life | Bertram's Blog

Finding My Place in the Publishing World

March 15, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been reading promotional materials (again!) looking for ways to increase book sales, and one of the articles, in a rehash of the idea of positive thinking, said that if you’re not satisfied with the way your writing career is going, don’t ever let it be known but speak and act as if you were a bestselling author.

In other words, don’t ever let people know the truth, and that goes against the spirit of this blog. I suppose it isn’t smart of me to talk about my struggles to find my place in the publishing world because it probably does show me in a negative light. In fact, one friend emailed me and said, “If you want to stop writing and pity yourself because you think you are a failed author, go ahead. That’s your choice.”

Regardless of how I come across, I am not negative or pessimistic. I have every intention of making my living as a writer, and if I thought claiming I were a bestselling author would get me there, I’d do it. Or maybe not. There are so many authors out there claiming to be more than they are that the world doesn’t need another one.

Despite the contention of my friend, I do not consider myself a failed author. In fact, I am a successful author. I’ve written five books that I’m proud of and that many people love. I just haven’t been able to turn them into financial successes yet.

I see myself on a writer’s journey, though I admit I’m going through a crisis of faith, struggling to find reasons to write. (I’m also struggling to find reasons to live, but that doesn’t make me a failed human being.) For some writers, writing is their reason for living, but although that isn’t my reason for living (I am not compelled to write; it’s something I choose to do), I have a hunch that my reason for living is tied up somehow with my reason for writing. (Writing fiction, that is. I do write every day for this blog, partly for the discipline of it and partly to help me figure out my place in the world, the world of grief, and the publishing world.)

I began writing fiction more than a decade ago as a means of bringing my dying life mate/soul mate in close. Someone who is dying drifts away until finally he begins to disconnect himself totally from life, and I couldn’t bear to let the disconnect from me happen sooner than it needed to. For several years, until he drifted too far away, I wrote at night, then read the passages to him in the morning, and he’d let me know if I nailed the scene, usually with a small, impish smile. If I didn’t get a passage quite right, I didn’t get a smile, but I got help figuring out where I went wrong.

That’s why I used to write — to see his smile. And that’s why writing has become such an angst-ridden subject for me. My reason for writing died when he did.

A friend (the same friend mentioned above now that I think of it) once sent me a snippet of a poem:

A voice calls, “Write, write!”
I say, “For whom shall I write.”
And the voice replies,
“For the dead whom thou didst love.”

—John Berryman

Maybe someday writing for the dead whom I didst love will be reason enough to write, but for now, I’m still searching for my place in the world and the publishing world. And if the search — or my angst — comes across as negative, so be it. Besides, when I start acting as if I am a bestselling writer, I want it to be for real.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Posted in blogging, culture, life, writing. Tags: being negative, failed author, positive thinking, reasons to live, reasons to write, successful author, writer's journey. 14 Comments »

Grief and Lingering Feelings of Resentment

March 14, 2013 — Pat Bertram

During the past three years, I have chronicled my journey through grief, trying to make sense of the myriad emotional and physical stresses one has to deal with after a major loss, such as the death of one’s child or life mate/soul mate. I’ve explained that grief is not the simple and almost clinical state that Kübler-Ross’s five (or seven) stages of grief seems to indicate. Instead, there seems to be an infinite shading of emotion in the process we call grief.

Some of us do feel shock, denial, anger, guilt, sadness, depression, and acceptance, but most of us also feel anxiety, frustration, loneliness, confusion, despair, helplessness, panic, questioning (both as a need to know why and as a cry of pain), loss or gain of faith, loss of identity, loss of self-esteem, resentment, bitterness, isolation, inability to focus, suspended animation, waiting for we know not what, envy of those who are still coupled or who have yet to suffer a loss. And we suffer myriad physical symptoms such as queasiness, dizziness, sleep problems (too much or too little), eating problems (too much or too little), bone-deep pain, inability at times to breath or swallow, exhaustion, lack of energy, restlessness, and seemingly endless bouts of tears.

Except for sadness, I thought I’d pretty much dealt with most of grief’s effects, but recently I’ve become aware of lingering feelings of resentment. I’m mostly over the resentment of those who are still coupled, with only an occasional twinge of self-pity when I see couples out walking together, and I thought I’d come to terms with my resentment of his long illness and his leaving me here to deal with grief alone, but apparently a pool of resentment still lies deep within.

