Kiss My Ass, Please

Kiss My Ass, Please
David R. Weiss – July 1, 2026

I’m not talking to you. Well, I am talking to you—just not asking you to kiss my ass.

Listen, I’m embarrassed to confess I was 66 years and 175 days old before having my first experience with a bidet. Don’t even ask me to estimate how many times I “cleaned” myself with toilet paper in all those years. Trust me, that would be some messy math.

Well, here’s how it went down (or shot up, literally). Margaret and I were visiting Susanna in Oakland, California. When she rented her current apartment, it happened to come with a bidet attachment. These are inexpensive “gateway” devices; they cost less than $100, while true bidet toilet seats cost upwards of $200-500 and full bidet toilets cost $2000 or more. Apart from bells and whistles, they all have the same end in view: yours. And the same goal: to treat your ass with more care and respect than any roll of toilet paper ever dreamed of doing.

I noticed Susanna’s bidet attachment right away on Friday night, soon after we arrived. I’d never seen a bidet in real life. So, I was exceptionally curious but equally cautious. I didn’t ask about it right away. Look, toilet hygiene is hardly dinner table conversation, even within family. What was I supposed to do, ask my daughter, “So, do you just hose away your poop now? And how is that going for you?” I demurred. For days.

Wednesday night, after several days of trust-building exercises (hiking and such), I finally asked how it worked. Susanna showed me how, if you just turn this knob this way … Holy shit! A stream of water that shot out 6 feet from under the toilet seat, dampening my t-shirt on its way to the shower curtain. Oops. I see. (Turn the knob one way for a “rear wash” and the other way for “a front wash”—that one is “vaginas only” unless, I suppose, you somehow got jam on your balls …)

Anyway, the following morning I had my moment of conversion. I recount it only in generalities. I used the bathroom, as one does … to defecate. I twisted the knob to effect a rear wash. I felt a slight tickle. I cranked it all the way to the left—and damn near lifted myself up off the toilet seat! Surprise, mostly, the water isn’t really that powerful. Still, OMG—there’s a hose under there! And that nozzle that delivers the water isn’t kidding around. Twenty to thirty seconds, maybe the tiniest shimmy left and right, and I turned the knob back to “off.” I grabbed a few sheets of toilet paper to dry myself and “check my clean.”

Wow. Just wow. Pretty sure the last time I was that clean after a poop was when Mom still grabbed my heels in one hand and hoisted them up in the air while she carefully wiped my baby bum down. Seriously, I’m talking about some kind of clean.

I used the bidet several more times on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, before we flew back to Minnesota. Each time I was amazed by the clean down there. Like nothing I had ever experienced.

The first question to hit me was, Why had I waited until Wednesday to even inquire about it? Why had I waited until Thursday morning to try it out? I could’ve been pampering my ass all week!

The second question hit harder. How is it possible that I’ve spent all my adult life assuming that toilet paper was as good as it gets for dealing with shit shows?! There is simply no comparison. None whatsoever. But it took me 66 years and 175 days to figure that out. However, now that I have, in fact, sat my ass on a healthy stream of water, a gently assertive jet of cleaning power, I can say unequivocally, the bidet is the gift my asshole (and likely yours) has been waiting for. So, excuse me if I’m a little effusive in my praise.

Still, praise is cheap if not backed up by action. We got back to Minnesota late on June 20 and within 72 hours of our return I’d ordered bidet attachments for both toilets in our home. By June 27 they were both installed and working. Offering every ass they encounter a transformative measure of dignity and care.

If you follow my blog, you know my life is not without its challenges. But I’ve just moved wiping (now washing) my ass over to the “joy” column. Maybe you should, too.

I’ll end with a short historical note followed by a soft sales pitch. Much of this history (and more) is recounted in an amusing and informative video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYecSHbkrtI

The word “bidet” names a small now extinct horse once common in France. Sometime in the early 1700’s it got transferred to the first cleaning devices (really just wash basins without running water) because one would straddle them as though on a small horse, to wash oneself. Giddy up! They were positioned near the chamber pot.

