typewriter rituals in the ICU

We’ve had a rough twelve days with my father-in-law in the ICU and direly ill. Our family has been huddled together around his hospital bed or the waiting room. My son came back from Poland to be with us. Last night, my wife and I and our three kids went out for dinner and it was very restorative. On Friday, a friend of my in-laws, the cantor at the local synagogue, came to the ICU and spoke to us and sang some tremendously beautiful and moving prayers. Having these beautiful sounds—the melodies, her voice—and the ritual of us gathering round the bed and listening and at times singing with her was very powerful and healing. To focus on feelings, the deeper aspect of life and death, gathering together in our fragile human form and its intertwining relations.

When I think of what helps in these times, I often think of music. My impulse is to go somewhere beautiful—the woods, the water—and play music. One of the things the cantor sang was a Hebrew chant of the 23rd Psalm (“The Lord is my shepherd.” I’m not a religious person—not believing in lords and such— but these words were powerful in their imagery (“I shall not want,” “lie down in green pastures.” “…leadeth me beside the still waters.”)

When I have a chance in the waiting room, I’ve been making little visual pieces to have the centring effect of making something. Of creating some little beauty. Of making marks to somehow speak to the world. They don’t respond per se to the emotional weight of the moment excepting that making marks, but being “cautiously optimistic” about things is always helpful. At home, I type out some figures on a typewriter and home and load the scans into the computer which I bring to the hospital. I’ve called them Typewriter Rituals because making them is a small ritual.

PS I’ve been thinking about my father-in-law and his irrepressible jokiness, which really stems from an impulse to make connection with people. A similar impulse to make things. And also, to relish in the marks—the jokes—themselves. When he was able to speak (right now he’s got too many things attached to him to be able to ) he jokingly warned the nurse, “If I die, I’m never going to speak to you again.”