Threnody

English
Noun
threnody (plural threnodies)
Etymology: Greek thrēnōidia, from thrēnos dirge + aeidein to sing
: a song of lamentation for the dead

I have always liked Emerson. I don't always understand his writing and oftentimes I need a bit of academic help in digging out the details of the meaning, but I often turn back to reading Emerson. Sometime in the last year or so of Nathan's life I ran across the Emerson poem Threnody. Threnody is very much a lament and attempt to dig out some type of meaning in the death of Emerson's five year-old son, Waldo. I've read it several times now. It is a long piece and the language is a bit tough for me. Sometimes I don't make it all the way through in one reading. On some attempts I don't make it through because of emotions. On other attempts I think too hard about the meaning and my head begins to hurt. Over time and reading I was able to discern and take away an understanding of the various parts of the poem, although I could never have articulated them until reading something from a paper I found online.

I wish it was as easy as lifting the conclusions of this great thinker whom I admire and making them my own, but it isn't. There is no short cut through grief. As I am reminded in a new song by a favorite band of mine, "The best way out of hell is through the other side". Emerson seems to have made it through his hell and found a type of peace with his loss. In the end, I think it is likely the only type of peace one can make with the loss of a child. It can't be overcome, it has to be made a part of yourself that you can tolerate and live with. It isn't an easy process and that is what I like about the poem. I get a sense of the Emerson's journey with grief. It isn't my journey. Everyone's is obviously different, but the similarities are clear and since I don't have the tools to articulate my journey, I point myself and anyone that reads this to his.

The text of Threnody.

Excerpts taken from "Emerson: Death and Growth", Stephen Barnes (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale).

To conclude, then, allow me to offer a brief reading of Emerson’s poem "Threnody," written as a lamentation on Waldo’s death, which I believe encapsulates many, if not all, of the above themes. The first part of the poem is a questioning. It is the work of Power seeking to understand. Emerson cries out to Nature to heal his son as it heals itself through the ongoing process of seasonal renewal. But he knows this cannot be: "Nature, who lost, cannot remake him," and he writes that, "Fate let him fall."

Emerson continues, bemoaning that he misses the sights and sounds of Waldo’s presence. The loss, however, is always the fault of the world: "Perchance not he but Nature ailed, / The world and not the infant failed." Perhaps Waldo’s genius was too much for the world; perhaps he "Brought the old order into doubt / His beauty once their beauty tried."

It may well be the case that Waldo’s Power was too great. He questioned the Form of the world through his beauty, energy, and activity. He, for Emerson, caused the balance between Form and Power to waiver. The battle, the chase threatened to come to an end. Unable to bear this possible end, the world caused Waldo’s end. In effect, he was simply too great to be supported by this mortal realm.

In the second half of the poem, the "deep Heart" answers Emerson. He is not to learn from past "tutors" but from the "joyful eye" of Waldo. The beauty of his son gives him fresh insight, a new life, in much the same way as the Christ of Scripture, "Mary’s Son, Boy Rabbi, Israel’s paragon."

Waldo, thus, has not truly left. He remains present in Emerson’s being; he is one with Emerson’s deep Heart. Furthermore, Death acted as a healer. Otherwise, Waldo’s beauty and genius would have been too much for the world, destroying all its limitations: "My servant Death, with solving rite, / Pours finite into infinite."

So despite the fact that the need for Nature’s limitations (such as his son’s disease) caused Waldo’s death, Emerson is told not to close himself off to the world: "Wilt though not ope thy heart to know / What rainbows teach, and sunsets show?"

We have no reason to despair because the world, or Nature, or Fate is "Not of adamant and gold" but is of warm, flowing, organic being. It changes and grows, "Built of furtherance and pursuing, / Not of spent deeds, but of doing."

In this way, the world and Emerson are always in process, regrowing, and recreating themselves. His suffering is thus not overcome, but rather folded into him, allowing Emerson to transcend the absurdity of his condition through the salvific powers of continuity with his past. He no longer strives to feel and forget – in other words, to overcome. Rather, he grows, embracing the horror of his loss as inseparable from his new life, in all of its wounded possibility.

Group grief

We have attended two group meetings facilitated by counselor for parents who have recently lost their children. I know that I have written here before about how torn I always was on how closely to read other children's stories or how close I wanted to be to other parents through forums and such. I was very skeptical about how much I might get out of these group sessions versus how painful they might be.

