I’m living with a dying man. A sad and pitiful thing to see. No matter what I say to boost his morale, I seem to fail to help motivate his very soul.
I’m living with a dying man, an intelligent, compassionate human being. Yet, he cries so deeply, it disturbs me to watch this once assured human being, now turning into a pathetic man… dying within, so slowly. No matter the reinforcements and the gestures of kindness shown each day, he still cries in silence, inside his prayers.
I’ve lived with this man all his life, shared his achievements and his strife. I believe he has fought hard and long. His inner strength he has often had to call upon, when oft times left alone. Yet, it appears to me that he has reached a time, where he feels he’s losing his motivation, perhaps even his acute, reasoning mind. His will to live is ebbing fast, as he reflects upon unfinished times.
I’m living with a dying man. He’s given so much to many that his life has touched, and the paradox of his life, appears to be taking its toll, extinguishing his inner fire, his very soul and life desire.
He’s been so far, yet nowhere he feels, he’s shared so much, yet for what he asks.
This dying man, this friend of mine, is sinking before his very time.
Will It Pass…
There are times, when he seems okay. At such times we can even share some humour, have a laugh. And every now and then, unexpectedly, he speaks of things he’s never shared, in an attempt to clear his closet bare And I know that this dying man, is truly human, with much to offer, if only he could stay above the quagmire of his self-doubting moods and self-destructive ways.
He asks me in our more solemn moments, will this cloud of confusion and doubt, “Will it pass?” And I in turn, in my reactionary fear, say yes, you can do it, don’t worry, you’re not alone, I am here to see your way through your past. And then he looks me in the eyes, saying nought, with a small, forced smile. He thanks me for the kind words and gestures, while I struggle to keep an optimistic note in my words, whilst I avoid his eyes, and look away from my dearest friend, this tragic being, a dying man.
I pray alone when he’s not here, I pray that he doesn’t go, just disappear. I ask ‘god’ on high to keep him safe, so that he can break free from his lying view of his worthless life.
“Please God, let my closest, dearest friend find the peace on which his very life does depend. Lift the clouds of doubt from his strife, so that he once again can run, and laugh and rejoice aloud.” I pray for him, and us, that this time will pass.
Remember When
I remember when, some short years ago, when from Sydney he hurried home. The hand of mystery (and misery) had touched his mind, reality blurred the boundaries of his time. He came home with great haste, before he lost it completely in the Stranger’s Place. We met him at the airport, safely returned to his sacred ground, his birthplace, his home town — in precedence of challenging times about to unfold. And then we watched him deteriorate over the days, his sanity stretched to limits I will never be able to understand. He lost his job (through sickness his doctor eventually said, though few listened to this view). And we all fled, my self and his other closest friends. Leaving him in his delusion and confusion, in his home alone. Three weeks transpired from his return, until 1 finally convinced the system to have him interned, before he burned from exhaustion and his inner turmoil.
A painful time it was for me, to standby and watch my best friend in such calamity. My world destroyed, my peace, my friend, on him I tragically felt I could no longer depend. This time has been, regretfully, deeply burned into my memory.
Fear rose it’s ugly hand and stole such a wonderful, caring man — my friend — whom I now struggle to understand.
The Time Dragged By…
He was out of work and sat at home, for months he sat alone. No calls from his friends — just him and a silent phone. His companion returned, committed yet shaky from what had transpired. She worked part-time to pay their way, and their bills were barely kept at bay. The trauma of those chaotic days, had deeply ripped through the fabric of their stable life.
Their love-life now scarred, both scared in their own ways. She’d cry and he would lie and say all was “Okay”. And then he started gambling, secretly on the side, to keep his part, his pride — to “pay his way” — he’d rationalised — for on no-one did he want to rely.
A year dragged on, he’d rarely win, and she, in her blind faith, never really knew where he’d been, during the day and the nightly hours. His guilt kept his turmoil alive, hidden by more lies. My dying friend was living a lie, he was struggling inside. And their end time it did drag by.
Now Where
As the money running out, he finally got a job. My dying friend, could not stop, he kept at it, hoping to get once again on top. He’d borrow money from others he’d known, and sometimes avoided making good on these loans. The decline he travelled unravelled his life, until finally he confessed his lies to his friend, the one on whom he had grown to depend. Anger and judgment filled the air. There was no room to move. She was in despair. Trust truly damaged, the lies all too much, they parted in the year of ’98.
He stayed on in the home they had known, and continued to live in the lie of the gambler he’d sown, dismally trying to make it all right. He fell into the trap of believing his crap. My dying friend kept up his front, and the debts kept mounting as he went through the days, and consistently blowing his pay.
He tried to start new friendships, and maintain the ones he had — to regain his composure — yet he struggled even worse inside his charade of a life. The old distrusting survivor from years gone by, had risen to cloak the true man withdrawn inside.
Now where, he thinks, in the quiet of silent rooms. His belongings all pawned to feed poker-machines that had grabbed his ability to live an honest way of being.
