The Caring Catalyst

BOO BOO’S

ChuckBehrens — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 11:00:49 +0000

T E A R S
it seems like the one thing that the World and all of its inhabitants actually universally share, no mater who we are or how tough or weak we think we are
e s p e c i a l l y
when someone we love dies. . .

This past week I was doing a funeral for an elderly man who had no immediate family, but he had cousin-in-laws and their families who came to celebrate his life.

I’ve long believed that the thing about weddings and now funerals, is that the the only thing that’s traditional about either of them, is that there is nothing traditional about either of them anymore. No two day visitations and the third day a funeral. A lot of the funerals that I conduct (usually 26 a month) sometimes are months down the road, (like the two I already have scheduled the day after Thanksgiving)

This particular funeral had the person having died three weeks ago, but it was the only time everyone could actually come together because of out of town circumstances. There were less than 15 people attending, including the 6 children of various ages.

I was tempted to just have us literally circle the chairs and just talk about “George.” There was no a somber tone to the service especially with the little ones literally running around and just as I finished the short welcome and opening prayer, 2 and 1/2 yr old Xavier comes running over to me, full sprint with arms open wide and jumps up into my arms. Mind you, I’ve never met this family or this little guy. There was a gasp from the family and then laughter as he shouted out, “I LOVE YOU!”

My service towards to him as I told him how happy I was that he was there and that I got to meet him. As he wiggled out of my arms he reached into his pocket and pulled out a mangled band-aid and put it on my shoe
And he before I could thank him, he told me if was for my Boo Boo and then hugged my leg and said, “ALL BETTER”

The reaction was mixed horrified but mostly laughter. How could you not “Ahhhhh” that?

Before we finished the celebration of “George” Xavier was back in my arms waving at everybody which ended with a loud B E L C H. . .
G R I E F
comes to us in so many different ways,
NOT ALWAYS SAD
In his own way,
Xavier taught us a valuable lesson
that the famous poet, Robert Frost
once tried to share with us long ago
when he said that all he knows about life can be summed up in 3 words:
“IT GOES ON”

When Xavier’s parents and grandparents came up to me following the service, red-faced and apologetic, I thanked them for BRINGING Xavier instead of having him at home or back at the hotel with a babysitter, to prove again, LIFE GOES ON as it does. He showed us all that we walk around with Boo Boo’s that may not be in need of band-aids so much as hugs that make us feel, “ALL BETTER”

. . .on the way home, band-aid still on my shoe, I thought, when’s the last time I BROUGHT that and grateful then and now, that Xavier, my small
Caring Catalyst friend,
D I D

S U M M E R I N G

ChuckBehrens — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 11:00:11 +0000

I am not the only one who
THINKS
or most certainly
F E E L S
I T. . .

But I keep looking for the rest of Summer
as soon as the last sparkler loses its sparkle
on the 4th of July
which got me to thinking about things
a little beyond Summer
and this one Summer of 2023
being the last one any of us will
ever live. . .
h e n c e:

100 Summers

100 Summers from now
I’ll be gone
and so will everyone
I know and love
(and you too, dear reader)
My name won’t be
remembered or spoken
The Okay-ness
of this is that after
100 Summers gone
is there’ll be as many
Falls, Winters and Springs
taking their places as
100 Seasons before
without much explanation
(recently written for a 15 poems in 10 day challenge for local gems)

Uhhhhhhhhh
days gone by
are never really days
g o n e. . . .

D o s t a d n i n g

ChuckBehrens — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 11:00:20 +0000

I was doing some DOSTADNING lately and I found an article I had tucked away from some 5 years ago from Time Magazine and I thought it was more than appropriate to share with you during a Wednesday Blog Post which I always try to feature some educational piece on how to be better Caring Catalysts in all phases and forms of our lives

DOSTADNING, is a Swedish hybrid of the words for death and cleaning. And as morbid as it sounds, that’s exactly what death cleaning is: the process of cleaning house before you die, rather then leaving it up to your loved ones to do after you’re gone.

A book called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning makes the case that the task isn’t morbid at all. Author Margareta Magnusson—a Swedish artist who describes herself as somewhere between age 80 and 100—says it’s “more like a relief,” and that it has benefits you can enjoy while you’re still very much alive.

