Howling For Our Lives
What if wherever people were confined day after day — for whatever reason — there was time allowed for howling? Nurses or parents or doctors or prison guards would let individuals express their distress without trying to restrain or sedate them.
Times I could not transform anguish into more positive emotions, or into good work, I let loose in my truck (with the windows up).
And years ago, alone and hampered by Bell’s palsy, I threw open my front door (and my mouth the best I could) then called out for mercy for myself and for all others who found themselves trapped in whatever way by their bodies.
After that, I howled and howled.
Looking Deeper
A person confined to a hospital bed might be sad, angry, afraid or otherwise distraught, but this does not mean he suffers from Alzheimer’s or another dementia, or that he is classically depressed or psychotic.
The drugs he’s taking might be affecting his behavior. He may simply be having a hard day.
Perhaps no one visits, and there is deep fear of dying. Maybe he has to go to the bathroom, and no one is answering the call.
People become agitated when they have been in bed for a long time. In essence, they have lost their freedom — to move out, perhaps, or to move at all.
The more agitated they become the more they might be seen as whiny or difficult, and be ignored. A double whammy, hard to bear.
“Please, if you love me, care for what I love.”
A handsome and spirited dog, Higglety, keened with loneliness while his person was dying of AIDS. Thirty years ago I heard the sound, and it still haunts me.
Too often when individuals are in the hospital or hospice or a family member’s home, their animal companions are ignored or removed, though it is these animals that provide prime comfort. And, for sure, the animals deserve comfort, too, missing their person.
A dying woman’s three little dogs were taken from her prematurely because they were “in the way.” The woman mourned, deeply, the loss of these dogs who had cuddled beside her and followed her everywhere — just as they howled and howled for her in the shelter.
To Be Expected
A man runs in a marathon. The next day, following a car accident, he is paralyzed from the neck down and winds up in bed for who knows how long. His frenzy and his fear, though he hardly has means to express them, may look like abnormal behavior.
But his behavior is normal indeed, and to be expected, considering what he’s been through and is facing — considering that the person he knew as himself is gone.
The Little Boy Knew What He Needed.
A little boy attending day care had been suffering with heart problems. By the time he was four he had been operated on at least once. All who knew this little boy saw him as quiet and good-natured.
The day before the boy was to go to the hospital to endure another operation, his daycare leader saw him walking along the perimeter of the play area near the woods.
The story goes that the boy began to howl then, to howl and howl. Nearly at once all the children in the daycare moved to join him in his sound making.
Howling Crescendos
Pianist and composer Paul Sullivan, was in Croatia with the Paul Winter Consort. As usual the Consort performed the piece, “Wolf Eyes” — music that is interwoven with taped sounds of wolves, howling.
The concert was taking place in a large room with cement block walls. These surroundings, along with the somber faces of the audience, echoed what is still a drab existence for those who had lived for so long under communist rule.
Paul explained to me that, during each performance of “eyes,” the audience is invited to howl along at the end of the piece. This they do for a short while with great gusto, their howling followed generally by chuckling and applause.
There is an arc to the response, Paul said, where the howling crescendos, then falls away. At that point, the musicians hold the last note and wrap up the song.
In Croatia, this normal pattern was missing. It had been very difficult to get the audience started, partly because of the language barrier.
Just the musicians howled at first, and this sounded strange to them. After a time, a few people in the audience did join in, their sounds growing more intense and serious, then deafening.
The musicians stopped howling then. They stopped playing, listening instead to the pain unleashed as if by one voice.
This post was inspired by a section from my book, Caring In Remembered Ways: The Fruit of Seeing Deeply.
Both Caring In Remembered Ways and my website celebrate compassion and the oneness of all life.
Crossing All The Borders (Part 1)
Crossing All The Borders (Part 2)
Other maggie s davis posts I hope you find worthwhile: Not Being Listened To Is A Loud Noise, Wonder of Wonders, Promises To Keep, All Our Trials,
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