No Where
I know a man who is dying. There is nothing physically wrong. He has no cancers or diseases that sap him of his strength. Yet, he struggles with himself. He works for others, has done so for many years, and he knows, as I do, that he has benefitted the lives of many through his deeds and words. Yet today, he is no where. That is what he believes. He has seen much and felt much, has had much and lost much. And to some he is worth-less — his word is no longer worth what he’d meant in intent.
My friend shares with me how sick he feels about the good people he cannot repay, not now, not today. He believes he has come full circle, from no where and back, on a track infested with his own shortcomings and pathetic misery.
He has shared with me that he has struggled within himself often throughout his time in this world. He’s told me how in his youthhood he felt such depth of pain and aloneness that he died at least twice at his own hand, and how confused he was at the time to find that he’d come back to life.
He’s talked and written about the many experiences he has had. He shared the depth of his losses when speaking of his children lost, and how it felt like the kidnapping of his inner-meaning. And I sense there are the other such stories he’s yet to dispel. He shares these stories and experiences (he believes), not to seek sympathy, nor to make excuses for his wrongs, but because he chooses to believe that through such sharing he may unburden his own clogged heart.
And being the honourable man I know he has strived to be, my dying man knows about keeping agreements, and making amends, and karma and reciprocation (he calls it “Boomerang Magnet”), and what it means to have good friends. He prefers to call them family — the ones that really count — the ones he is most familiar with — and he so truly desires that they too can again rely on him when they are down and nearly out.
Nearly Out
I’m living with a dying man, a friend I’ve known for years. He sits in silence, in an empty house, and sheds heartfelt tears. He knows that I am writing this, and knows that he should do the work, yet he feels so tired these days, he hardly finds reason to even go to work.
I’ve told him to hang-in there, that things will workout fine. Too often now my dying friend looks at me, with a pathetic smile, and wonders whether the sun will really shine again within his stormy mind.
He knows that 1 am writing this, on his behalf, sought of. And that for what it’s worth I intend to share it further, to those who know the man I know.
He’s such a scallywag, this mate of mine, because you never can know when he is on the up-and-up and when it is he’s lying. However, he speaks more often these days about many of his inner secrets, though usually just to me, yet it’s when I ask about how he feels, he hesitates then sighs as he states, that he feels as if his world is dying.
Oh yes, on the outside, the surface, its hard to see that he’s a bloke that has known his own tumultuous “hell” a few too many times, as he’s learnt the skill of keeping his true-state inside, well away from the likes of you and I. A Trickster, with a masquerade, a mask for each and everyday… which world, which play is he in today. Yes, 1 know all about this part of his life, his many personas built to protect, learnt from his childhood, though now, many he does struggle with to reject. I’ve been his best friend, his mate since we were in diapers. He knows that I know who he truly is.
A dying man I live with, each and every day, and I persist with his listlessness, as we peel each inner layer away. So slowly, so painfully. Yet I have said, that I need him. He cannot leave me in such a state I do not wish him to fade away… to escape. He must stay, the real man I know, not the product from a life of trouble and woe.
A Home Near Gone
Now, I’m living with a dying man, in a house he calls his home. My friend, this dying man, lives with regret and the thought of losing all again, this time. His gambling and his debts have overtaken his bets, and now this week or so he may loose his place to sleep, and his landlord no longer waits, for him to catch-up with his rent.
My friend is sorry for his folly, and regrets that he has arrived at this cul-de-sac of financial doom. This dying man cannot be phoned at home, for no longer can he afford the phone. And he knows has he been no good at paying back what he owes.
Now How
In his quieter, clearer moments he asks me, now how does he get out of this? I reply simplistically, “As best as you can. One foot forward, inch by inch, for you are too good to die at your own hand. Stay with it my friend, confess your lies, and trust the others will understand your self-made trap.” This is all I can say to my dying man, the man I struggle to give a lending hand.
And as I live with a dying man, I ask in love for the patience of friendship that he sorely needs, to wait until he comes out of his self-made misery. Time does heal, there is no doubt, so he asks for time to bring the healing of the rift about.
I live with a dying man, a man that’s down, yet not quite out.
(Nov 1998 )
Addendum
… and the dying inside continues to ebb and rise like an ocean tide — optimism, hope and motivation diminishes like a candle flame blown in the wind. Confusion is my friend, losing again, and again and again…
Will (I) Power struggles to re-light the ‘flame’, in the eye of the storm, and the world of his slowly passes in photos and words written — precious moments now worth less to all but few…
He lives — yet my best friend and own wise elder, passes … strong to hang on, while … this dying man that I have shared my life with strains from pains not interpreted by I but by many of his kind, it seems.
Life lifted me, and I in turn may turn out the light… may… make him fight …may see him through another night…
Standing at the Crossroads, my dying man must make choices… “Move, at least move.” I silently pray.
(14 December, 1998 )