“Generally people have too many things in their homes,” says Magnusson in a YouTube video posted by the book’s publisher. “I think it’s a good thing to get rid of things you don’t need.” Magnusson says she’s always death cleaned, “because I want to have it nice around me, keep some order.”

Magnusson says people should start thinking about death cleaning as soon as they’re old enough to start thinking about their own mortality. “Don’t collect things you don’t want,” she says. “One day when you’re not around anymore, your family would have to take care of all that stuff, and I don’t think that’s fair.”

The Death Cleaning method bears similarities to that of the tidying-up guru Marie Kondo: Keep what you love and get rid of what you don’t. But while Kondo tells people to trash, recycle or donate what they discard, Magnusson recommends giving things you no longer want to family and friends “whenever they come over for dinner, or whenever you catch up with them,” reports the Australian website Whimn.

However, Magnusson does advocate for keeping sentimental objects like old letters and photographs. She keeps a “throw-away box,” which she describes as things that are “just for me.” When she dies, her children know they can simply throw that box away, without even looking through its contents.

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning is out for U.S. publication If the trend catches on stateside, it could be a good way for families to discuss sensitive issues that might otherwise be hard to bring up, says Kate Goldhaber, a family therapist and assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Loyola Medicine. I am already working this into one of my presentations, THE SPIRITUALITY OF DEATH AND DYING

“It seems like a nice, proactive approach to facilitating cooperation and communication among families early on in the aging process, when you’re not too entrenched in the difficult parts later on,” says Goldhaber. “There can also be something very empowering and healthy about taking care of your own space and making it more organized while you’re still around.”

Death cleaning may have benefits for the cleaners themselves, and not just for their loved ones, says Goldhaber. Some research suggests that clutter in the home can raise stress levels and reduce productivity. As adults get older, having a house full of stuff may also raise their risk for falls and create other health and safety hazards.

Goldhaber points out that many people may engage in a type of death cleaning without calling it that—when they downsize from a large house to a small apartment as they get older, for instance. “It’s a new way of thinking about the grunt work that comes along with those transitions, which can be really stressful,” she says.

If bringing up the concept of death with aging loved ones still feels wrong, Goldhaber suggests rephrasing the idea. “If you present it as, ‘Let’s organize the house so it’s a more enjoyable place for you to live and for us to have holidays,’ it might be better received than ‘Let’s throw away your stuff now so we don’t have to sort through it later,’” she says. “It can be fun, even late in life, to redecorate and declutter, and it can be a great thing for families to do together.”

Magnusson says that death cleaning is an ongoing process that’s never truly finished. “You don’t know when you are going to die, so it goes on and on,” she says in the video.

Her daughter chimes in, stating the obvious: Death cleaning ends with death. Magnusson laughs and nods. “Then it stops,” she says, “of course, finally.”

Maybe we all need to be doing some serious DOSTNADING before we die
but as we live
know that before we put anything in a box
OURSELVES INCLUDED
K N O W
t h a t
DEATH IS NOT THE LAST THING THAT HAPPENS TO US
Our lives
as we know them
will not continue as we know them
b u t
SHELVED AND BOXED
we will not be. . .

Because as we pass on
WE PASS ON
(all we are)
(all others hope to keep of us)

A HOPELESSLY DEVOTED CARING CATALYST

ChuckBehrens — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 11:00:12 +0000

I was in college and trying to pay my way through as best as I could when of all things my grandmother, Vi got me a job that no one knew the implications. It was working at a Pipe/Tobacco store where I sold expensive Meerschaum pipes down to ones that look like Popeye would toke on in between downing cans of spinach.

The real behind the scenes stuff was the great stuff. . .I would cover for Charlie my boss, who was either out cheating on his wife or playing poker with the boys when his wife would call and he’d look the other way when I took REESES CUPS and SNICKERS for dinner; it was a good deal made better when the Pipe shop would close and I would go a half of a block down the street to his retail store where he sold a host of mostly unnecessary plastic objects and a few vinyl records. It was there that I sold hundreds of Olivia Newton-John’s records:

I never tagged her as Country-Western but that’s the section Charlie wanted to peg her under and I spent a lot of time hitting the cash register tune of glorious sales for him and her.