Eventually, these bidets were equipped with hand pumps to squirt water more effectively, but with the advent of running water, bidets “grew up”—still stand-alone “nether sinks” next to a plumbed toilet but now showcasing unique cleaning power. From here on, the bidet found converts (to varying degrees) across Europe, Asia, and South America. Today, most contemporary bidets are built right into toilets.

Several factors help explain the reluctance of US households to consider bidets. Let’s start with the plumbing. Many early American homes lacked indoor plumbing for the bathroom altogether; and when indoor plumbing arrived, it went into bathrooms with far too little room to share space with a bidet. Moreover, bidets were viewed as elitist, a strange scatological luxury enjoyed by the wealthy.

Add to this that the bidet came to be viewed (mistakenly!) as an effective form of contraception. From here (in moralistic America) it was just a hop, skip, and jump to the assumption that the presence of a bidet in an American household was reckoned as a sign of excessive sexuality. On top of that, bidets were effective in cleansing during menstruation. Between too little plumbing, too much (misplaced, no less!) morality, and their association with something unmentionable (menstruation), bidets were actively shunned in America. So much so they became mostly unknown.

US soldiers stationed overseas in World War II were the first Americans of that Greatest Generation exposed to bidets. Inconveniently, most of the exposure came while frequenting brothels, so it was rarely mentioned when they came home. (I don’t know whether brothel bidets were used in hopes of contraception; I could imagine sex workers simply having a vested interest in keeping themselves as clean as possible between and after clients.) In any case, the post-war wave of returning soldiers did not lead to lead to a wave of bidets appearing in American homes.

Nor did marketing. In 1928, John Kellogg (who along with his brother Will Kellogg, developed Cornflakes as a wildly successful breakfast food) patented an American version of a bidet, positioned inside a toilet. Perhaps wanting to distinguish his device from any illicit moral notions, he called it an “anal douche.” For some reason, while Cornflakes became an American staple, the anal douche never caught on. Hmm. The 1960’s saw one last attempt to make the bidet a piece of mainstream America. Arnold Cohen founded the American Bidet Company, but his efforts, too, went down the drain.

Safe to say that as I was growing up, the bidet was only ever in the background—but never once in my background. Meanwhile, America developed a love affair with toilet paper, and, with the bidet excluded from the conversation, all our innovation went toward making a softer, gentler toilet paper (and, later, a greener one). No one seems to have asked whether we should’ve ditched paper for water long ago.

Bidets did manage to become a niche industry, but little more—until Covid emptied the shelves of toilet paper. Ironically, when TP couldn’t deliver, bidet sales saw a mini-boom. They’ve continued to make slow steady growth since then. But Americans often seem beholden to familiarity. Whether that’s rooted in arrogance (What—listen to another country?), tradition, market forces, or mere habit, it hasn’t served us well. By virtually every measure bidets clean better, are gentler, and are more ecologically sound.

So, what will it take to get you into a bidet? If you need a firsthand (or first-butt) conversion experience like I did, reach out when you sense nature’s calling, and you can try out one of ours! Beyond that, it’ll take about $60.

I ordered two bidet attachments by BioMedic, the same company that made the one in Susanna’s apartment. (There are a good number of US-based companies making bidets. I went with the only brand I had any experience with because I was afraid if I didn’t act quickly, my intent would be buried by the busyness of my life.)

When I went to the BioMedic website, it seems that Susanna’s exact model has been discontinued, but the SlimEdge model that I paid $59 for is very comparable. It consists of a thin flat frame that sits right under your toilet seat, held in place by the same bolts that secure the seat. It has two nozzles that retract when not in use and extend under water pressure (it needs no electricity). The water is borrowed (via a t-joint) from the same input that fills the tank—which is also the same water that comes out of your tap: it’s fully treated clean water. And it’s controlled by a small knob on the frame as it wraps around to your right, letting you choose the strength of the jet of water coming from the nozzle. I still use a small bit of TP to dry myself, but I can tell you already, our TP use is going to drop to by 75% or more.

