Why not die?

Three days ago, I got an email from a follower (I’ll call her Jackie) who asked if I could think of a reason she shouldn’t kill herself. I wasn’t surprised that Jackie was considering suicide, but I was surprised that she would solicit my opinion about such an important matter. You see, no one other than Peggy ever solicits my opinion about anything. My opinion is so NOT solicited (or accepted when offered) that I think of myself as like a reverse salesman—if you want to talk someone out of something, just send me to talk them into it. I can’t really say why this is so because my opinions are often excellent. After all, I’m smart, diversely educated, slow to act, a deep thinker, an extensive fact gatherer, and old enough to have experienced a lot of life and seen the results of a lot of decisions.

I was about to rake the leaves when Jackie’s mail arrived, and I wasn’t in the mood for such discourse, but I knew that I couldn’t delay my response lest the day end with my yard clean but my friend dead. Such an outcome might have soured me on yard work permanently. Besides, I was honored that she wrote to ME because—as I said—no one ever solicits my opinion.

I had little thought for what I might say when I sat down to write, but little trepidation either because I am more effective on paper than in person, plus I have given suicide A LOT of thought over many years as a solution to my own problems. Yet, I recognized that I probably had little if anything to say to Jackie that she didn’t already know. One of the downsides of aging is the realization that, aside from information pertaining to specific disciplines, you’re not likely to learn much from other people. This is probably why suicidal psychiatrists don’t tend to seek help. I mean, what could anyone possibly say to a suicidal psychiatrist?

The last time someone told me that she (it was a she that time too) had been thinking about suicide, she put it this way. “I was sitting in the kitchen with the rifle barrel against my chest, wondering if I would really pull the trigger, and then Dale walked in. When I saw the look in his eyes, it scared me, and I realized that I really needed to turn my life around.”

I thought this meant that she HAD turned her life around (after all, she seemed happy). A few days later, she was dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest (that’s me, then Dale, and then her at the top of the page). If you really want people to think about you A LOT after you are dead, just tell them you’re thinking about killing yourself, and then kill yourself. If you want them to remember you their whole lives long as if you had JUST died, that will do it. Believe me, they will NEVER get over your death. My friend, Kathleen, has been dead thirty years, and I still haven’t run out of tears.

Anyway, I sat down to have a go at a response to Jackie based upon my knowledge that people who suffer from cancer, alcoholism, chronic pain, or almost anything else tend to get along better with the support of their peers than with the support of trained counselors. This is because they feel better understood and know that what they are hearing is real rather than theoretical. So, I told myself, I will be real. It’s really all that I had to offer. As I reread what I wrote, it seems woefully inadequate. Maybe you can think of something more.

Dear Jackie,

I’m glad to see from your letter that I’m not the final strand in your last string, but I’m still worried that you’ve sat by your computer all day becoming increasingly despondent as you reflected that maybe I haven’t written because I don’t care about you or because I resent your coming to me. Neither is the case. I simply haven’t been indoors.

As for reasons to not commit suicide, it is a subject that I think about a lot since I am often tempted. In my case, it would be an extraordinary situation in which I would do such a thing to Peggy without her consent, and she wouldn't give her consent unless I was in extreme and hopeless pain or suffering from a terminal illness. You too have relatives who need you to stay alive, so you too must behave responsibly. You must make suicide—when and if you do it—an honorable retirement from life, devoid of shame or failure. It can be, after all, an exemplary act; not an ignominious retreat but a sensible and well-timed withdrawal.

Suicide to me is like a get-out-of-jail-free-card that I take comfort in holding in case all else fails. Even without Peggy to consider, I doubt that I would do it anytime soon because I still have reason to hope that my health will improve, and at least a few things left to enjoy; but even if I were to lose both Peggy and these, there might still be some good that I could accomplish. If nothing else, I could comfort dogs at the pound. Yet, the temptation to kill myself is often with me when I’m in pain, or fretting over the fact that I have lived long but accomplished little, or feeling overwhelmed by the possibility that my health will get worse. I’m not a prisoner without means but a free man with guns and drugs, and I am grateful for them. I’ve rehearsed every detail of how I would make my exit, so it is simply a case of going to the station, so to speak, from which I would book my passage into the Dark Land to which all go but none return.