THIS is hardly what anyone would remember about Olivia Newton-John after hearing of her death earlier this week. WHAT IS BEING REMEMBERED AND CELEBRATED is just what a ferocious Caring Catalyst she has always been. Having been diagnosed with Breast Cancer well over 30 years ago, she never took the “WHY ME?” stance or the “I WILL NEVER DIE” denial position; Olivia made sure that something way past her last song would not just be remembered but used her platform to become an advocate, a Caring Catalyst for all cancers–spending tons of time, energy, and money building research organizations, clinics, and more.

Craig Marshall is a guy I met through National Speakers Association who often tells the story:

There’s still Olivia Newton-John…. When I was a monk, I had an coaching session with a man that told me the saddest story I ever heard. He’d been in a car accident, which killed several of his children. His wife was in a coma for months and then died. He lost his job and his dog died. It was sad beyond words. But when he ended telling me his litany of loss, he paused and looked at me and whist-fully said, “But you know what? There’s still Olivia Newton-John!” Years went by, and I found myself sitting at an outdoor restaurant table in Malibu, designing a book cover with my good friend Fred Segal.

After discussing some graphic possibilities, Freddie said, “We’re guys. We need some different input,” and he yelled over to two ladies sitting at a nearby table, “Come over here please.” They came over, sat down, and Fred started asking them about what they thought his book cover should look like. After awhile, for whatever, reason, everyone at the table got up and began talking to friends who’d entered the restaurant, leaving me alone with this poised blonde lady with an English/Australian accent. It suddenly hit me, and I said, “Are you Olivia Newton-John?” and she said yes. I told her, “I’m so glad to meet you because I want to share with you a story of a man who lost almost everything in life, but clung to you as his only inspiration.”

Olivia was always charming, and I ended up hosting several workshops at her home. She was always thoughtful, genuine and just lovely.

I don’t know why people hope their departing loved ones “rest in peace”. I wish for Olivia great music, great fun, and great friends. Her smile is what I’ll remember. It was so dazzling that she never needed to wink. Like that guy, I also believe that there will always be Olivia Newton-John.

ONE OUT OF ONE OF US DIES
is one of the harshest realities ”
any of us with a pulse
will ever wrestle
B U T
there’s something that
goes beyond the Life
we live here
and that’s the
L I F E
and that’s the
E X I S T E N C E
we inspire
in others
even make possible
way after we are gone
. . .that’s a huge part of what it means to be a Caring Catalyst
to begin in others
what will outlast us and even them
but never goes into extinction
as long as we keep sharing our very Best
for the Best of everyone else. . .
Yes, there’s still Olivia Newton-John
a Hopelessly Devoted Caring Catalyst

THE COST OF LOVE

ChuckBehrens — Wed, 13 Jul 2022 11:00:57 +0000

There are never any tears. . .
There is no sense of loss. . .
There isn’t any sadness. . .
“GRIEF” and “BEREAVEMENT” don’t exist
U N L E S S
There is a LOVE greater than all of these things together
that even makes the tears possible. . .

Losing a Loved One Can Be

Life-Threatening

TARA LAW from Time Magazine recently reported what we know, what we know that we know but don’t always act or maybe fully know the full power of what we know when it comes to losing someone we love

Grief can exact a heavy toll on a person’s health. People are more likely to die when they’re in mourning than in ordinary times, a phenomenon that’s so well known it has its own name in scientific literature: the “widowhood effect.” That’s partly due to the negative changes that can affect the heart during mourning. Grief activates the nervous system, including the part that triggers the body’s “flight or fight” response—which, when it’s over-stimulated, has been linked to heart failure.

Now, a study published July 6 in JACC: Heart Failure adds to the evidence that losing a loved one isn’t just painful: it can also be life-threatening. Researchers reviewed health and family data from national databases for about 491,000 Swedish patients with heart failure between 1987 and 2018, who were followed for about four years on average. People who had lost a family member were significantly more likely to die over that time period compared to people who had not lost a loved one, and the riskiest time by far was the week after the loss.