You can upgrade to bidets that add in warm water, heated seats, night lights, multiple jet patterns, warm air drying, and wireless remotes. Those all require an electrical outlet, most require jumping from a simple attachment to a complete toilet seat or an entire bidet toilet. And that jump will run you $300-$3000 depending on your “ass”pirations. The beauty of Susanna’s (and now mine) is its sheer simplicity. Just tap into the water line that’s right there, and you’re good to go. Literally. As I said, a “gateway” bidet—a $59 splurge to whet your whistle (or your nether parts) for an upgrade. I can already imagine that Margaret and I will upgrade to something nicer in a year or two, but for now the joy of jet-washing my ass with plain water—no bells or whistles—is a joy that won’t grow old anytime soon.

A last observation. You may know we’ve hosted six young adults from Brazil over the past four years, providing a landing place for several months as they secured long-term housing. In Brazil bidets are common. And one of our Brazilian “kids,” after hearing my exuberant account of ass-washing, admitted that amid all the modern conveniences of life in the US, they found the transition to toilet paper uncomfortable and almost barbaric.

I hadn’t thought of that. But as soon as I did, I took my revelatory elation and reversed it. OUCH. I spent 66+ years not knowing what I was missing. I now wish I’d purchased a bidet years ago—started a trend before its time. But our Brazilian kids arrived here—into the warmth of our welcoming home, no less!—and found their 30 years of bidet-use ripped away. As I said, OUCH. I had no idea there was such a rough edge to our hospitality. At least we’ve entered the bidet-age now.

Our trip to California was memorable in so many ways. The coast at Point Reyes, and the elephant seals. The Cypress Tunnel and the towering redwoods. The vistas in the Bay Area and the magnificence of Point Lobos. The museums we visited, the sights we saw, the people we connected with. And, of course, the joy of an entire week with Susanna: hiking, grocery-shopping, meal-making, game-playing, and more. We made memories for years to come.

Making my first acquaintance with a bidet sort of pales in comparison. But only sort of. Because—at least for a good while—that blast of water between my butt cheeks will bring all those other memories splashing back.

I cannot overstate the way this $59 device has changed my world. It’s not too much to suggest that now when I have to poop, I turn that little knob and whisper with quiet affection, “Kiss my ass. Please.” And it does. Might just be time for you to ask a bidet to kiss your ass as well. Just sayin’.

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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

The Half Left Unsaid

Jun24

The Half Left Unsaid
David R. Weiss – June 24, 2026

[NOTE: my earlier piece, “A Canopy of Golden Leaves,” provides a little more background on my friendship with Marguerite.]

These days Marguerite is the embodiment of liminal. More than simply living at the edge of dying, she is that edge. It’s my honor to occasionally keep her company there.

In a conservatory, you might enter a room kept warm and humid, and all of sudden you find yourself wrapped in a pungent fecund embrace that is oh so welcoming, while perhaps simultaneously feeling just a bit too much.

Right now, Marguerite’s room is like that. The waiting, the weariness, and the anticipation of Something Next is almost overpowering in intensity. It is surely holy.

Silence is sovereign these days. This morning I shared some photos of me and my son Ben through the years—he turns 39 today. And I showed some pictures from the recent trip Margaret and I made to California to visit our daughter Susanna. She joined me to look at the pictures and listen to the tales of our vacation adventures, several times voicing genuine delight.

But the Silence hovers. Not as threat or peril, mind you. Simply as the ever-present dawning of Something Next. Something beyond words. It waits patiently for my prattling to exhaust itself. And at the first break in conversation, it overfills the room again.

Marguerite herself reaches for words several times, but there is always a half left unsaid.

Looking into the sunset from Mount Tamalpais, just north of the Bay, during our recent trip.