I am thin-skinned, taking offense at things that were not meant to be offensive, feeling hard done by when things do not turn out my way, railing against real or imagined unfairness. Of course, we all feel this way at times, but grief seems to take minor faults and magnifies them into major stumbling blocks. The death of the one person who connected us to life also makes us (well, me anyway) feel as if life should be granting us special privileges to make up for that great loss, but life doesn’t work that way.

I’m not proud of this resentment, but there it is. The good thing is that grief’s effects are now mostly making themselves known one at a time rather than all at once in a horrifying and cloudy kaleidoscope of feelings so that I can pay attention to the resentment, and perhaps get beyond this stage to a more even-tempered state.

***

Posted in blogging, culture, grief, life. Tags: dealing with grief, dealing with resentment, grief and resentment, journey through grief, stages of grief, the process of grief. 2 Comments »

Can You Change Your Luck?

March 13, 2013 — Pat Bertram

While researching What is Luck, yesterday’s blog post about the meaning of luck and how it plays a part in the book business, I found a fascinating study about the difference between lucky people and unlucky people.

Psychologist Richard Wiseman makes a distinction between chance and luck. He believes that chance events are those we have no control over, like winning the lottery, but that luck is a matter of outlook. He says that unlucky people are those who are so focused on their goal that they don’t notice the unexpected. His research reveals that ‘lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.” Lucky people are also serendipitous — they often find something more fortuitous than what they were looking for simply by being observant.

Wiseman believes that unlucky people can become lucky by following a three simple techniques:

1) Pay attention to your intuition and feelings when making decisions. Don’t rely solely on the rational side of the situation.

2) Don’t be a slave to routine. Doing things differently from the way you normally do boosts the likelihood of luck by introducing variety.

3) See the positive side of your ill fortune.

The luckiest man I know never sees ill fortune or failure. He manages to rearrange events in his mind so that he always comes out a winner. For example, when one venture didn’t pan out and he lost money, he finagled his finances in his head (nothing illegal, just a matter of perception) so that the loss was filed under a different category in his mind. I never understood that — if you lost money, you lost it regardless of how you filed the information away, but it helped him maintain the belief in his luck.

His luck wasn’t merely a matter of perception, but of the way things were. He was the captain of a boat in the Navy during WWII, and after he was transferred off, the boat was sunk, and most hands were lost. He found a hobby buying stamp collections, breaking them apart and selling the individual items right at the moment that stamps were becoming a popular investment. Concurrently, he also happened to be working for an airline, which allowed him to travel at little cost to wherever his hobby took him. Years later, to get a stamp collection he wanted, he had to buy a collection of autographs. By then, stamps were declining in value, but at that very moment, autographs were becoming the investment of choice. A lot of luck going on there!

He always believed that things would turn out for the best, and even when “the best” wasn’t very good, he believed that things had, in fact, turned out for the best, that things could have been worse.

Me? I don’t consider myself either lucky or unlucky, though I have had stretches of bad luck — failures that seemed completely beyond my control, successes that seemed just out of reach. Maybe I’d be luckier if I believed things always worked out for the best, or if I could see the good side of bad things, but sometimes such determinations are beyond me. Sometimes it’s important to see that bad happened just because it happened, such as the death of my life mate/soul mate. There is no way I will ever believe it was best that he got sick, suffered excruciating pain, and died. In a way, there is a good side to his death. He is no longer suffering and I have been freed from an untenable situation, but I cannot dismiss his death so lightly.

Grief tends to close us off from the world, and if ever I am able to find happiness in the future, I will have to open myself up again. I am trying to be more spontaneous, to be open to possibilities even if they seem foolish or uncomfortable, to say yes when my inclination or habit is to say no. Mostly I’m looking for serendipity (though I’m sure that’s an oxymoron because serendipity is what you find when you are looking for something else). Since I don’t really know what I want or what will make me happy (other than making a living as a writer), I have to be open to whatever comes my way. Standing tall. Breathing deep. Stretching.

Although I’m making these changes in an effort to change my life, who knows, maybe they will also change my luck.

***

Posted in being me, culture, life. Tags: become lucky, chance vs. luck, changing your luck, grief and luck, happiness and luck, lucky people, Richard Wiseman. 3 Comments »

What Is Luck?

