Shortly after the Paris bombing...

3/4/2016

FROM APPLE FARM WRITER, Joan Yoder Miller

Shortly after the Paris bombings and the aftermath of surrounding fear, the idea surfaced to offer all of us a chance to write and read about fear out of the Apple Farm container. Weekly we have received someone's perspective on fear. There are still a few more to be sent.

I dropped the ball two weeks ago when I needed to make a fast trip home (from Florida) due to the health of my mother. She died on February 25. She was 94; someone who seemed to truly grow old in the Helen Luke sense of things. Still, she often said, "This is not my favorite time of life." She had a close-knit family and retained a youthful vigor that was astonishing to persons who first met her, sometimes sitting with one leg tucked under her like a teenager. When it got clear last week that her body would no longer support her, she made the decision to move toward death and decided when the moment was right to do so. The mood in her hospital room was bright, even joyful. Those close to her would say, "You are not afraid, are you?" She would respond with twinkling eyes, "I am not afraid. I don't know how it will be. And I wonder if I will find those I love. But no, I am not afraid."

4 Comments

Gail Walters

3/5/2016 07:38:48 pm

Joan, my condolences on you mothers passing, and thank you for sharing her story. What a beautiful contribution to our discussion on fear.

Marlene Sarle

3/7/2016 02:40:43 pm

I am sorry for your loss. Whatever her age, losing your mother is exactly that... She went the way all of us should be so blessed to go--on her terms, when she was ready, and with no FEAR. Glad you were able to get there. Your writing of her and the experiences of her death is beautiful and uplifting. She encourages us to live in ways that will take us to our own peaceful and fearless death.

John Stempien

3/8/2016 07:03:30 pm

"And I wonder if I will find those I love. But no, I am not afraid." This phrase for me is good medicine, Joan. Having lost my father in my teen years years and my mother as an adult, your post made me think that our parents' death can the last piece of love-instruction they leave for us. It mitigates fear if not eliminates.

Lauren Banner

9/6/2016 02:43:23 am

Death no matter how well befriended is a deep loss. My heart resonates with your mother's passing.
My 92 yr old mother lies dying in the next room as I write.
I found 'Old Age' by Helen Luke on my mother's shelves and never having read it thought maybe it was a good time to do so. Since I am by her side now eighteen hours a day.
I am very surprised at how wonderful it is. Often books have one or two great paragraphs and the rest.. meh. But this is a gem. I have already dog eared many pages and notes fill the margins. How I wish I had read more of the books my mother suggested. I would have loved to talk with her about this one.
And so, being full of Helen and wanting to know more about her I found this site and scrolled to your post.
Interesting.
A few weeks ago my mom told me that she was ready to die and that she wanted to stop eating and go peacefully at home. That she was not afraid and would we (my sister and I) help her. With her hearing gone, her eyes barely able to see, her legs going and her mind too with the slow creep of dementia, we understood and agreed.
Now I want it to be done and over already for what I think is my mothers sake. Her frame so thin, her mouth so parched, her voice a whisper, with hallucinations starting. But I know better. Our body is not ours, it belongs to nature. And she will have it her way. I bow to her. I am in death's realm with her, holding her hand swabbing her mouth with sweet water, and reminding her (as she asked me to do) that we are not our body alone, that spirit exists and our freedom lies there. She sighs and visibly relaxes when I talk to her like this. What a teaching.
She has asked my sister and I to read to her. I thought she would want some one of her inspirational texts, but no. She wanted to read Dersu Uzala, about a Russian map maker traveling with a native hunter in the early 1900's in Siberia. They explore unknown territory and map it as they go. The other was the start of Hawaii by James Michener. About how the natives of Bora Bora take off in canoes to get to a far away island but end up in a storm and have to navigate by the north star to find Hawaii. Both stories of exploration. How beautiful.
Being in death's presence makes all else seem unreal. When I leave to take a break every so often, I am keenly aware of how the world/people seems so thin, so superficial, so uninviting. I know this will change but for now I am cloaked in a thick atmosphere, a feeling of profundity that I experience as a gift and to which I want to return to as soon as I have done my errands.
What is this crack between worlds that allows me, one who is still full of piss and shit to shed a layer or two or four or five to feel the winds of
wisdom curl around me?
Death will take her soon, and leave me here to pack her books and to read the ones she recommended but never read while she was living and... to ask myself.
Am I ready to bury the oar. Has my old age begun?

Thank you for giving me the space to tell my story. Perhaps someday I will come and visit the Apple Farm Community. It sounds wonderful.

Shortly after the Paris bombing...

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