“Do you think this afternoon …”

“Have you ever …”

“Could we …”

“What I’d really like …”

Each time she begins in earnest, seemingly assured of the full sentence. But she never gets past the introductory clause before the Silence settles in. At some point she looks me straight on—her visage caught between frustration and Something mystical. She begins again, “Now, this is what I’m experiencing …” Her gaze held steady, as her words halted, seeming almost to plead with me.

This is the first half-thought—the only half-thought—I dare to complete: “It’s as though you get half-way into a sentence and then can’t find the other half.” She nods. Vigorously. I continue, “As though you know exactly what you planned to say, and half-way there the words are gone.” A single decisive nod. Resignation? Or perhaps quiet triumph that this thought, at least, passed whole between us.

And then more Silence. We each sense it, but our positions with respect to it are quite different. I am but a guest in its presence today. Marguerite is being actively courted by the Silence. It is a holy thing to behold.

I venture to observe (with trepidation, but I do) that some years back (when her mind was clearer and the Silence not so immediate) she never spoke about her dead family members as “being in heaven.” She always referred to them as having “passed beyond the Veil,” or “gone to the Light.” As though already then Marguerite intuited that a hefty measure of humility—confident humility—was most appropriate in naming whatever it is that is Next.

Then I risked wondering aloud whether even “humble” words like veil and light shift in tenor on the threshold. Respectful … and tame at a safe distance, I suspect even these words seem to say both too much and too little for Marguerite right now.

I regard her unfinished sentences as witness to that truth. At the last. On the threshold itself. In this most acutely liminal existential moment, it’s how we meet the half left unsaid that finally matters. Because that half is just on the cusp of Next. It is the place where our silence acknowledges The Silence in the room.

I do my best (imperfectly, but still) to be a patient tender companion to Marguerite while I am a guest in this liminal space. And Marguerite does her best (imperfectly, but still) to meet this moment where her words falter with grace and reverence for the confusing mystery that presses in.

Who knows when the Silence will finally have its Say? When the Next will carry her Away. Who knows? Until then, I will relish these days so shaped by the half left unsaid.

***

A Canopy of Golden Leaves

Jun10

A Canopy of Golden Leaves
David R. Weiss – June 10, 2026

“Say, when you’re ready to leave, could you drop me off somewhere along your way?”

Posed as if it were the most natural request for a simple favor, it made no sense at all. True, I used to drive Marguerite everywhere, but it had been close to two years since I’d helped her into my car. And I knew she had nowhere to go today.

I met Marguerite seven years ago, in January 2019. She had just turned 83. Her daughter Rebecca, with whom I’ve been friends for two decades, had posted on Facebook about needing a trustworthy and reliable person to drive her mom to and from rehab appointments following knee replacement. I was underemployed at the time, so I offered myself up as a driver. Assuming it would mean a little extra cash for the couple months Marguerite would be going for physical therapy. Well, a couple months became four-and-a-half years.

By the end of her PT, Marguerite was so taken with me (it’s true!), she asked if I could drive her to other appointments. And so it began. We went every Monday to the hairdresser and every Thursday for body work. Then there were dentist appointments, a few doctor appointments, and several rounds of book club at her church. Before long every-other-week lunches were part of our routine—usually after one of her appointments.

Even when our routine was paused by Covid, we still occasionally went out for lunch, getting take-out food that we took to the Wabun Picnic area in Minnehaha Falls Park. We ate in the car, chatting and admiring the trees. Marguerite loved trees. They were like extended family to her. On every car ride we’d pass several trees that elicited gasps of awe from her. We drove a pretty consistent route, so it was often the same trees, but the exuberance of the “oh my!” was fresh each time.

Marguerite is a retired UCC pastor (widowed about six years before we met). Her husband Bill had also been a pastor. Indeed, her daughter Rebecca became a UCC pastor, too. Early on, she found me (being a trained theologian myself) a superb conversation partner. She was an avid reader—and eager to discuss whatever book she was currently reading or an article from the latest issue of Christian Century. She also consumed the newspaper every day and most lunches included our respective takes on the world.

