing up. We don't want you to leave empty-handed, so here's something for you to take home to your mother." And that's what I'd do. I'd take home my honorable mention ribbon, and my mother would put it on the shelf. Bless my mom's heart, she had no idea it meant I'd come in last. She thought I'd actually done something honorable. That shelf was my official losers shrine, and I was fed up with it.

One afternoon, the day before a big meet, I decided to break the news that I was quitting the swim team to Grandma Bernice. Now you have to understand that though she had to stand on tiptoe to measure five feet two ans weighed ninety five pounds soaking wet, my grandmother was a force to be reckoned with. She ran her house and our family without leaving her sofa or raising her voice. I wasn't sure how she'd take my decision to quit. I was the only athlete in my family, but since my family was rarely able to come see me compete, I figured it wouldn't be a major issue.

That day, I took my usual position, laying my big head on my grandma's tiny lap so that she could rub my head. She'd done this for all eighteen of her grandchildren for as long as I could remember. When I told her I wanted to quit swimming, she abruptly pushed my head off her lap, sat me straight up, facing her, and in her fiercest voice said, "Baby, remember these words: A quitter never wins and a winner never quits."

I was surprised by this. My grandmother rarely used absolutes like "never" or "always". I said, "Grandma, are you saying never?

She said, "I'm saying never, baby."

Then she laid my head back down on her lap and began rubbing my head again. She told me about the endurance and strength of my ancestors and reminded me that I was descended from greatness. I remember little tears leaking from the corners of my eyes as she said more softly, "Sweetheart, you're entitled to get tired; you're entitled to get exhausted. You may have to rest, to go hibernate and restore...but you always have to come back out and keep going."

In the next instant, her tone changed. I could feel the steel in her as she said, "Lisa, your grandmother didn't raise no losers or quitters. You go to that swim meet tomorrow and you swim like you are a grandchild of mine, you hear?"

I knew better than to say anything but "Yes, ma'am."

The next day, our team arrived at the swim meet late, missing my event, the 100-yard freestyle for girls fifteen to sixteen years old. My coach insisted that I be allowed to swim with the next group, which happened to be the seventeen-to-eighteen-year-olds. I wanted to slip out of the gym and run away. I knew she was just including me in the race so our long drive wouldn't be wasted. She had no expectations that I would come in anything but eighth - and that was only because there weren't nine lanes.

As I mounted the board, I looked around at the other swimmers. These girls in their skintight caps, goggles, and Speedo suits were here to do one thing - kick my butt! My shoulders slumped. I knew I was going to come in last. Why even bother?

Suddenly, my grandma's words began to ring in my head: Quitters never win and winners never quit; quitters never win and winners never quit.

The gun went off.

SPLASH!

Quitters never win and winners never quit; quitters never win and winners never quit.

I swam hard, harder than I'd ever swum before. Halfway through the first length, as I drew my right arm back, I noticed that I was tied with one person. I assumed we were battling for eighth place. Deciding that the other girl was going to be the one to finish dead last today, I threw my entire body into my strokes. At the end of the length, I turned around in a burst of energy and added more kick as I traveled the last 50 yards.

Quitters never win and winners never quit; quitters never win and winners never quit.

At the finish, I hit the wall and looked to the left and then to the right for the swimmers who had beaten me, but no one was there. Man! I thought. I'm so slow, they must have gotten out of the water already.

I raised my head to see my coach screaming hysterically. My eyes followed her pointing finger, and I couldn't believe my eyes. The other swimmers had just reached the halfway point of the pool! I turned back to the coach and said, "Coach, what happened? Was I supposed to swim more laps? What happened?"

She said, "You tell me what happened, Lisa. You're only fifteen, and you just broke the seventeen-to eighteen-year-old 100-yard freestyle national record!"

At first, dazed by my unexpected victory, I couldn't think how I'd done it. Then I knew: I'd changed the conversation in my my head. Instead of thinking, I don't want to lose, I don't want to lose, I don't want to lose, like I usually did, I'd told myself, Quitters never win and winners never quit. I'd concentrated on winning rather than on not losing!

Slow Love

This is an excerpt from the book, Slow Love by Dominique Browning that I read last weekend. I loved the whole book but I am excerpting this bit from the last...which kind of sums it up. It is worth a read though...hope in a time of darkness, you know what I mean. Remember that the author had lost both her job and the man she considered the love of her life...in a short space of time...everything had come undone and had to be put back together ever so carefully:

I am always surprised by joy, and that is what is suffusing my entire being. I feel it start deep in my belly and spread up and over my body and I recognise it for what it is: a slow flush of love for the world - the sheer pleasure of being here, the profound honor of witnessing life. As I paddle home across the pond, I'm overwhelmed with the beauty all around me. There's a lot to enjoy in a life of solitude, I've learned, but I know that I'm not alone, either. Love is all around me.

A splash of white in the distance catches my eye. It is a bride. She seems to be standing at the steps of the porch of a neighbor's house, at the far end of a wide, sloping lawn. She is looking out at the water beyond. All the hope, all the love. All our beginnings, over and over again. The wind gusts, and it is blowing hard. The bride's veil lifts off the stairs and flies behind her like a banner. How brave she is.

I reflexively put my binoculars to my eyes and adjust them to get a better look. The bridesmaids are in black gowns, red shawls wrapped around their shoulders. How clever these children's styles are now; they look like the red-winged blackbirds that careen through the meadow. The groom, with his proud bearing, glances at the musicians, a cellist flanked by a flutist and a violinist. They are pulling their bows across the strings, swaying, bending into the music, but the wind is blowing the sound away from me, and I cannot hear a thing. The wedding is played out in pantomime. Soundlessly, the procession moves down the brick path, soundlessly, the musicians play; soundlessly, the minister says his blessing; soundlessly, the congregation claps and the children cheer a silent kiss.