March 12, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I mentioned to a non-author friend my idea that book promotion is what we authors do until luck finds us, and she asked, “What is luck?” That brought me up short because I had no answer to her question. It seemed self-evident to me — luck is luck. But what is luck really? So I went searching for an answer.

Merriam-Webster says that luck means 1a) a force that brings good fortune or adversity; 1b) the events or circumstances that operate for or against an individual; 2) favoring chance.

The Free Dictionary says that luck means the chance happening of fortunate or adverse events; 2) good fortune or prosperity; success; 3: One’s personal fate or lot:

Wikipedia says that luck means fortune (whether bad or good), which occurs beyond one’s control, without regard to one’s will, intention, or desired result.

Google says that luck means success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.

Some people believe in luck as a separate entity or force that they can control by using various lucky charms. (Supposedly, Michael Jordan spent his entire NBA career wearing his old University of North Carolina shorts under his team shorts for good luck. Various politicians, including the current president, carry an array of objects in their pockets for luck.) To these people, luck is faith. They believe that the talisman will help make things go a bit better for them than circumstances might dictate.

My friend suggested that there is no such thing as luck, that what happens is the result of choices we make. And perhaps that is true, or at least partly true. You cannot win the lottery if you do not choose to buy a ticket, but winning the lottery is a matter of chance as far as I know.

Most of us believe that luck is being in the right place at the right time, but perhaps such a confluence is not so much a matter of luck as a matter of choices — ours and everyone else’s — a cascade of decisions and events that brings us to that particular place in time. Since we have no control over all those choices and events, we call the outcome luck. Perhaps if we were privy to the algorithms that control the universe, we would see that on a cosmic level, such fortuitous happenings as being in the right place at the right time are not chance at all. But on a personal level, since they are beyond our control, we call them luck.

Some people don’t believe in luck at all. They say it doesn’t exist. That, as in my example of being in the right place at the right time, “lucky events” are only those that exist beyond our ability to predict. This idea skirts close to determinism, which according to Wikipedia is “a metaphysical philosophical position stating that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could happen.” There is no luck then, just something that has been ordained by circumstances. Of course, if any one of those circumstances had not come about, then the outcome would have been different, and that sounds a lot like luck to me.

So, does any of this change my idea that promotion is what we authors do until luck finds us? Not really. So much of the book business, and especially what will strike a chord with the reading public is beyond anyone’s ability to predict. (If the major publishers were better at it, they wouldn’t be in the financial mess they are, paying high advances to authors whose books don’t warrant the cash outlay.) Some writers follow trends and manage to write books that make it big, such as the myriad vampire books that followed on Twilight’s coattails and Fifty Shades of Gray, which stemmed originally from the Twilight series. But what about Twilight itself? Was it luck that the book appeared when people were receptive to such a thing? Perhaps it wasn’t vampires that people were fascinated with but the bondage issue, which could be why so many vampire writers who expected to make it big didn’t. They missed the broader picture.

Those of us who write the books only we could write rather than trying to write books to fit trends or to fit what a reading pubic might like are more subject to the whims of chance and circumstance, especially if those books don’t fit into a prescribed genre. (I was appalled to read where one reviewer downrated a well-written book she loved only because it didn’t follow many genre conventions.)

If we struggling authors had been different, if we had had a different outlook on life, if the books we chose to write hadn’t been so dear to our hearts, if we’d been more outgoing or aggressive or innovative when it came to promotion . . if, if, if. All those ifs help create the circumstances of our books, and since most of those circumstances and characteristics are beyond our control (we can only be who we are after all), we are dependent on luck for our eventual success.

We will continue promoting until luck finds us. Perhaps by doing so, we will change our circumstances and so have no need of luck. But of course, luck itself could bring about that change in circumstance.

***

Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: book business, determinism and luck, does luck exist, if, luck, luck and book promotion, meaning of luck. 11 Comments »

When Grief Comes Calling

March 10, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Grief has been leaving me alone lately, probably because I’ve been keeping myself busy with other matters, but Friday night grief came calling. Sorrow has been with me on and off now for two days, perhaps in recognition of my upcoming three-year anniversary. I didn’t think there would be a problem with this anniversary (which is a bit naïve of me considering that I didn’t think there would be a problem with any of the agonizing stops along this grief journey). I’ve been feeling as if the death of my life mate/soul mate happened long ago, so long that he’s been fading in memory. Yet on Friday night, the memory of his last days was so fresh and new, it was as if we’d only recently parted. I could almost feel his arms around me as we said our final good-byes. Could almost see his smile, could almost hear his voice.