Anyway, these thoughts are what come without much reflection, but with the conviction that days of reflection would not yield anything more profound. I hope that you can find meaning (or at least pleasure) in your life apart from your family, but if not, you do have people whose own lot would be made miserable without you, and that alone makes your escape untenable.

“When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes into you.” Nietzsche

Just remember that suicidal thoughts can take on a life of their own. The more you dwell on it, the less frightening it appears, and the more likely you are to deceive yourself into thinking that the very loved ones who are holding you to life would be better off without you. I would therefore ask that you limit your excursions to only the outskirts of that cold land. Think of suicide as simply one of many options, albeit the last.

Finally, there is the wee small chance that there might actually be another life awaiting you beyond the grave, a life that will be made better or worse according to how you live this life. Imagine thinking that you are permanently escaping your pain only to awaken someplace where you are in worse pain and without even the appearance of escape. Such a prospect need not preclude suicide, but it should make us more careful to use it as a dignified retreat rather than a humiliating rout.

With love and respect,
Snow

What's hot; what's not (aka something to offend everyone)

I was leaving the library when I saw her; I did a u-turn. She wore a short skirt with long stockings that had black and white horizontal stripes. The little bit of skin that showed between stockings and skirt drove me crazy. She looked at me looking at her, and it wasn’t a friendly look. I hate it when women dress to attract attention, and then become offended when they attract attention. Maybe if I too had been twenty…

I like women in boots too, but I would lose readers if I alluded to them in the way that Charles Perrault alluded to a cat who wore boots—even though I think it sounds funny. Anyway, I like women in boots. I like them A LOT. Short boots, tall boots, majorette boots, cowgirl boots, I don’t care; I just like women in boots. Only I like them a lot better if they’re wearing shorts or skirts with those boots.

Tattoos? No. Nose rings? Oink no! Eyebrow studs? God forbid. High heels? Only if you consider an ambulatory disability sexy. Make-up? A very little is okay. Skirts over pants? Latter day hippies just look silly and unoriginal. Torn jeans? Only a decadent culture affects poverty as a fashion statement.

What I look for in how a woman dresses is a mixture of funk and creativity. I call it flair. But not all women can pull it off. Some women who wear funky hats, vintage clothes, and oversize jewelry just look like they own a few too many cats. Cat women definitely aren’t my thing, but maybe that’s because I got burned by one. Before her, I didn’t think about cats much. Now, I’m more into women who have dogs, but no more than one or two.

Women with sad eyes—wow. Maybe this is because I equate sorrow with depth and happiness with superficiality, or maybe it’s because I think I can save them. Anyway, women with sad eyes make me crazy. I just want to throw myself at their feet and crawl up their legs, serpent-like. You might say, “Bullshit, sad women don’t have more depth; they just have a hormone deficiency.” Okay, whatever… Fact is, I’m in no mood for objective truth, so I would ask that you bear with me even if I sound stupid. After all, you probably sound stupid sometimes too.

One problem I have (okay, one among MANY) is that I like women who dress with flair, yet women who dress so provocatively that men will fantasy about them for 20 years after a brief sighting in the library are almost certainly extroverts, and I prefer introverts because, again, I think the latter have more depth. Extroverts are like pond skimmers that never really alight, and introverts are like fish that hangout in the mud and gloom at the bottom.

What else do you like?

You really want to know? I mean, REALLY?

I am in such suspense that I can hardly catch my breath.

Which brings me to panting women, which are another major turn-on. As are women who smell like human beings instead of like gardenias or some other crap that comes out of a bottle. It’s a really dirty woman who needs to shower to please me, and I have no problem with body hair either unless it’s so thick that it looks like it should be on a man.

Maturity, depth, and erudition also turn me on, but I’ll tell you the embarrassing truth. A silly and shallow fifteen year old can LOOK awfully good even though my paternal instincts outweigh my prurient ones.