Because I’m an avid blogger, with essays that often tilt theological, I brought copies of each piece I wrote to her, and they also helped set the course of our conversations. She’d often exclaim to me, pulling the folded essay out of her purse, “You’ve got the goods! This is just marvelous.” She became such a fan of my writing that when I launched a Patreon account to help fund my work, she was one of the very first persons to put in a pledge.

Besides theology and politics, we talked family. I told her about mine, and she told me about hers. One story, told several times, always delighted me. When they were pastors in Chicago, her husband Bill had a sailboat and loved to go sailing. Marguerite, not so much. They finally struck a deal. She would go sailing so long as Bill bought her a large showy piece of jewelry. E very time. I don’t think Marguerite ever developed a fondness for sailing, but she did acquire quite a collection of big jewelry.

It proved useful in her ministry, which involved meeting street people in downtown Chicago, connecting them with services, when possible, but mostly listening to their stories. She told me, “Everybody just walked by them as if they were invisible, but I saw them, and I listened to them. And they loved me for that.” These were tough streets to be out on by herself. But she learned one day that some of the big guys on the streets had put the word out: “When you see the woman with red hair and big jewelry, you let her be. She’s on our side.” She always told that story wearing big jewelry, and I always smiled at the surprising ways that good news get told.

I heard countless tales from her younger years, tales populated by her parents and a special aunt and uncle. I heard about her living family: Rebecca, Rebecca’s wife Maggie, and their child, Shannon Makenzie, over whom Marguerite fawned with wonder and delight. And I heard several accounts of near mystical moments she experienced late in life.

For four years and then some, this was the rhythm of our lives. I’d guess I drove Marguerite close to 400 times.

But eventually her legs became unsteady and her balance uncertain. Falls became more frequent and outings more rare. After a serious fall in the summer of 2024, Marguerite was relocated from Episcopal Homes to Villages Shores in order to receive more supportive care. My days as her driver ended.

At that point—because the roots of our friendship had mutually entangled themselves—I switched to simply visiting her every Wednesday. It was the one weekday that Karin, her longtime and beloved Visting Angel didn’t come, so my visits brightened those days. I often brought lunch for us to share. Usually fresh pizza from Pizza Luce, a chilled can of Diet Pepsi with a straw, and a sweet treat to end the meal. She still enjoyed—and still enjoys—going out to Pizza Luce with her family almost every Sunday. They just roll her down the block in her wheelchair. Pizza Luce is just half a block away.

I did that several times, but as her sense of presence began to falter, it felt safer for me to eat with her in her room. She always loved that, remarking how much she enjoyd the casual informality of eating right there in her room.

By now our conversations have long thinned out to mostly reminiscing about memories that sort of free-float in her mind. She is always happy to see me, though I’m not sure my name is always at the tip of her tongue. But her smile and twinkling eyes say plenty. Her memory is increasingly confused—Alzheimer’s is afoot. Her sense of time is fluid and expansive. One moment she’ll tell me about going out for pizza with Rebecca and five minutes later she’ll be talking about her parents or her aunt and uncle as if they’re still quite alive and just across town.

Her room has at least half-a-dozen family photos of her surrounded by Rebecca, Maggie, and Shannon Makenzie. All beaming with love. Several times lately, her eyes will settle on one of those photos, and she’ll say, slowly to let the certainty build: “That’s my family.” And as though a young child just learning names, she carefully tries to find each one in her mind so she can place it on her lips. She pauses from face to face, but most days she finds the name to match. On those rare occasions that she falters, I offer timid assistance: “I think that might be so-and-so,” and I let Marguerite confirm my guess so that she has the final say.

I’m sure she knows each of them when they enter the room, but all the memories in her mind are a roiling swirl these days. For that matter, while she is always happy to see me, I doubt she could tell anyone exactly who I am or how we met. But there is no doubt on either of our parts that we are happy to see each other.

Marguerite has been in hospice since February. Our visits these days are like mini Zen retreats. Every brief conversation is its own present moment. Followed by another present moment and another. Chronology is optional at best.

