Chapter 9 Good Uses of Self-Compassion on Second Tuesdays

I went back on a Tuesday a week later, and for several Tuesdays that followed, I was looking forward to visiting my mentor.This may sound a little strange, because I have to fly 1,200 kilometers to accompany a dying old man.But when I'm with Murray, I seem to go back to where I'm more able to like myself.When I drive from the airport, I don't rent a cell phone anymore. I tell myself like Murray: Let them wait. Things weren't getting better for Detroit's newspapers, in fact they were getting worse.The strikers on guard and the contract workers hired by the management fought violently. Many people were arrested, and some were beaten with black noses and faces.

In contrast, when I visited Murray, it was like a spring breeze, like being nourished and baptized by good humanity.We talk about life, but also about love.We talked about one of Murray's favorite topics, compassion, and why our society is so lacking in it.This is my third visit to him, first at a supermarket called Bread and Circus, because the first two times I've seen bags from this shop at Murray's, I guess he likes their food.I packed several Styrofoam boxes of cooked food to go at this store, such as vegetable pasta, radish soup, honey praline and so on. When I entered Murray's study, I held the bag high in my hands, as if I'd just robbed a bank.

I suppressed my throat and said: Here comes the food! Murray rolled his eyes and smiled. I don't forget to observe whether his condition worsens.His fingers seemed to be fine, he could write with a pen and put his glasses on and off, but his arms only seemed to go up to about chest height.He spends less and less time in the dining room or the living room and more in the study, where he has a large chaise longue with pillow felt and specially tailored foam so he can rest his feet. Lying, supporting his shriveled legs.He kept a rattle by his side, and when his head needed to be adjusted, or when he needed to go to the toilet, he would ring the bell to call Connie, Tony, Bertha, or Amy family caregiver) called.Sometimes it is too difficult for him to raise his hand to ring the bell, and if he cannot even do this, he will be very depressed.

I asked Murray if he felt sorry for himself. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, he said: I will be sad at that time.I touch my body, move my fingers and arms, move what I can still move, and grieve for what I have lost.I grieve the slow, relentless way of my death, and then I stop grieving. It's that simple? I'll have a good cry if I have to, but then I'll focus on the good things in my life that I haven't lost: the people who came to see me, the things I heard, and you if it's Tuesday.Because we're Tuesday buddies. I laugh.Tuesday mate. Mitch, I forbid myself to feel any further self-pity.A little bit every morning, a few tears, that's all.

I think about how much self-pity is spent by so many people I know, and how helpful it would be to limit how much they can feel sorry for themselves each day.Just spend a few minutes feeling sorry for yourself, and then move on to the day.If Murray, who is suffering from such a serious illness, can do it If you think it's scary, it's scary.Murray said: "It was scary watching my body slowly shrink to death, but it was also gratifying because I had plenty of time to say goodbye. He smiled.Not everyone is so lucky. I stared at him lying on the chair, unable to stand up, unable to take a bath by himself, and unable to put on his pants.Lucky?Did he really say he was lucky?

At one point when Murray was about to go to the toilet and our conversation was interrupted, I picked up a Boston newspaper next to his chair and glanced at it.There is a news that in a logging town, two teenage girls met a seventy-three-year-old man, and the two later killed him, and then held a party in his car house, boasting to their friends this corpse.There was also the news that a man was going to stand trial for killing a gay man who confessed to liking him on a TV talk show. I put the newspaper back.Murray was pushed back in the wheelchair, still smiling, and Connie was about to lift him out of the wheelchair and place him in the recliner.

I asked, would you like me to serve you? There was a moment of silence in the room, and I don't know why I volunteered, but Murray looked at Connie and said: Can you teach him how to do it? of course.Connie said. At her direction, I leaned forward, put my forearms under Murray's armpit, and lifted him up like a log from the ground.Then I stood up straight.Normally, if you lift someone up like this, he will hug you with both hands, but Murray's arm can no longer exert strength.His body was just lifeless, I felt his head lightly tapped on my shoulder, and his body limply leaned against me, like a big piece of soaked bread.

Murray moaned softly. I said, I hold on, I hold on. Holding him like this made me feel inexplicably moved. I can only say that I felt death growing in his remnant body, and when I put him lightly on the recliner and put his head on the pillow, I shuddered, realizing that time was running out. and i have to do something ◇◇◇ It was my junior year in college, 1978, when disco and Rocky movies were all the rage.We take an unusual sociology course at Brandeis that Murray calls a group process.Every week we study the way classmates in a group interact, how they respond to anger, jealousy, and attention, using ourselves as guinea pigs.From time to time, someone will cry for some reason.I called it a crying class, and Murray said I should be more open-minded.

Murray said that day that he had a sport for us to do.He told us to stand with our backs to a classmate, fall backwards, and the classmate behind us catch us.We are all uneasy about doing this, and we always fall backward for a short distance and then stop quickly.Everyone laughed in embarrassment. Finally, there was a slender dark-haired girl who was usually quiet and always wore a puffy white sweater. She folded her hands on her chest, closed her eyes, and fell backwards without flinching, just like the one in the Lipton black tea advertisement. The model poured into the water and splashed like water.

For a moment, I thought she would fall heavily to the ground, but at the last moment, the partner behind her grabbed her head and shoulders and lifted her up vigorously. Wow!Several students shouted loudly, and some even applauded. Murray finally smiled. He said to the girl: You close your eyes, that's the difference.Sometimes you can't believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel.If you want people to trust you, you have to feel that you can trust them even when you're in the dark, even when you're falling.