One other thing, and it’s a biggie. I like a woman who has seen it all, and who is damn hard to frighten or offend. Maybe this is because I was raised by a mother who never stopped feigning the innocence of a child and who seemed offended by pretty much everything that had anything to do with sex. This turn-on is one reason that I like older women, although I quit writing off younger women after I read Carson McCullers. The accumulation of years is far less important than who a woman is inside; youth doesn’t have to mean innocence or naïveté, and age doesn’t necessarily imply worldliness.

Blondes are good because they look like they’re wearing halos when they’re in the sunshine, but then long-haired blonde men look that way too from behind, and I always feel cheated when they turn around (in fact, I want to slug them for getting me aroused over nothing). A woman’s eyes and shape are far more important than hair color. Besides, I think of brunettes and redheads as having more depth.

Mental problems and a history of suicide attempts also point to depth because the ability to adjust to this world would seem to imply a certain callousness and superficiality. Yeah, I know. Yet again, I’m confusing depth with hormone deficiencies. But then what ARE we, really? You might be right; it might ALL be a question of hormones, but that makes no difference. We all PRETEND that our lives have a deeper substance, a spiritual reality, if you will. I don’t think this is true, but I live as if it is. Cut us open, and we’re the same as pigs, but we don’t treat one another like pigs.

So, how does Peggy measure up to all this? Not so good, thankfully. You see, I recognize something of a gap between the qualities that look hot and the qualities that make a long-term relationship possible. It’s a little like wanting vodka when what you really need is a good meal. Peggy is the good meal. Besides, she has put up with me for 38 years, and I owe her for that. Besides that, what we lack in our ability to deeply understand one another is more than made up for by our love for one another. I can never again marry a woman when we are both young and stay with her until we are approaching old age, and that means a lot to me.

You want to know what depth is in a relationship? I’ll tell you, my child. It’s not hot sex or heart-to-heart talks. Well, maybe it is. But more than these, depth is when you put someone else’s name on your bank account (assuming there’s anything in it) knowing full well that that person could walk away with everything you’ve worked a lifetime for, yet trusting that she won’t EVEN IF she should come to hate your guts. Peggy looks hot, AND she’s deeply affectionate, AND she has unquestioned integrity. It’s a hell of an attractive combination, yet it has never dampened my desire for other women. The new and unknown is appealing because it is new and unknown, and there’s no depth to such an appeal. It’s mostly—maybe exclusively—a matter of hormones.

Belief-O-Matic

At Belief-o-Matic, you answer 20 questions and get a list of how closely your beliefs align with those of 27 religions and denominations. It gets a tad ridiculous at the bottom where you learn how closely you match up with groups that would like nothing better than to burn you at the stake, but I found it accurate enough at the top. Here’s my top five.

1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (96%)
3. Liberal Quakers (79%)
4. Nontheist (77%)
5. Neo-Pagan (70%)

Let me know how you come out. (http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx)

Last visit

I’ve been seeing Mark (my orthopedist—that’s him in the photo) every six weeks since my surgery in March, and I always take a written update in order to better describe any changes. This is yesterday’s update.

“Until ten days ago, the pain in my right shoulder was worse than when I last saw you, and the pain in my left shoulder had increased to the point that both shoulders interfered greatly with my sleep. They hurt similarly, as if someone were jabbing them with broomsticks. Percocet only quieted the pain enough for me to sleep an hour or two at a time, and it made me itch considerably even with the Benadryl. My middle back below the shoulder blades continues to hurt day and night, and I can’t sleep comfortably in any position.

“I had long feared that the shoulder pain would become bad enough that I would have to sleep in a chair again. I dreaded doing so, but was glad to know that I at least had a way to escape the worst of the pain if all else failed. All else did fail so, two weeks ago, I returned to a chair only to find that the pain in both shoulders was as bad there as in bed.

“I saw no change after my thirty days on a raw food diet, so I stopped both it and the acupuncture three weeks ago, and started taking SAM-e, MSM, glucosamine, and raw ginger. I am also drinking an extra gallon of water each day and have doubled my intake of fish and fish oil.