After two meetings, I'm pleasantly surprised that I get something out of them. I don't hold hope that they will help in any great way to heal this wound or to hasten through the worst of the grieving process. I certainly wouldn't say it was a fun way to spend 1.5 hours. I have, so far, gotten something positive out of just talking to people with this awful shared experience. I have spoken and chatted with friends about what my days are like and the challenges I face to make it through them. When I have, I have received love. I have received sympathy. My friends have given me what they can and should as friends. But they haven't nodded their head in understanding. They haven't been able to say, "I feel or do the same thing". It is an odd thing. Intellectually I know I'm not the only one feeling this way or struggling in that way. Intellectually I don't think that I need confirmation of that. But when I sit with these other grieving parents and see their heads nod when I talk about struggling through a workday, or I can relate to the things they say, then something clicks. I can't say that thing that clicks is something that feels good, but there is an odd sort of comfort that it provides.

Impossible

It is impossible to explain what it is like to watch Nathan slipping away. Some of the routine begins to feel normal, like this weak and withdrawn Nathan is the "real" Nathan and then little things creep into the day that really hit hard. Some of them just rip out your heart like seeing him reach out to hold his baby sister's hand when she comes to sit next to him while he lies in bed watching TV. I tend to feel so profoundly sad over the tender moments like that. Lauren is one. My earliest sketchiest memories begin at around three. She will grow up hearing about Nathan through us, but she won't have her own memories of her big brother.

It is also so hard to see him struggle to do things that he should be able to do. I just watched him wear out from putting about five or six pieces of Legos together. He had to push on some of the pieces pretty hard. I could see the tendons straining in his rail thin arms. It seems that he sometimes has a hard time focusing on the pieces to get them in the right place. He said he wanted to finish putting the helicopter together tomorrow and closed his eyes and fell asleep.

To-Do

To-Do List:

1. Explain to seven year old son that he is dying. (The books and the hospice people say he already knows.)
2. Explain to five year old daughter that her beloved big brother is dying.

The don't teach this stuff in parenting school. Perhaps they do. I assumed I could handle the whole parenting thing without formal training.

Tough days

Nathan has been very uncomfortable the last two days. We can't and wouldn't want to let him suffer, so we give the pain meds pretty freely when he hurts. It has knocked him out, but eased his pain and comforted him some. I can't describe how terrible it is to have him just asleep upstairs while we go on about our business (our business of mostly being emotionally unstable and trying to just get through with the girls). It is this horribly strange situation. He lays upstairs unable to be an active part of the family without being in terrible pain. The pain and sleep steal precious time. Its like he is halfway gone already on those days. Every day, hour, minute, second...the cancer marches on. He gets thinner and thinner. It breaks my heart every time I pick him up to carry him to a new position or to the bathroom and I realize how he is becoming easier to carry as he sheds pounds.

There are still the smiles on the good days. We could sure use one of those again soon. And even on the bad days there are still the quiet and insightful remarks that are Nathan's trademark. Perhaps we can get a handle on what is causing this increased pain and get him comfortable and somewhat active again. That is my current hope and prayer.

I don't want to have to miss him already, but its hard not to as he lays asleep in his room.

Struggling

Things have been tough lately. Nathan's quality of life has really slipped over the last week+. We don't know exactly what is going on and it is tough to determine how much we really want or need to know. If you read his journal you know that he is generally exhausted, has experienced increased discomfort in his legs, and is just really run down and tired.

These developments aren't unexpected. They are very expected. We don't know that things will decline steadily from here, but that is clearly the fear. And it is tough fear to cope with. To be honest, we've had a longer period of relative normalcy than I expected after coming home from NYC at Christmas, but it hasn't been as long as I had hoped for.

I'm personally not dealing all that well. I'm not finding the balance between doing the things I need to do to keep myself functioning and giving the time and love that I need to give to the kids. Getting it right it is an impossible task, but I have to get closer. All family time is sacred in its own way. The time right now, no matter how hard or how scary it is, is more sacred.

I'm also struggling with work. I sit down and I work but my head is so scattered. I can't switch between tasks without getting lost. I'll read the same paragraph over and over before the meaning will sink in. I'll look at code that I wrote and am familiar with and it will just baffle me. Its like I have to bang and bang and bang any detail or understanding into my head. I feel like tasks that used to be easy are now difficult. I do what I can and the people I work with and for are very supportive, but its crunch time and I find myself not able to come through. It is a terrible cycle. I feel emotionally distraught because of my personal life so my work suffers so I feel emotionally bad about that.