And suddenly, just like that, the yearning to be with him one more time overwhelmed me, and the reality lay heavy on my soul. He’s dead? Really? How is that possible?

I know how it’s possible. He got sick, was sick for years, and finally, the inoperable kidney cancer spread, hijacking his body for its own use. But dead? Part of me doesn’t get it. Part of me (just a vestigial part now) thinks I’ll be going home to him when I am free of my current responsibilities, and the truth — that he is gone forever — is again too much to bear.

I do know enough about grief to understand that this upsurge in sorrow will pass, but there will be other days — at ever-increasing intervals — when grief will again come calling. We get so in the habit of life, of dealing with our small everyday concerns, that our grief gets pushed out of sight, but we never completely get over our sadness. How can we? The person who meant more to us than any other is gone, taking part of us with him.

If that weren’t hard enough to deal with, we can never completely forget that we were helpless to keep him here even one more day, which makes life and death seem an arbitrary business. Perhaps if we knew life’s algorithms, we could see how everything fits together, but without such omniscience, we are left with only questions. Where is he? Is he happy? Is he?

Sometimes what keeps me focused on living is the thought of what he would say if we were to meet again. He’d be disappointed in me if I told him that all I did was mourn for him. I can see almost hear him say, “I died to set you free and you did nothing but cry?” Yeah, well, he no longer has a say in what I do. It’s my life and I’ll cry if I want to.

It’s not so much that I want to cry, but sometimes tears are the only way to relieve the incredible stress of grief. I had no idea stress would still come into play at almost three years, but grief, even aging grief, takes a lot out of us. Despite the upsurge in grief and the accompanying feelings of futility, I am making plans, looking forward, trying to find something to live for.

But dammit! I miss him.

***

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: death of a spouse, futility of life, grief and loss, grief and stress, grief and yearning, third anniversary of grief, upsurge in grief. 11 Comments »

My Wish List

March 8, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Wish lists, such as things you want to accomplish before you turn thirty (or forty or fifty) or things you want to do before you kick the bucket (I finally figured out that’s what a bucket list is!!), seem to be perennial favorites as blog topics, so I though I’d share my list:

Yep that’s it. A total blank. Looking back, there are only two things that were ever on my mental list of things I wanted to do with my life when I grew up: read and write. For most of my life, I indulged my habit of reading rather than doing something that might have been more lucrative, such as striving for a high-powered career. I also tried to write a novel when I was young and it was one of the regrets and sadnesses of my life to discover that I had no talent for fiction, yet eventually, I did become an author. (Proof that you don’t need an innate talent for writing but can learn how to tell a story in a compelling way, which in itself is sort of a talent.)

There are things that I would have added to a life list if I had been aware that I would experience them. I would have wanted to be deeply connected to another human being, to have the privilege of being there at the end of his life, though I had never aspired to doing either of those before they happened. I would have chosen to experience for a brief time such disparate places as a mesa in the high plains of Colorado, the edge of the north woods of Wisconsin, the high desert of California, but again, those are not things I would ever have added to any list since I’m not easily uprooted. I would have also wanted to reconnect with my best friend from high school, and now I’ve done that. (The visit was wonderful, by the way, and wonderfully strange considering all the years that have passed since I last saw her.) Besides, now that I’ve done these things, I would have crossed them off any list anyway, and the list would still be blank.

A couple of times I tried to do the creativity stimulation exercises in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and I generally stuck with the morning pages (three pages every morning to write whatever came to mind) and the artist’s date (a weekly date with yourself) but always, when I got to the part about making lists, the excercises screamed to a halt. There are various exercises in the book involving lists: What would I try if it weren’t too crazy? What would I do if it weren’t too selfish? What five things would I never personally do that sound like fun? What do I wish for?