“Ten days ago, the nighttime pain in both shoulders began to decrease, and I have since been able to sleep three or four nights without medication, although I still use ice packs all night every night. During the day, my right shoulder, at its worse, still hurts as if a bee were stinging me deep inside the joint with the pain radiating down the outside of my upper arm. At its best, the joint itches so badly that I feel compelled to scratch it, although scratching does no good. The left shoulder feels slightly stiff during the day but is seldom painful.

“The following is a comprehensive list of factors other than arthritis that can cause continued pain after tendon repair. I’m enclosing it on the off chance that you might have overlooked some rare problem.”

“Brachial plexopathy, Cervical radiculopathy, Long-thoracic neuropathy, Neoplasm, Reflex sympathetic dystrophy, Spinal-accessory neuropathy, Suprascapular neuropathy, Thoracic outlet syndrome, Adhesive capsulitis, Articular cartilage defect, Bicipital tendonitis, Instability, Lateral tears, Acromioclavicular arthropathy, Deltoid insufficiency, Rotator cuff defect, Subacromial impingement”


The fact that the right shoulder seems to be improving precludes a joint replacement on that side—the side he operated on in March—and only in my worst moments do I contemplate one anyway because, once the bone is gone, it’s gone forever, and the replacements just aren’t that good. The 70% tendon tear in the left shoulder doesn’t justify the risks of sewing it up in the absence of significant pain or disability. I have had both, but since they seem to be lessening, Mark suggested that we hold off, and I happily agreed. We didn’t schedule another visit.

I left his office with mixed feelings. Although he hasn’t been able to do anything to help me—other than narcotics and sleeping pills—since my surgery on March 27, I took comfort in having at long last found a doctor I could trust and talk to, and I feel a little lonely now that I can no longer say, “I’m under the care of a physician.” Or a physical therapist for that matter. I’m entirely on my own, and I fear that I still have a long way to go. Fortunately, what I have already gone through has made me stronger on the inside even while debilitating me on the outside.

Something of substance

When I was a Mississippi teacher in a school that was half black and half white, nearly all of my black students and half of my white students qualified for free lunches. In a school where no one was rich, picture one quarter of the student population having to buy that which the other three-quarters get for free. Now, picture the parents of that one-quarter having to pay for their own children’s lunches and, through their taxes, for the lunches of the other students. Such situations build resentment. When I asked in a previous post why it might be that the very parts of the country that have the poorest people are also the parts that so vehemently oppose a national health care system, no one answered. I think that one reason is just such resentment. The South contains a lot of seriously pissed-off people, and I can’t bring myself to put them down too harshly because I’ve seen the world through their eyes.

I support national health care because I also see how miserable and hopeless my own precarious health situation would be if I were to lose my private insurance in a state that has a waiting list for Medicaid. If you become too sick to work, you lose your job, and when you lose your job, you lose your insurance. You can’t buy more insurance because you’re sick and you have no job. What is the message in this? That your life is worthless aside from your ability to earn money with which to buy insurance? I would be astounded if you could find a single person who is desperately ill and can't afford treatment who opposes national health care. If I am right, what you have here is a situation in which those who have their own needs met simply don’t care a whole hell of lot about those who don’t. Perhaps, they blame them for having the problem.

I have been corresponding with a man named Aaron who opposes national health care, and I promised him that I would address the issue here for the simple reason that I feel better about spending inordinate amounts of time writing for my blog than I do writing letters. Aaron’s argument is that private charities should take on the problem. When I pointed out that they’re already unable to do this, his response was that government is to blame, not just for their failure, but for the soaring cost of medical care. He offered two primary reasons for this. First, by pumping taxpayer money into Medicaid and Medicare the government guarantees healthcare providers an income. This stifles competition, and no competition means higher prices. Second, government sets standards for medical facilities, procedures, personnel, and so forth; and the necessity of meeting these standards also runs prices up.