And when things are really bad, how do you answer that seemingly innocent and casual, "How are you?", greeting that people have for you?

2073

Sometimes I write something and think it captures what things are like and possibly gives readers a glimpse into the life and how it is for me. Most of the time I fail. There is a Boston cancer dad, Will's Dad, that really just hits the nail on the head in a lot of his writing.

Many people have asked me about our summer plans lately. We don't make plans. We avoid plans. Planning is bad. Planning brings the fear and the worry bubbling right on up. Will Lacey's father nailed it in his post, Save the date! Nov 28 2073. He called a preschool to prepare for Will's entry in the Fall.

If I just called a restaurant to book a reservation for my 100th birthday celebration in 2073 I would feel less awkward and weird than I do right now after that call. In any event, we’ve been asked to call so we’ve done it.

That is exactly it. That is how I feel about any talk that involves Nathan's future, no matter how soon in the future the talk may be about.

When basketball sucks

Yesterday Nathan got dressed in his "basketball clothes" in the morning. It was a nice, warm day and he put on a satiny sleeveless shirt and matching shorts. One of the first things he did was to suggest that we play basketball. I love basketball. I love to just shoot around and I love to play. But when Nathan wants to play, no matter how hard I try, I dread it. "Playing basketball" with Nathan and Julia consists of me shooting around, maybe the kids throwing it into a little kiddy hoop, the kids dribbling and throwing it to me, and occasionally me lowering the rim and lifting them up to dunk. It should be fun.

In the afternoon I pulled the hoop down into the cul-de-sac. Julia wanted to sit under the hoop and coach. I shot for a few minutes. Nathan ran around, dribbled it some, and tried to take shots at the big hoop. After a few minutes his legs were so "tired" that he really had to struggle to get up off the ground if he had to bend down to pick up the ball. He sat down to rest and then quit.

I played hours and hours of basketball with my Dad and brother when I was growing up. Josh and I would shoot, play H-O-R-S-E, tips or play one-on-one. When Dad played we would sometimes play H-O-R-S-E, but twenty-one was the family game. I have such amazing memories of humid Illinois summer nights playing in fading light on the gravel driveway with a backboard bolted to an old telephone pole. My memories of growing taller than my father are tied to basketball. It was a big deal when I was strong enough, tall enough, and quick enough to beat my Dad at twenty-one. Those games were hard fought and often ended in Josh or I storming off. Gentry men (and boys) do not like to lose, or to not do something as well as they feel they should be able to. Dad was always the favorite during those high school years when we were all around enough to play. He always had the better shot and he lived by the free-throw line. I bet there was something bittersweet about seeing his boy get big enough and be able to beat him occasionally with growing skill and the advantages of youth. As a parent I can now project a bit and while I can imagine it was bittersweet, I bet it was more sweet than bitter.

Truth be told, even without his illness I think Jules is our most athletic child. My growing up basketball memories are about my brother and my relationship with my Dad. There is no reason that I won't have great experiences with my daughters around sports and athletics, but they aren't going to be as big as me. And I won't compete with them (or they with me perhaps) the way I hoped to with a son. With Nathan.

So when Nathan wants to "play basketball" and share and be a part of basketball with me, as much as I know I should embrace it, I can't help but to feel cheated. There are a lot of things and times where I can let go and just enjoy the moment and have fun. Driveway basketball is such an integral part of my memories and my experiences as a son in the father-son relationship that I just can't get there.

And the voice

All four first grades at Nathan's elementary school participated in a musical last night entitled "Marsh Music". There were ninety-four first graders participating and two "featured" roles. Nathan snagged one of those featured roles and he even had a line to memorize. He did fabulous...of course.

I had a wonderful time watching Nathan and the rest of his schoolmates. I just tried to soak it in, just like I try to soak it in when he sings in "big church" with his choir. I'm going to miss a lot more performances by Nathan than I will ever get to see. That reality can put a lot of pressure and odd emotion on the ones that we are experiencing in the here and now. Last night, for me at least, Lauren was a big factor in just settling in to enjoy it. She absolutely loved the entire thing. She perked up and paid attention as soon as the kids started singing and she clapped along to each song and applauded with the crowd at the end of the songs. For awhile she was even up dancing along in the aisle. She giggled and directed and when she recognized her big brother out there in front of all the other kids she laughed and pointed. It was a good night.



Nathan's line was:

And the voice was a varied and stirring one that ought to be better known.

