Mama died

Mama died at the age of 91. That was on the eleventh of November, 2011 (11/11/11), and she was an associate member of the Legion, because Dad was a soldier in WW II. When she was around age 89, we started going to places to perform music, and some of her performances are at: http://youtube.com/hyoomik. For the last three years, between my work, I have been indulging in music, playing in various places in Niagara Falls, Ontario. It has been at the amateur level, and some people have appreciated it. Also, I have made many friends, and a few very good friends, through music.

This past year, I had several bouts of illness that seemed near life-threatening. One was a bout of coughing and pneumonia, where it seemed that if I went to sleep I might not get up. The other was a blockage in an artery in my leg. I didn't need a doctor to diagnose it, because I knew exactly where it was and could tell which way it was heading. In neither case did I even go to a doctor, because in either case, if you are seriously ill, you merely lie in the hospital, and they really can't or won't do anything. The blockage in the artery was from being in a small poorly ventilated room in the hottest day of summer smoking cigarettes. Believe it or not, a cigarette or two outside is not that harmful. But in a poorly ventilated area you are breathing the same stuff over and over again. Even without cigarettes, poor ventilation is not good if you are ill disposed. People get vein and artery problems very often after airplane flights, because even though an airplane is swimming in air, the same air circulates on a long flight. In either case, I still had to produce the same quota of work every month, as an independent contractor with no provision for sick leave. That means sitting in a hospital is out of the question. It would mean that I would still be sick, but I would also be poor in such a way that I would be sicker still.

As it is, after taking care of a house that is too big for me for twenty-three years, with so much junk from other people that I can't move, I am free. I could go anywhere in the world that would let me in and peck away at my work on a computer. I just need a few hours of Wi-Fi a month.

Mom's funeral was a very big affair, since she is the mother of a priest (my younger brother). I have had discussions about funerals, and I find the customs of embalming, make-up, and so forth grotesque. I was present in the eight hours leading up to her death, although I wasn't there for the actual two or three minutes because she was in a room with medical attendants while I waited outside. The only thing that matters to me in this regard, and in regard to my own death, is that people will pray for me, and that I am as ready as I can to meet God at that moment.

The basic history of my last twenty-three years is this. I came "home" for six months with a return ticket to Poland where I would resume doctoral studies. My mother was in the hospital, in the psychiatric wing, and my father was in a nursing home dying. A social worker said to me, "Your mother has been in the hospital too long. Either she is signed out under your care, or she is sent to Hamilton." Hamilton has a lunatic asylum (whatever the euphemism may be today) and it is not nice to be there. And so I stuck around all those years. So, that chapter is over.

For long periods of time I was unemployable, because Mom often was in a state where she could not be left alone for more than a few hours. Eventually her condition somewhat improved, allowing me to teach part-time at a university, to wash dishes in a restaurant, and eventually my colleagues in Poland asked me to translated an Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Some of my translations cane be seen here:
http://www.ptta.pl/pef/index.php?id=hasla_a&lang=en. I have probably fifteen more years of work, maybe more, before this project is completed. I am paid the standard payment that a person in Poland would receive, but that is balanced by the fact that few translators have such steady work.

Fr. Mieczysław Krąpiec OP, my teacher, said that this work is not “for tomorrow”, but for the “day after tomorrow,” which gives me the satisfaction of knowing that my work may outlast me.