I spent five hours in McKenzie Willamette Medical Center last March for outpatient surgery, and I was comforted to know that my caregivers met government standards. Those five hours cost $18,695, and that didn’t include the surgeon’s bill, the anesthesiologist’s bill, or anything else. When medications, x-rays, blood tests, follow up doctor’s visits, physical therapy appointments, three MRIs ($1,300 each), and so forth, were included, that one outpatient procedure cost more than $40,000, and the bills are still coming in because I’m still needing follow-up care.

Let’s say that Aaron is right, and that if government stopped paying for any medical care for anyone and got out of the business of setting standards for doctors, drugs, procedures, and facilities; health care costs would drop. He didn’t give a percentage, but for sake of argument, let’s imagine that they would drop by two-thirds. Instead of $40,000, my bill would have been $13,333. If I were among the many who work a 40-hour week for the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, I would have to work almost a year (46 weeks) to pay for that one surgery. Since I’m in worse shape now than I was before the surgery, I would be unable to work at all if I were a manual laborer, and no work would mean no income and no income would mean no insurance.

Under Aaron’s proposal, I would be obliged to appeal to private charity for help. This would mean filling out applications for one or more charities and going through what would surely be an extensive screening process. Would I go to one charity for health care assistance and other charities for food, heating oil, and help with the mortgage? And if approved, would I be approved for whatever was necessary, or would I have to have every procedure, every drug, and every office visit to every specialist approved separately and in advance? Would the charity then comb through every bill and negotiate a lower price with the provider as insurance companies do? Would there be a yearly—or a lifetime—maximum that they would—or could—spend?

Now, let’s multiply my problem by the millions who would need help, and let’s imagine that instead of being sixty and needing shoulder surgery, I’m eighty and suffering from dementia and kidney failure and need round the clock nursing care and weekly dialysis. Talk about health care rationing! Talk about death panels! How else could it play out? Private charities could no more pick up the tab for health care than they could pay for building roads or maintaining the military.

Just think of the millions of people who are chronically ill or aging, thousands of them unable to even seek help on their own behalf, and tell me that a network of charities could work. A fundraiser was recently held at a pizza joint here for a little boy who was severely injured when a drunk driver hit the car he was in, killing everyone but that child. $10,000 was raised. Think of it. $10,000 for a severely injured child who might need a lifetime of care. How many pizza feeds would Aaron propose and for how many children? And what would become of people like the old man with dementia if no one wanted to hold fundraisers for them? Under Aaron’s plan, they would die. Those who were on top in our society would still drive their Lexus’s and live in their 5,000 square foot hillside mini-mansions with the five car garages, while those who were less fortunate would be left to suffer and perish, literally by the roadside. When we Americans talk about how much a person is worth when what we mean is how much money does he have, we’re not speaking metaphorically.

Yet, I do not think believe that my friend Aaron is heartless, or else I would not call him my friend. I actually think he is an idealist who sincerely believes that laissez faire capitalism would lead to a better world for everyone. I also suspect that he is a bit of an ideologue, but maybe I project. I was once a devotee of Ayn Rand because she made it all look so good on paper. In her books, the capitalists were creative and hardworking visionaries of uncompromising virtue; the socialists self-aggrandizing manipulators devoid of integrity; and there was no middle ground. Then I read about the Industrial Revolution, a time that came nearer to her vision of unrestrained capitalism than any other era. And what happened? The very few got very rich upon the backs of the very many. Human beings were treated like machine parts that were so cheap and plentiful that their welfare was not worthy of consideration.

Children were chained to work stations twelve hours a day seven days a week. Their emaciated bodies shivered wretchedly in thin rags in the winter and dropped from heat exhaustion in the summer. They became stooped from overwork; they got rickets from bread and water diets; they lost fingers, hands, and sometimes their lives to noisy and dangerous machinery. They died from breathing noxious chemicals or absorbing them through their skins. Laissez faire capitalism meant no fire codes, so they perished by the hundreds in burning factories. And when workers died because of the negligence of their employers, their families got NOTHING but poorer, sadder, and more desperate. Meanwhile, the children of the rich partied before moving from their city mansions in winter to their country—or European—mansions in summer, all while gaily dressed in the furs of slaughtered animals and the plumages of endangered birds. They might as well have gone all out like those Nazis who made handicrafts from the skins of laborers who died of exposure and exhaustion.