I’d like to be able to make a living with my books, of course, but other than that, no wish comes to mind. I’ve never had any desire to go to Paris or London, never had any desire to travel to exotic locales to see ancient ruins, though I wouldn’t mind seeing such places if I could figure out a way of simply being there without having to make the long trip. I did have a desire to see the Olmec heads, and one came visiting at a museum nearby, so I satisfied that desire.

I’m not sure it’s possible for me to become a wisher. I used to want things, of course, but too often I didn’t get what I wanted, so I learned not to want. I know it’s important for a character to want something — it’s what makes them compelling. But is it important for us to want things? Or is it better for us to be more zen in our approach, to accept what comes our way? This is where I am now, stuck somewhere in the middle of those two questions.

Maybe this could be my list?

1. Find something to wish for.
2. Wish for it.

***

Posted in books, culture, life, writing. Tags: bucket list, increasing creativity, Julia Cameron, Olmec head, The Artists Way, wish list. 7 Comments »

The Waning of Grief

March 6, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Grief has taken a back seat in my life for now — so much else is going on, including getting used to my father’s increased dependency and having moments of panic about where I’m going to go when he’s gone. I’d just about decided to move to a lovely small town in Colorado, having developed a craving for familiar cool mountain climes (and cool mountain climbs) until I discovered that the town has a very cold humid climate. Eek. I don’t tolerate humidity well. And 87 inches of snow a year? Double eek. So I’m back to zero. I don’t really want to stay here in the desert because my life would be much the same as it is today, sort of like a real life treadmill. Staying is an option, though, and treadmill aside, I do know people here. But it doesn’t feel like home. And right now, I’d like to go home.

The trouble, of course, is that no place would feel like home. Home was with my life mate/soul mate, wherever we happened to be. Like so many women in my stage of grief’s journey — past the tsunami of raw grief and not yet arrived at a new life — I have an itch to be on the move. Being settled — settled alone, that is — seems so much like stagnation.

I crave challenges. Adventure. Travel. The irony is that I don’t particularly like to travel, I hate hotels and motels, and I don’t like being unsettled. But what else am I going to do? Sit alone in an apartment for the rest of my life? If I’m on the move, anything could happen, maybe even something that will revitalize my life.

Four years seems to be a magic number when it comes to grief. Often that fourth anniversary is the turning point where we feel some sort of disconnect to the past, when everything suddenly feels new again, and we feel free to leap toward whatever future awaits us. I am letting go of the past and I do want to experience life to the fullest, but I’ve not yet arrived at the turning point — the future still seems bleak to me. Still, I’m just counting down to the third anniversary of his death, so I have a long way to go before I’ll feel up to taking any sort of leap, but I am holding on to the belief that such a time will come.

And maybe then the problem of where to go and what to do will take care of itself.

***

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: craving challenges, fourth anniversary of grief, life as a treadmill, mountains vs desert, the process of grief, third anniversary of grief, turning point of grief. 9 Comments »

Countdown to One Hundred and One Adventures

March 5, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I’m on the left side of the photo

Things are settling down in my life and revving up all at once. My father finally was able to start his breathing treatments and now is more alert, has a bit more energy, and shows more interest in food, so we’re settling back into our quiet life without alarums and excursions. (Hospital excursions, that is.)

My headlong rush into life slowed this past year — I didn’t really do much to embrace life except yoga lessons for a while and walks in the desert. In an effort to revitalize my life, I promised myself to seek one hundred and one adventures, but the promise didn’t give me the push I expected because life got in the way of my embracing life. (I guess, though, as long as I am present even in the unsettling times, I am embracing life, which is an adventure in itself.)

But now I’m on track, at least for this month, with two great adventures planned. Tomorrow night or Thursday morning, depending on when she gets here, I will be meeting my best friend from high school for the first time in decades. The whirlwinds of life flung us in different directions, but now those same winds are bringing us back together. I doubt I will recognize her, but voices seem to be the last things to change, so I should at last recognize the sound of her voice. (Now that I think about it, it seems odd that we’ve only emailed sporadically this past year and never once talked on the phone, so I have an only an assumption that she still sounds the same.) After all this time, will we have anything to say to each other? Will we like each other, or will we take each other in aversion? It should be interesting to find out. (Besides . . . of course she’ll like me. What’s not to like, right?)

