CLEARING THE DECKS<\/p>\n
Back in the late eighties when AIDS\u00a0was a death sentence, I had a profound experience with a friend at Century City\u00a0hospital. He had written a play for teenagers about safe sex and AIDS, they\u00a0were performing it in schools all across the Los Angeles area, when he started\u00a0to feel sick. He called me that evening and said he was having trouble\u00a0breathing. I could hear it in his voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might just be a bad cold,\u201d I\u00a0said. \u201cEverybody gets colds.\u201d<\/p>\n
I knew what was happening. He was\u00a0worse the next morning so I took him to the hospital where they diagnosed him\u00a0with pneumocystis pneumonia, an infection brought on by the AIDS virus. His\u00a0prognosis was bad. He tried to make light of it. \u201cThe good news,\u201d he said,\u201d is\u00a0that I don’t have to find parking places any more.\u201d I tried to laugh.<\/p>\n
His condition went downhill. He was\u00a0allergic to the first IV antibiotic they prescribed, and the knowledge that he\u00a0had a fatal illness was extraordinarily anxiety producing. I was devastated.\u00a0This was the first time someone this close to me had contracted AIDS and I
didn\u2019t know how to cope with it. It was new and there wasn\u2019t much information\u00a0available and when I think back, I had a hard time containing my emotions.<\/p>\n
They changed his medicine and when\u00a0he began to breathe more easily, he starting making phone calls. Over the next two
weeks, he asked a number of people to come visit him who were not in his close\u00a0circle. I was stumped at first. I didn\u2019t understand what he was doing. But when\u00a0I was present for one of the visits, I realized what was going on. He was\u00a0seeing people with whom he had had misunderstandings or unresolved arguments\u00a0and he was making peace with them. He didn\u2019t want to die with grudges and\u00a0regrets. He wanted to heal the wounds, some that he had caused and others that\u00a0had been done to him, and he talked it out with each person.<\/p>\n
He looked lighter and more at ease\u00a0with each visit. He was clearing the decks, letting go and finding compassion\u00a0for his friends and for himself. One day when I was leaving the hospital, in\u00a0awe of the healing that he was doing, something occurred to me. I didn’t have
to wait until I was dying to make peace with the people in my life. I could\u00a0start where I was. We just never know how long we have here. We don’t know our\u00a0expiration date. We don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll have time to work things out or if\u00a0we\u2019ll die suddenly and leave things unfinished. I made a vow to myself to clear\u00a0up misunderstandings right then and there and make sure that whenever I said
good-bye to anyone, on the phone or in person, I made sure my friends knew that\u00a0I loved them.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been doing that ever since and\u00a0it feels right. But it isn’t always easy. When I decide I need to make peace,\u00a0there are some things I keep in mind.<\/p>\n
1. \u00a0 \u00a0When someone criticizes me, they’re talking about themselves so there\u2019s no reason to take anything personally.<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If something is bothering me, I speak up. I try to do it in a gentle way. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If I say something that is less than kind, I apologize.<\/p>\n
4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I try not to lie. If I have to lie about something, I probably shouldn\u2019t be doing it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This brings up the complicated\u00a0topic of forgiveness. We all engage in petty spats that are easily cleared up. But\u00a0there are also mean and aggressive actions that seem unforgiveable, no matter\u00a0how you look at it. In this case, clearing the decks seems an impossible task.
It might even feel like we shouldn’t have to do it. Why shouldn\u2019t people be\u00a0held responsible for actions that hurt us? Why should they be let off the hook?<\/p>\n
It’s a fair question. It brings up\u00a0the sentiment that I\u2019ve heard so often: if you don\u2019t forgive, it hurts you more\u00a0than the other person since you carry that burden in your heart.\u201d But that\u00a0doesn’t always sink in with me. Some things are simply unforgiveable so the\u00a0only path that feels doable to me is what I once heard a spiritual teacher say:\u00a0\u201cForgive the actor, not the act.\u201d<\/p>\n
When you make an attempt to release\u00a0your bad feelings, it\u2019s not a finite thing. Often, the anger and blaming rut\u00a0has been etched so deeply in our consciousness, we have to revisit it every day\u00a0and throw another shovel full of sand to fill in the hole. We have to forgive\u00a0over and over again. This takes time, another reason to start the process now.\u00a0Just like it doesn\u2019t matter who says \u201cI love you\u201d first, it doesn\u2019t matter who\u00a0reaches out to clear things up. Some people are not good at reaching out so\u00a0whoever finds the courage to do it needs to go first. In the end, the lightness\u00a0of being returns to both people, no matter who initiated the process.<\/p>\n
My friend left this earth at 32\u00a0years old, soon after he had made peace with himself and his friends. I\u2019m glad\u00a0for him. When I think of him now, he feels light and at ease, but I still have\u00a0some self-forgiving to do. Sometimes I think I was too overbearing and I
smothered him. Sometimes I see that I was his best friend. But whichever is\u00a0true, he\u2019s gone and the forgiving is up to me. A friend told me that when\u00a0someone dies, there is an opportunity to begin a whole new relationship with the\u00a0deceased. So I talk to myself and him, I try to soothe my heart, and I do my\u00a0best to be a compassionate listener and a good friend. What else is more
important?<\/p>\n
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CLEARING THE DECKS Back in the late eighties when AIDS\u00a0was a death sentence, I had a profound experience with a friend at Century City\u00a0hospital. He had written a play for teenagers about safe sex and AIDS, they\u00a0were performing it in schools all across the Los Angeles area, when he started\u00a0to feel sick. He called me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2198,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197\/revisions\/2198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}