America then was like many of the so-called “Developing Nations” are today, and it would take a stretch of the imagination to imagine anything more cruel. But that’s what unrestrained capitalism looks like; a few ruthless men (mostly men) making more money before lunch than hundreds of their employees will earn in their short miserable lives. Whatever the evils of socialism, in theory at least, it holds human life as more valuable than limitless wealth amassed without regard for how many people are ground to dust in the process. Ayn Rand was wrong. There is a middle ground, and it starts with insuring that people aren’t left to die because they can’t afford to be treated.

And he spake unto them in parables saying, "Verily, a fag, a broad, and an infidel goeth up to the House of the Lord..."

I attended church for the last two Sundays after an absence of several months. Most churches don’t have much in the way of Sunday school during the summer, and since Sunday school is the only reason I go, I hung out with Buddhists instead. All they did was to sit silently, a practice that appeals to me more in theory than in practice. I didn’t go for the meditation though so much as for the people, particularly a man with whom I hoped to be friends. It doesn’t look promising. He suggested that we go for a beer; I proposed a date; the date didn’t work for him; and he never proposed another.

I think he has some mental health issues that are holding him back, but they were what caught my interest. I haven’t had a “normal” friend since childhood. I’m not even sure such people exist…well, I guess they have to because otherwise normal wouldn’t exist, and what kind of sense would that make?

Anyway, church. I went to First Methodist. I hadn’t been there in two years (I’ve been going to First Christian and First Congregationalist—no second rate churches for me), so it surprised hell out of me when one of the ministers said, “Hi, Snow,” before I even put my nametag on.

Nametag?

Yeah, I get one for every church I go to as quickly as possible. Otherwise, a dozen people a Sunday ask such predictably boring questions as, “What brings you here today?” “Have you lived in Eugene long?” “Do I detect the hint of an accent?” If I have a nametag, they still don’t know who I am, but they think they should, so they pretend they do. The preacher today was friendly but didn’t try to engage, and I appreciated that. I’m not going to contribute (much) to his salary; I’m not going to "find" Jesus; and I’m not going to join his church. I’m just there because I enjoy studying the Bible, and will jump ship in a heartbeat if another church offers a more interesting class.

First Methodist recently combined its traditional service with its contemporary service (due to falling membership, I suppose), and Sunday school starts right after it ends. I like to sleep in, so this will work well for me. I will get there early enough to pour myself a cup of coffee and select a good seat in the classroom. Then I will read. About the time I get comfortable, the doors to the sanctuary will open, and the people will file out to the strains of some New Agey hymn or another. Since they are all the same sugary pap, it hardly matters which one.

The only good thing about them is that they inspire pretty women in charismatic churches to sway back and forth while holding their hands above their heads. This elevates their breasts most appealingly, and when you add to that the fact that they’re in their best clothes, moving their lips ecstatically, and wearing expressions of orgasmic bliss…well, I find it inspiring to be sure. If I were a minister in such a church, I would sooner or later conclude my sermon with, “Let us lift our breasts to the Lord in prayer,” and my career would be over. I don’t know whether Methodist women lift their breasts in prayer, but I seriously doubt it.

First Methodist welcomes gay people, and I quickly spotted two gay couples, both of which were somewhat past middle age. One of the gay men asked insightful questions about the Bible, and I was touched by this, although it struck me as ironic since the Bible offers him nothing but stoning and hellfire. But then the preacher who led the class was a woman, and the Bible doesn’t have much good to say about them either. Finally, there was me (or is it I?), a nonbeliever who enjoys the Bible. What a group. But at least the church welcomes women and homosexuals just the way they are, whereas it views people like myself as needing a little work. Okay, a lot of work. But, you know, the Methodists of a hundred years ago would look at the Methodists of today and think they are all hellbound, so change is a’coming. Someday, the church might even live up to its motto:

“Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors.”

