ANOTHER LITTLE DEATH—DEALING WITH YOUR ADDRESS BOOK

Here’s an explanatory preface to this month’s very late essay!  Christmas was behind us, and I had recorded the names of all who had sent us Christmas cards or holiday notes, and that we had sent our greetings to the same persons.  I recorded this information in the great binder given me 15 years ago by my dear friend Sylvia, about whose death I have written earlier.  Sylvia had designed and given me the book so that I could record names and addresses, and record both the sending and the receiving over a five year period using columns (received and sent) at the far-right of the page.  I was beginning to fill in the fourth five year set of pages in the three-ring binder. 

Then one night, exactly two months ago, Cliff and I went swimming our laps at the gym, afterwards retreating to the hot tub.  While Cliff enjoyed the comfort of the hot water, I did my usual stretching prescribed by a physician who had repaired a lumbar disk in my lower back 2 years ago.

Next day my right leg hurt, then began to swell.  After an ultra-sound to make sure I had no blood clots in my leg, I was sent to a surgeon who specializes in ankles and feet as my foot was becoming discolored. X-rays and an M.R.I. revealed a very torn tendon on the right side of my foot, thankfully not my Achilles tendon.  Surgery was scheduled, and I received a very heavy cast to encase the repair job, then received a “boot,” one of those amazing but cumbersome Velcro creations.  Two weeks ago a very heavy wrap-around elastic sock with bracing was given me so that I could get out of the wheelchair.  Finally I could put shoes on, walk with a cane, and this week began to drive the car again.

These eight weeks have been a time to examine my life, read a lot and pray even more!

A quiet little interlude that has helped me to focus on a lot of things I needed to consider!

We did not hear from some folks this past holiday season, so I have to look at the old alphabetically-arranged pages of the former set of five years, and decide if I want to send a very late end-of-the-year newsletter to friends from whom we did not hear this particular holiday season, now almost 3 months past.  Hence the subject of this essay is about examining the status of our relationships with friends and acquaintances, and deciding whose names will remain and whose names will no longer grace the pages of our address book.  It may appear a trivial matter, but it makes one really think about those who occupy our lives and our thoughts, and the attention we give to persons who may no longer want contact with us, for whatever reasons.  So bear with me!  Here are my musings on the subject!  L. J. K.

In a little volume of quotes I keep, is this anonymous one: “One of the hardest things in life to learn is which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn.”  Deleting a name from one’s address book, -- new, revised or old, -- is rather like burning a bridge behind you.  You have to make a decision and you should have a reason to keep or eliminate a person’s name and address.

I am reminded here of what I call the “warp” and the “woof” of my life, as I describe them in the preface of the book that I wrote. “As any weaver knows, seated before a loom, there are the permanent set strands of thread, fastened to the framework of the loom that make the art of weaving possible.  They are called the warp of the fabric, and thus the making of whole cloth begins……If I could name the warp that forms the basis of my life, I would have to call it ‘The law of compensation.’” And I elaborate that “The profound losses and missteps of my life” were marked “with the advent of grace-filled people and events, compensation beyond all my expectations…..well beyond my human requirements.”  I named the woof , “Connectedness.  Alfred Lord Tennyson says it so well for me, ‘I am a part of all that I have met’.”  Thus the measures of the highway of my life experience have always been connectedness and compensation.

Surely Sylvia needed to give me a really big red binder because I have always had and treasured so many “connections” with so many people.  Some of the folks named in the binder had served as deep “compensations” for other, more usual relationships that had not worked out as well.  Men and women touched my life at the very time I needed them and their support, or they needed my friendship and affirmation.  There was real connectedness.  The connectedness persists and the names remain in my binder.

However, aside from not hearing consistently from correspondents at important junctures, like birthdays or Christmas and other holidays, there may be other indicators that a name and address need to be eliminated from an address book.   And sadly, although the dictionary does not define elimination this way, elimination is a kind of a “little death.”  Someone leaves our life experience, their name and location merely remaining in memory only. You might get an indication that a relationship is not of benefit to either party or is not nourishing and mutually enriching.  Then why send correspondence if it has no true meaning to one party or the other or both parties?

Twice this last year, long before holiday greeting card time came along, I gently bade good-bye to two friendships of long standing, and lost another friend in the process.  When I didn’t hear from the latter, I knew she did not think well of my having ended another relationship (a mutual friend), no matter how meaningless it had become.  It had not been my custom to line someone out, especially after many years, except in the case of an actual death, in which case, when I heard of the death of a friend, I simply wrote “deceased” with sorrow.  But this last year I deliberately lined through two names, and they will not enter the pages of the newly revised address book.  I think as one gets older, you start thinking, “I don’t have the time or energy to devote to a dead-end situation.”

But that doesn’t mean there is not gratitude for “what was,” and compassion for the circumstances that set people on a course that took them in opposite directions.

Sometimes names leave our address books because we move from an area and know we shall never return and thus never see persons again.  This is particularly true where elderly people are concerned.  These folks may still hold you in high regard but they have not the energy to keep in touch, so you continue to love them but don’t burden them with having to answer your cards or letters.  Again, compassion is the watchword here.

Those of you who do a lot of e-mailing are very familiar with a posting that speaks to the “Keepers” in our lives.  The musing begins with the assertion that some people come into our lives for a season, or for a reason, or for a lifetime, and in all those situations, that is okay and a purpose is served.  The little essay ends usually saying to the reader, “You are a keeper!”  A keeper is kept a friend for life, and his or her name stays in the address book and in one’s heart so long as there is life.  Now wish me fruitful corresponding to and from those to whom I now need to send our very belated annual year-end summary, even if it arrives in mailboxes just as springtime begins!

Here’s wishing all readers at this site a Springtide of hope, and beauty and peace.  And, speaking of writing, I’ll close off with how I ended two years of newspaper columns, “Until next time!”

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