Last Wednesday, maybe a dozen times, Marguerite started down a memory, but half-way through the sentence her words faded away. That present moment had ended. And before long a new one unfolded, until it, too, fell to silence along the way.

I sit patiently with these moments. I have learned it doesn’t help to ask a follow-up question. Once the sentence stops, that memory has been left for another. And anyway, my role as friend is not to question or correct—it’s simply to be present. To offer my gracious attention to wherever she happens to be in this Zen moment of NOW.

Last week she was everywhere. All over the place. That’s when this image came to me. I already told you she loved trees. Our regular route took us on Fairview, from Ford Parkway to University. And for some stretches of blocks along there the tree son either side of the road reach their branches high overhead toward the middle, where they meet in leafy green.

Until the fall. Then, having turned thin and yellow, they’d give the impression of shimmering stained glass above us as we drove beneath in the afternoon sunlight. Marguerite’s awe at this was palpable.

Obviously, not Fairview Ave, but you get the idea. 😉

And so last Wednesday, I observed to her, almost reverently near the end of our visit, “Marguerite, I am amazed at all the memories that press in on you these days. It’s like they have become a golden canopy of leaves just above you. And no sooner do your eyes settle on one leaf, than they’re called away to another and another. But they’re all golden. And there are so many of them.”

She paused before responding, as if to measure my analogy against her inward experience. And then she nodded. “A canopy of golden leaves. Yes, I like that.”

Me, too.

And I have to tell you, even though I don’t drive Marguerite anywhere anymore, and even though she may well cross the veil before summer’s end, I can’t wait until fall comes round. So I can drive down Fairview for no reason at all except to feel Marguerite’s presence beside me in the car beneath that canopy of golden leaves.

***

Cancer: The Long and the Short of It. And Choosing Joy.

Jun6

Cancer Update: The Long and the Short of It. And Choosing Joy.
When Cancer Comes Calling – Book Three: Soundings #6
David R. Weiss – June 6, 2026

It’s been a while since I shared an update about my journey with prostate cancer. So, grab yourself something to drink and find a comfy place to sit. We might be a while.

TLDR: Odds are this cancer will kill me sooner or later. But I’m still placing my bets on joy.

The news right now is better than that first sentence suggests. But in Cancer Land the news almost always come with a large grain of salt.

Here’s the quickest recap of my saga. In October 2024 a standard PSA test flagged me for potential prostate cancer. Further tests confirmed that, indicating it was a very aggressive form of cancer. In March 2025 my prostate was removed, along with several pelvic lymph nodes. The nodes were clear, but the tumor analysis confirmed Gleason 9, Grade 5 cancer: very high risk. An apex predator as prostate cancers go.

To make matters worse, in June 2025 two follow-up tests showed that some of the cancer was missed in the surgery, nestled in a lymph node not taken out. This was sobering, unsettling, downright scary news. I spent months educating myself on treatment options, changing doctors and slowing things down until I felt I had established myself as an active participant in my own treatment choices.

In September 2025, in consultation with my urologist, radiation oncologist, medical oncologist, and integrative oncologist, I initiated an aggressive treatment regime. Banking on the latest research, which shows promising results for persons with early stage very high-risk prostate cancer, I started two testosterone blockers—effectively reducing my testosterone to nothing—followed by 33 sessions of radiation to my pelvic region over seven weeks in October and November.

Some of these studies suggest (in ways doctors don’t yet understand it) that this combination therapy somehow also supercharges the immune system, providing a robust multi-pronged attack on the cancer. It was an intense treatment regime. By the end of my radiation sessions (and for a month afterwards) I was knocked on my ass. Fatigue was brutal, but it lifted in time for me to turn 66 on Christmas.

In mid-January I had my first PSA test following the completion of radiation. It came back “undetectable.” I repeated the test in late April. Again, “undetectable.” My next test is in early August. And I’m hoping, of course, for a threepeat

But how am I doing, really? Let’s start with the long of it.

Even now my odds of beating this cancer remain long. As in L-O-N-G long. It is absolutely possible that I’ll reach 85 or beyond and end up dying of natural causes. That’s the dream. But it’s not likely. At all.