As he was memorizing and practicing the line it struck me that Nathan has a wonderful voice that won't get the opportunity to be well known. As I thought about it more I'm taking some comfort in that Nathan's story and spirit are known to many through the wonderful community of people that has grown to support him and our family. It is a cold comfort but I guess I'll take what I can.

Best "featured blackbird" ever.

(Cross-posted to A Night in the Box and Cancer Dad)

Emphasis on happy

I was just reading and thinking about a post by another cancer dad blogger. He was writing about not missing today because of fear/anger/resentment about lost time in the future. This is something I've thought a lot about and strive to manage myself. Its hard. Intellectually I get it, but sometimes the depression, anger, and stress are too powerful to overcome.

Buried in this father's words was a powerful point, and one that I had never quite thought about in the way it was presented. This is what I took away. We all hope for a long and happy life for ourselves and our loved ones. Nathan isn't going to have a long life. There isn't anything at all that I or anyone else can do to change that. Take the "long" out of the hopes and what is left is "happy". I might just be able to help Nathan have that. And, for that matter, Julia, Lauren, and Susan. I don't want to preach about the false sense of security and longevity we all feel. It may be tired and almost cliche to say that this fight has taught me that you never know what lies in store for you and how much time you or your loved ones have, but, well, it is the truth.

I'm going to struggle harder against the negative emotions of this all and just try to focus on bringing the happy.

Goodbye Gemma

I've met children that have died from this disease. I've followed the stories of lots of kids that have died from this disease. Gemma was different. I'm always sad when I hear that they are gone, but with Gemma we had a special bond. We met her and her wonderful family this past Fall in NYC. She was an amazing and beautiful little girl from Barcelona. She immediately found a place in our hearts and in a short time we grew to love her.

Gemma died on January 25, 2007.

Goodbye, Gemma. We love you.

It's time to go home, Daddy

Tonight after we did our nightly medicine and bedtime routine, Nathan buried his head into his pillow and began to cry. I climbed into bed with him and pulled him close and held him. After awhile he calmed down a little bit and I told him I loved him. He told me he loved me too. Then I asked him if there was anything I could do for him and he just said through his tears, "It's time to go home, Daddy".

He settled down and said he wanted to go to sleep. I went and sat and the bathroom and cried.

The Tragic (or why I talk and attempt to blog this stuff)

The intellect is a consoler, which delights in detaching, or putting an interval between a man and his fortune, and so converts the sufferer into a spectator, and his pain into poetry. It yields the joys of conversation, of letters, and of science.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Tragic

The easy way out

We have one test result this week that would make Nathan ineligible to continue on this protocol. He improved after round 1 and remained stable after round 2. The doctor thinks we should continue if we can for the last round he would be eligible for. That probably means an additional week or two in the hospital (Nathan has been in 14 days as of today). I'm not very hopeful that another round will do any good considering we didn't make progress this last time. The doctor seems to think it could. My head says that if there is a chance it could help then of course we should do it. There is a huge part of me that just wants to be done and go home. I could never have even subconsciously hoped for disease progression to throw him off of the study, but if I look deep (probably not so deep actually), I have to admit to myself that part of me hopes that he has built up a resistance to the treatment and that he will be forced off-study.

I'm sick of not having the family together with Nathan in here with one parent and the other one of us out with Julia and Lauren. I'm sick of sleeping in the hospital. I'm sick of seeing Nathan spending his time in the hospital when he should be home in school, going to church, playing with friends, etc. And more than anything I think I'm so very tired from the weight of three plus years worth of making life and death decisions regarding Nathan's care and treatment. I don't think I would feel so bad if the looming decision made itself for us. That would be the easy way out and as of right now, I'm okay with that. I *think* I might actually feel better about having the decision made rather than agonizing over balancing the two weeks of continued hard hospital time over what seems a slight chance of getting some headway out of a third round.

