Patrick died yesterday.
It's been two and one-half years since I met him. The last three months were tortuous for him, so I am glad to see that he has found his peace. I am somehow left feeling as if I did not do enough, probably because I did so little. I only visited him once a week, and that only since he was put into the nursing home. Before that I saw him once a month or so, sometimes not even that. The last time we did anything together it was a trip to get some eyeglasses. We had planned to eat something that day, but he was too weak to do anything but get from the truck to the doctor and back. After that excursion, he was pretty much bed-ridden, though he did manage to stay in his own bed up until this summer.
The first time I met him, he was ill and frail, but still full of life. We talked a lot during our first few meetings--or he did anyway, so I came to know him, or at least a faint outline of him. Sitting in the car last night I remembered the time I got the stereo for him. I went to pick it up and set it up in his apartment. We stood and hugged and I felt we had a moment. I know that he must have appreciated these things, and I am grateful to have known him, I also feel as if my presence in his life really did not matter. This was especially true during the final weeks. Oh, I arranged for musicians to come and play for him, I read to him and finally I just sat with him, meditating. Perhaps I should have just meditated from the beginning for all the good those other things did.
In the end, my meager visits were just about the only contact he had, not counting the caretakers at the nursing home--how sad is that? I know there is nothing I can say or do that matters. There is nothing I have ever said or done that matters, this is just a fact. I have not given up, but this is a particularly dark moment. C'est la vie, eh?
Here, as the way of lightening up a bit, is Shintse playing at little SRV for Patrick on September 1.
It's been two and one-half years since I met him. The last three months were tortuous for him, so I am glad to see that he has found his peace. I am somehow left feeling as if I did not do enough, probably because I did so little. I only visited him once a week, and that only since he was put into the nursing home. Before that I saw him once a month or so, sometimes not even that. The last time we did anything together it was a trip to get some eyeglasses. We had planned to eat something that day, but he was too weak to do anything but get from the truck to the doctor and back. After that excursion, he was pretty much bed-ridden, though he did manage to stay in his own bed up until this summer.
The first time I met him, he was ill and frail, but still full of life. We talked a lot during our first few meetings--or he did anyway, so I came to know him, or at least a faint outline of him. Sitting in the car last night I remembered the time I got the stereo for him. I went to pick it up and set it up in his apartment. We stood and hugged and I felt we had a moment. I know that he must have appreciated these things, and I am grateful to have known him, I also feel as if my presence in his life really did not matter. This was especially true during the final weeks. Oh, I arranged for musicians to come and play for him, I read to him and finally I just sat with him, meditating. Perhaps I should have just meditated from the beginning for all the good those other things did.
In the end, my meager visits were just about the only contact he had, not counting the caretakers at the nursing home--how sad is that? I know there is nothing I can say or do that matters. There is nothing I have ever said or done that matters, this is just a fact. I have not given up, but this is a particularly dark moment. C'est la vie, eh?
Here, as the way of lightening up a bit, is Shintse playing at little SRV for Patrick on September 1.
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