This is despite stacking up those two back-to-back undetectable results on PSA tests. That’s also the dream, so to speak. If I can put together an unbroken series of undetectable test results over five years, I’ll be declared “cancer free.” But this is Cancer Land and when your lymph nodes (the interstate system of the body) have been invaded by Grade 5 Gleason 9 prostate cancer, even after five years of “undetectables,” claiming to be “cancer free” is just wishful thinking.

True, these renegade cells of mine have been at least momentarily knocked on their respective asses. They are presently few enough and sufficiently far between so that they sit below the threshold of the PSA test. But they’re almost certainly still there. Hiding. Biding their time. Just waiting for an opportunity to run amok again. Thus, the long odds.

Nonetheless, these undetectable scores are cause for celebration. They tell me several things.

First, my “official” medical treatment—the combo regime of radiation and testosterone annihilation (that’s really what some doctors call it when you use two testosterone blockers to drive testosterone all the way down to ZERO), plus my supercharged immune system—has succeeded in reducing the cancer to negligible levels. Good on them.

Second, my own “non-medical” regime has proven successful as well. Minimally, that “success” is reflected in my genuine sense of agency: a disposition with mental-emotional-spiritual aspects that is critical in facilitating healing in the body. It can’t guarantee healing (this is no “snake oil” claim), but a felt sense of agency bolsters the conditions necessary for whatever healing is possible to unfold.

Some of my personal interventions have been using vitamins and supplements backed by evidence-based research showing their legitimate capacity to help strengthen my immune system, to directly fight cancer cells themselves, or to allay the sometimes-debilitating side effects of medical treatment.

Others of my personal interventions have included disciplined commitments to time-restricted eating (consuming ALL my calories for the day in a 10-hour window at least 26-27 days each month), resistance training, and walking. Since July 1, 2025, I’ve maintained an average of 10,000-11,000 steps per day. Not that I hit 10,000 steps every day, but over the span of every single month, I’ve average 10,000 steps per day—or better.

I’m hardly an elite athlete. And Minnesota’s summer heat and winter cold hardly encourage a choice to walk each day. But I’ve done that. I’ve lost 5-7 pounds over the past year (despite the typical 10-pound weight gain when on testosterone blockers). My blood pressure is superb. And my mental well-being is steadier for all those steps.

Third, I’ve been active in educating myself, sharing openly about my journey, and welcoming the wisdom and support of others. These choices have been essential to empowering myself and to feeling the care of others.

It would be impossible to measure just how much of my current cancer suppression is the result of these non-medical interventions versus the “official” medical treatment. But I assert categorically: it is not zero. And I would argue that separating the two approaches as though they could be disentangled in their impact is wrongheaded. I have without question strengthened my body’s capacity to be a full partner in my cancer treatment. We are doing this work together.

That’s critical, because the work of the radiation is over. It’s killing energy reverberated in my body for several months after the treatments ended, but it’s done now. The testosterone annihilation will continue for another 9-18 months. That’s 15-24 months total. I want to be done after 15-18 months because the side effects multiply the longer your body is starved of testosterone. I’ve currently got 6 months under my belt—quite literally. At this point the role of this ongoing testosterone annihilation is to keep whatever cancer cells remain so starved of testosterone that my body’s own defenses—supercharged by the combo treatment and further amplified and supported by my non-medical interventions—can do their best work in battling the cancer to a draw or, better yet, to a defeat.

The human body’s—MY human body’s—capacity for self-defense is remarkable. And as I count the months until I can set aside the testosterone blockers, my goal is to maintain my own discipline of cancer-fighting strategies, so that when the day comes that it’s “just me” versus the cancer, it’s ALL of me versus the cancer—plus all the vitamins and supplements, all the disciplined eating and walking, and all the family and friends around me. It’s all of us versus the cancer.

In the meantime, I celebrate each undetectable test, but I deliberately put an asterisk next to each one, lest I be tempted to forget the larger less celebratory reality: my odds remain long. Damn long.