Thoughts of home

I was hit with a serious bout of homesickness last night. I've been homesick in the important sense of wanting to be at home in a normal environment for my family. Last night I couldn't help but think about and actively miss specific physical comforts of home. There are obvious ones like the classic "my own bed", but I was thinking about a lot of other things too. In one of those near dream experiences when you are hovering between awake and asleep I took a virtual walk through our house in my mind. I felt that I missed even something as basic as the layout and floorplan of the house. I felt really homesick as I walked past my guitar hanging on the living room wall. As I walked through the family room I thought about the shows on our Tivo that have probably starting rolling over so we won't have the episodes from where we left off watching. In the kids room I felt really sad as I saw Julia's Raggedy Ann blanket lying on the floor. When she and I are home alone we snuggle/cuddle on that blanket on the floor before she goes to bed. The blanket has a little pouch where it can all be folded up into a pillow. Each night before bed she was putting Soccery (a pink and white Nike soccer ball given to her by the wonderful friend Ouida) to bed in that pouch after we cuddled. I could go on. I'm sure the comforts of home are intertwined with the emotional aspects, as clearly evident in missing a child's Raggedy Ann blanket, but I haven't ever really experienced such a strong recollection and emotional response to the physical things from home.

Susan has been here without a trip back a lot longer than I have. So has Nathan obviously. I can't imagine longer emotionally difficult separations like military deployment. I don't mean to be whiny. I know it could be worse. But bad is bad enough for me.

Deja Vu - Julia knows too much

Back in June I posted about Julia's concerns for Nathan. When she and I were driving home after dropping the rest of the family at the airport to head to NY to get the scans that would ultimately show his current "relapse", she dropped the "Sometimes kids die" bomb seemingly out of the blue. As noted in that post, when I asked her why she was thinking about that, she totally punted and said she "didn't know".

Well, as we were driving back from Denver yesterday after having dropped off the rest of the family to head to NY for Nathan's treatment, Julia says to me, "Sometimes kids die". Again I asked her why she was thinking about that. She gave me some story about cars sometimes hitting trees and hurting people. It is so hard to know how deep to go with the kids about serious issues. I tend to take their lead and go as far as they want/need to go. I think it is pretty clear that she is piecing it all together, but that she doesn't quite want to take the train of thought/conversation to its logical conclusion.

She has shown some other signs that could be coincidence, but may not be, along these lines. Apparently when we were away on our last trip she talked a lot about missing Lauren, but little or none about Nathan. Earlier this week she was listing members of our family and omitted Nathan (This one could easily be a coincidence. She doesn't always keep lists and things like that organized in her mind.).

I suppose it goes without saying that I have a lot of fear and concern about Julia. I worry about how our family's focus on Nathan impacts her emotionally and I worry about how it will impact her if we lose Nathan. So we just keep doing the best we can and will continue to do so. Sometimes our best isn't good enough. Trust me on that one. Sometimes our best isn't good enough.

A new attitude

There are some really interesting mixed reactions to our latest news. This can be seen at Nathan's guestbook. Essentially, there is no change in Nathan's disease since the relapse was found in June. Since then he has had two rounds of chemo, one of which we knew probably wasn't effective. I find the reactions pretty interesting. On one hand, I think there are some people that are probably "just getting it". This is really the first example of treatment that didn't knock the disease back. Also, I think perhaps writing that the doctor seriously told us that doing nothing was an option was a bit of a reality hit for some people. My emotions are clearly conflicted on this. It hit me a bit hard in the moment of hearing that the disease was basically the same, even though going in we knew that the point of the big shot of chemo we did was to keep the disease from progressing so that we had at least some treatment options available. So, was the news bad or good? I think for the people that haven't quite realized or let themselves believe that this disease will take Nathan's life, it was pretty bad. In the sense that we do have at least a couple of options on the table because he hadn't progressed, it was good. By any reasonable standard though, I suppose the news was bad. The cancer is there and it is "impressive". That just equals bad. It always will. It can be nothing but bad. I'm trying to have a new and improved attitude though. I think I'll feel better when we know for sure what the schedule to start a new treatment will be. Unfortunately that depends on some red tape around a clinical trial. Once it is all solid, I'll try on my new attitude. That is the one where I'm grateful to be able to do something that may prolong our time with Nathan.

The constant struggle

Today, like many days, I can't help but ponder one of the toughest things about all of this for me. I think there is a bit of a paradox buried here, and like any paradox it is a bit difficult to wrap my head around. I have always said that the most important things to me were my relationships with family and friends. I'm pretty sure I always meant and felt that, but I clearly feel that so much more strongly now. These relationships and the very lives of the people that I have them with can be fleeting. That is just one of those very harsh realities of life. So I am acutely aware of how important people and my relationships are to me, but the area of my life that seems to be impacted the most adversely is exactly my relationships with those closest to me.

Every day everyone has to work at these things. Working on them with the weight of the stress, sadness, and grief over the loss of how I expected my life as a husband and father to be is very difficult.