Then at the end of the month, I’m heading to Seattle for a gala weekend. My sister and brother-in-law are treating me to a showing of Shen Yun. 5,000 years of Chinese music and dancing, limousines, champagne, a wonderful dinner. Sounds like an adventure fit for Cinderella.

Even if rags and an out of season pumpkin are all that await me at the end of the Seattle trip, well, there is still a matter of the other 99 adventures I promised myself. I wonder what I will do next?

***

Posted in being me, culture, life, relationships. Tags: adventures, best friend, embracing life, reunion, seeking adventure. 5 Comments »

Today I Am Officially a Writer

March 4, 2013 — Pat Bertram

First draft of A Spark of Heavenly Fire

I got serious about writing a little over a decade ago. That’s when I started writing novels as well as researching the craft of writing and the publishing industry. I finished writing my novels about seven or seven years ago, then concentrated on rewriting and polishing the manuscripts to make sure they were as good as I could possibly make them. Meantime, I sent out hundreds of query letters in an effort to find an agent or publisher.

You’d think all those years focused on the craft of writing, rewriting, editing, proofing, querying would qualify me to call myself a writer, but it was just something I did, not something I was, so I never gave myself the title.

Even after my first two books were published by Second Wind Publishing in 2009, I still didn’t identify myself as a writer, except in relation to the books. For example, Pat Bertram, author of More Deaths Than One. I now have five books published — four suspense novels and one book about grief — but I still didn’t call myself a writer. It seems sort of silly and, considering all the millions of writers who have a book listed on Amazon, makes me not the least bit special. And anyway, I don’t make a living off writing, which would, I think, be a major qualification to list “writer” as one’s occupation.

Today, I had to go to the bank to fill out some paperwork, and they asked my occupation. Oddly, the only thing that came to mind was “writer.” I laughed to myself and said sotto voce, “What the heck.” Then, louder, I told the clerk, “I am a writer.” (It’s a good thing they didn’t need to ask what my income was. They’d probably have laughed in my face.) Still, “writer” sounded so much more interesting than shrugging off the question about occupation with a brief comment about taking care of my father.

So now it’s official. I am a writer.

***

Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: becoming a writer, calling myself a writer, focus on writing, More Deaths Than One, occupation, Second Wind Publishing. 6 Comments »

Making End of Life Decisions

March 3, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Some of the hardest decisions to make when taking care of a person who is nearing the end of life are not dire life/death decisions, such as taking him off a respirator, but simple decisions that continue to haunt you long after the person is gone.

The hardest decision I had to make when it came to the end days of my life mate/soul mate was whether to take him to the hospice care center. The nurse suggested the move to give me time to rest (he had what is called “terminal restlessness” and kept getting out of bed; considering how unsteady he was on his feet, I had to get up with him.) He wasn’t ready to go, wasn’t ready to face the ending of his life, and yet knowing the truth of the matter — that he wouldn’t be coming home again — he still agreed to go. I, on the other hand, believed the nurse when she said he would be away just a few days to give me time to rest, but still, I felt horrible about agreeing to take him. Afterward, that decision haunted me. I wished I’d let him stay home one more day, especially since I didn’t sleep anyway.

The decision I face now in taking care of my father is even less dire, but infinitely more complicated. Until about a week ago, my father still answered the phone, eager to talk to anyone who called, but now we’ve unplugged the phone in his room because he doesn’t like to be awakened.

He spends most of his time sleeping, getting up a few times a day to eat something — an egg or a bit of jello or a few canned peach slices. He is willing to talk to his children during those times, so that’s not a problem, but he doesn’t want to see anyone. He is very fragile, and so I have been honoring his wishes. However, some of my siblings want to make sure they see him one last time, and this is where the decision lies.

When is the cut-off point where his wishes become secondary and the wishes of his children come first? When it’s close to the end, I suppose, and I don’t think he’s there quite yet. Although he doesn’t eat much and has developed an aversion to most of his favorite foods, he does still have an interest in eating, which is a good sign. He’s also alert when he’s awake, so he hasn’t quite begun removing himself from life. (He has no interest in reading the newspaper anymore, but I don’t consider the newspaper “life”.)

I hope I’m doing the right thing by continuing to honor my father’s wishes, and that the decision to do so won’t come back to haunt me. I hope, if I make the wrong decision (or make a wrong assessment about how much time my father has left), my siblings will forgive me.

***