Wednesday, December 2, 2009

tribute # 117 - acquaintance's brother

I've witnessed elders willing selves to die.
Hits home: a man in his prime. He pined
over weeks, refused food, water --
renal failure, frontal lobe brain damage.

Lesson: Only you can catch you. Only you
can prevent core-stressed spirals.

5 comments:

Rosemary Nissen-Wade said...

And only oneself can create them?

Pearl said...

no, not strictly speaking. Smokey the Bear says only you can prevent forest fires, which isn't exactly fair. the you is distributed to anyone who hears.

sometimes the body is pre-disposed to be tender and tinder and those around are aggravating the amount of stomping out smoke one needs to do.

one doesn't have to stop the fiery spirals alone, but in community.

But ultimate culpability is self-awareness, being circumspect when one can and getting assistance and stop gap measures, strategies and solutions to keep oneself from rings of fire.

Pearl said...

some in distress never take ownership only give a helpless hapless blame game as their plane goes down in spiraling smoke. it's easy enough to do when one is suffering concussive sort of wounds but to blame another for not saving, when one could have saved oneself, or to blame self for not saving another.

Wearing that guilt on behalf of the person who is suicidal the person who survives may take on more than their share when they had no part in the collision chains of randomness and choice that led to that difficult place. that is an unreasonable burden to place as well.

if only it had been this, if only that, then all would be perfect ... is an inactionable sort of mindset.

prevention, reaction, action plans for self are best.

Rosemary Nissen-Wade said...

I can't argue with the wisdom of any of these insights!

Pearl said...

thanks Rosemary.