Most of these deaths during bereavement were due to heart failure (although bereavement was most closely associated with an increase in so-called “unnatural” deaths like suicide). People were at higher risk for dying of heart failure when someone very close to them died. The death of a spouse or partner increased the risk by 20%, the death of a child by 10%, and the death of a sibling by 13%, although the loss of a parent did not increase the risk of death. The risk was especially high for people who endured two losses during the period studied—a 35% increased risk, compared to 28% for a single loss.

The first week after a loss was the most dangerous. During that time, people who had lost a loved one had a 78% increased risk of dying from heart failure compared to people who weren’t grieving—and a 113% increased risk over the first week if the person had lost a spouse or partner. “When the shock is highest, we see a stronger effect,” says study co-author Krisztina Laszlo, an associate professor from the department of global public health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. That squares with what other studies have found, says Dr. Gregg Fonarow, director of the Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center (who was not connected with the study). “The risk of death after the loss of a loved one is most elevated in the first few weeks and over the first year,” he says.

The researchers were somewhat surprised to find that losing a spouse seemed to exert a greater effect than losing a child, although that may be because the average age of people with heart failure in the study was 79, says Laszlo. “At this age, one doesn’t have such a large network, and if one loses their spouse…that may impact the quality of life much more.”

Researchers have long known that grief can cause physical changes to the heart. People who live through a very stressful event—such as the loss of a spouse or partner—sometimes develop stress cardiomyopathy, also known as broken heart syndrome, or takotsubo cardiomyopathy. (“Takotsubo” is the Japanese word for an octopus trap, the shape the heart takes under severe emotional distress.) Broken heart syndrome usually only lasts for a short period, but it can cause symptoms that resemble a heart attack, including chest pain and shortness of breath; part of the heart enlarges, and the heart pumps blood abnormally.

Laszlo says that these negative changes—as well as others, such as how grief affects the nervous and neuroendocrine systems—may contribute to the higher rate of death immediately after loss identified in her study. After a loved one’s death, people sometimes make behavioral changes, like drinking more and exercising less, that could also drive up the death rate among grieving people, she adds. However, even though the scientists attempted to control for confounding variables, the researchers couldn’t entirely rule out that something besides grief could be at play. Risk factors like poor diet tend to cluster in families, for example.

Nevertheless, Laszlo points to several signs in the data that suggest the outsize role of grief, including the fact that losing someone closer was linked to a higher risk of death. The researchers found that there was an association between grief and death even if family members died from unnatural causes.

While the topic warrants further research, the study is a reminder for family members and heath care providers that people need increased support after losing a loved one. Loss can have a profound effect on people, says Laszlo. “Death is just the tip of the iceberg,” she says. “It denotes there is serious suffering.”

The Truth is Brutal:
PEOPLE DIE
. . .BUT OUT LOVE DOESN’T
DEATH
takes a person
but it never takes a Relationship
and that’s why the
COST OF LOVE
will never be a Debt
we won’t pay. . .

THIS IS US. . .ALL OF US

ChuckBehrens — Fri, 20 May 2022 11:00:05 +0000

Lots of people don’t watch TV|
Lots of people do. . .

Lots of people don’t watch
THIS IS US
Lots of people DO. . .

Some 4.97 Million watched this past Tuesday night
THE NEXT TO THE LAST SHOW
that had lots of
YOU-BETTER-GRAB-A-TOWEL
m o m e n t s
as we watched the matriarch, Rebecca Pearson
literally actively die in front of us
and what lots of hospice folks
COMPANION
(HOLD SPACE)
as a patient dies
and what they may be actually
(visioning)
feeling/seeing/sensing/experiencing
as they slip from this world
to the Great Whatever
lies beyond a last breath here
and a first breath
T H E R E

Nearly twenty-eight years of being a hospice chaplain has put me beside a lot of death beds of where I have companioned the dying and their loved ones. I applaud the writers and the actors for pulling back the curtain and giving us a fairly realistic look at what THAT moment looks like. . .a moment each one or us will experience, without all of the lights, cameras, action settings but in a more real, intimate, personal way because all of the evidence-based data shares the irrefutable:
ONE OUT OF ONE OF US DIES

And here’s where This Is Us Season 6, Episode 17 from this past Tuesday picks up. After a long battle with Alzheimer’s, Rebecca (Mandy Moore) passed, and the way her family told her goodbye was beautiful. Viewers were taken inside Rebecca’s psyche (literally) as she approached death. For her, this manifested in the form of a moving train. Rebecca was young on the train, and the passengers were people in her life, past and present. Meanwhile, in real life, as Rebecca’s family said their final goodbyes, they appeared on the train. And the person leading her through this experience (a.k.a the conductor on the train) was William (Ron Cephas Jones).