Friends and families

I just heard a poet on the radio read a loving poem about his dead mother, and I wished I could write a loving poem about my dead mother. When she passed away 23 years ago, I grieved intensely for sixteen months. Every night, she would come in dreams, and we would know such happiness as we had never known in real life. Then I would remember that she was dead, and she would recede into the darkness, leaving me to awaken in tears. After those sixteen months, the anger came and never left. It is still my only connection to her.

Peggy had told me years earlier that my mother treated me badly, but I couldn’t see it. Or rather I could see it, but I had spent so many decades telling myself that she didn’t mean the hurtful things she said, that I couldn’t let myself believe it.

While the poet was on the radio, a caller said that her own mother died in 1971, but that the grief is as fresh as if she had died yesterday. People often say that you should get over your grief in twelve months, but I don’t think it ever ends. It might morph, like mine did, but I hardly feel “over it.” It just takes up less of my time. After my mother died, three months passed during which I never felt a moment of joy. Then I was touring the Duluth, Minnesota, train museum one wintry day when it hit me that several minutes had gone by during which I hadn’t felt sad about losing my mother. The realization taught me that I still had the capacity for joy, and that I could expect to feel it for longer periods.

The good thing about your parents dying is that you don’t have to put up with them anymore. The bad thing is that everything that bothered you about them is frozen in time so that, if you work it out, you work it out alone.

I have a half brother who doesn’t want to know me, and a half sister to whom I am a mostly a penpal. I also have a full sister, but I haven’t spoken to her in the fifteen years since our father died. She abandoned him, so he left her out of his will. She expected me to share his meager estate anyway, but I would have burned it first. The truth of the matter is that we never liked one another, so it isn’t my sister I miss but the idea of having a sister. The same is true of my parents.

My half sister, Anne, envies me because I grew up in a home that had two parents, while she was raised by an uncle who treated her like an object of charity. I meanwhile, envy Anne because she was at least raised by people who didn’t hate one another, and because she had an extended family of other aunts and uncles who loved her and for whom she has fond memories. Oddly, some of my fondest “family” memories are of those very people, yet I was only around them for a week one summer.

I had but one uncle and one aunt of my own. The uncle, I didn’t know, and the aunt and her brother—my father—disliked one another, so her six children consequently disliked me. Things would have been easier had they not been the only other children in my rural neighborhood.

When I was a young man, I imagined that I would create a family from among my friends to supplement my own small and troubled family, but what I found about friends was that when holidays rolled around, they spent them with their blood relatives, leaving Peggy and me alone—unless, of course, she went away to see her own parents and sisters in which case I was really alone. True, my friends might talk about their relatives as if they were the worst people in the world, but when holidays came they went to them, and this made me wonder how close we really were. I also noticed that friends have a way of moving across the country and losing touch.

I turned to dogs for family with some success. The best thing about dogs is that they won’t abandon you. The worst thing is that they’re like perpetual children that need taking care of their whole lives long without ever being able to take care of you. Bonnie and Baxter became significant liabilities after my recent surgeries because they still needed their daily walks and grooming even when it was cold and muddy and my belly had been split open, or I couldn’t put on my coat because my arm was in a sling five inches in front of my body.

Another attempt I made at family was the Masons and the IOOF. There is much to be said for such fraternities, but the people you meet there are no more likely to care about you than are the people you meet anywhere else. My fraternities were founded for the express purpose of serving as extended family, and the members even call one another brother and sister, but it is a mistake to take these things too seriously.

I would feel worse about my inability to maintain close ties with family or friends over the decades if Peggy didn’t have the same problem. I can’t see how it is her fault, and this leads me to think that life is just that way. I’ve known people who I imagined to have a lot of friends, but when I became their friend, I learned that I was wrong or that their friends, like my own, tended to drift away after a few months or years.

Right up through college, friendship came easily. But maybe that was because I didn’t mistrust people back then. Now, I never assume that a relationship will last.