At the end of the episode, after the family members have said their last words to Rebecca, she reaches the train’s caboose. “This is quite sad, isn’t it?” she asks William. “The end?”

To this, William gives a beautiful, stunning speech to Rebecca. These are the last words she hears before going into the caboose (before she passes away). Read them in full, below:

“The way I see it, if something makes you sad when it ends, it must have been pretty wonderful when it was happening. Truth be told, I always felt it a bit lazy to just think of the world as sad, because so much of it is. Because everything ends. Everything dies. But if you step back, if you step back and look at the whole picture, if you’re brave enough to allow yourself the gift of a really wide perspective, if you do that, you’ll see that the end is not sad, Rebecca. It’s just the start of the next incredibly beautiful thing.”

With this, Rebecca hugs William and goes into the caboose, where a bed is waiting for. She lies down, and next to her is Jack (Milo Ventimiglia), reuniting the couple after decades of separation.

William’s speech epitomizes that moment—and it epitomizes This Is Us in general. If the show has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is forever. Any sadness or loss we saw the Pearsons experience in the present was always followed by a flash-forward, where we saw them happy, thriving, and doing just fine. Each storyline has shown us that no chapter is forever—the good ones end, and so do the bad ones. Life keeps moving, and we move with it. It’s a comforting message for anyone experiencing a hard time. Chapters always, always come to a close. The great poet Robert Frost once said, “ALL I KNOW ABOUT LIFE CAN BE SUMMED UP IN THREE WORDS: IT GOES ON!

It’s something Chris Sullivan (Toby) told NBC Insider when talking about the legacy of This Is Us. “From the first episode, they show you tragedy and pain, but they also shoot you into the future and show you, ‘Oh, this family’s OK,'” he said. “We jump back and forth and see, ‘Oh my gosh, this father died in a fire.’ Then, we jump forward and see, ‘Oh, this family’s OK.’ Tragedy and joy are held in both hands…Everything cycles around.”

Yes, it does. The series finale of This Is Us airs Tuesday, May 24 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.

Hey. . .it’s just TV, right. . .

YUP. Yeah, it is. . .until it isn’t

THIS IS US

ALL OF US

“If something makes you sad when it ends, it must have been pretty wonderful when it was happening”… and with that, one last car. The caboose.
This Is Us
(Now about THAT towel)

THE FUNERAL

ChuckBehrens — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 11:00:47 +0000

No matter what religion or spiritual path you follow (or don’t), there’s one topic that fascinates us all:What happens after we die?

Reincarnation? Eternal Heaven? Total blackness and non-existence? Something totally different?

No matter what we believe though, there’s a few basic facts about death that we all know to be true.

The first fact of death is the obvious:
We’ve all been born with a sexually transmitted disease
called: LIFE
and none of us gets out of here
A L I V E

YES. . . we are all going to die. Yes, every single person on this planet is going to die someday, somehow, somewhere.

The second fact is less obvious:

After we die, our lives will be etched in the hearts of others. We live eternally. Forever. In other people.

That’s what today’s video is really about.

It’s about the relationships we forge during our lives that are so powerful they impact people even after we die.

Today’s movie is called “The Funeral.” It starts with a little bit of humor, and it quickly goes deep and gets to the heart of the matter. . .a heart that beats like no other when filled with a love that death can’t begin to part let alone forget. . .

SO HERE’S THE DEAL:

THE DEEPER YOU LOVE
THE DARKER YOU HURT
so. . .
LOVE DEEPER, STILL
LOVE DEEPER, MORE
L O V E