To say that I nevertheless bet on joy is not a denial of those odds. It’s a reiteration of my determination to zealously persist in my own choices. To insist that while my agency may not be able to rewrite the odds, it can write my response to them. And my response is to choose joy.

If you know me, you know that exuberant joy is a stretch for me. I take my joy in quieter ways. For me, it is joy to pursue justice in our world, to offer hospitality in my home, to savor my family and friends, to be a partner with Margaret in all of life, and to craft words that meet life’s messiness with meaning (or, failing that, with mercy and compassion). These are practices of joy for me. And for whatever time I have left—undetectable or otherwise—I choose them. I choose joy.

That’s the long of it.

Now, for the short of it. This is a more vulnerable and tender piece to write, but no less a part of my cancer journey, no less at stake in my choice for joy.

[Take a deep breath, David. Here we go …]

Thanks testosterone annihilation, my penis is now so short that I occasionally have to go “digging” in my pubic region to find a tiny span of shaft with which to aim my pee. Read that sentence until your heart breaks. It is among the most vulnerable sentences I have ever penned.

Loss of penis length is a common side-effect of testosterone blockers. In my case, I won the trifecta. About fifteen years ago I developed Peyronie’s disease (a condition where hardened plaque in the penis shaft make it impossible to have a full erection). I lost an inch of length to that. When my prostrate was removed, so was the bit of urethra running through it. Pulling the loose ends of the urethra together to reattach them took another inch away. And now testosterone annihilation has erased another inch. So, you can see why I’m sometimes “digging.”

Technically, I’ve only lost two inches of a flaccid penis; the Peyroine’s loss only affects my erections. But listen, it’s now been 100% flaccid—24/7 without interruption—for 275 days. If you have a penis, you know length is a bit fluid. Morning, night, heat, cold, nerves, etc. can all affect how your penis hangs on any given day. But the fact is, for me, the longer I’m in testosterone annihilation therapy, the less penis I have to hang (or hang on to when I pee). This didn’t happen overnight. But by now it’s my undeniable reality.

As you might imagine—though I doubt you can fully imagine it—this is a mightily disorientating bodily experience. Not least, because a good part of me doesn’t care. With zero testosterone, I’m not just 110% impotent (no capacity at all to even make an overture at an erection), I’m also 110% indifferent to anything sexual.

This disorientation is multi-layered. I’m disoriented in my body because my capacity for arousal has completely vanished. But also, my interest in being aroused has vanished, so I can’t even properly lament the loss. It’s not even a distant sort of ache. It’s a memory so suddenly rendered fuzzy, that I can’t even recall it as part of my past except in an oddly abstract way.

To have largely lost view of my penis in the bathroom or when bathing is strange. But stranger yet is to be so emotionally indifferent to the loss. (Other than the immediate panic and frustration that I feel when my pee sprays wide right or wide left or straight forward because I have so little left to aim with.) Part of me—somewhere far away—thinks I should be alarmed, ashamed, outraged, panic-stricken at this. But testosterone-free me simply doesn’t give a flaccid fuck anymore.

Though I know at least enough to recognize this is some sad shit.

Perhaps some healthy portion of my desire and some small fraction of my lost length will return in a year or so, after I’ve been off testosterone blockers for several months. Fingers crossed that when I beg my balls to get back in the game, my own testosterone production kicks back in. Who knows, maybe my capacity for erections will return, though, if I’m honest, that is increasingly less likely because day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month, the tissue in my penis is losing its very ability to engorge and stiffen. Welp.

Today I describe that possible future with disarming indifference. Maybe if my desire returns, I can at least properly lament the losses I can’t even emotionally feel right now.

There is one more dimension to “the short of it”—to the loss of length and the erasure of desire. Perhaps even trickier to name, but all the more worthy of words.

For most men (myself included) arousal can be random (an erotic dream, an unexpected “noticing” of an attractive person), chosen and solitary (masturbation), or casual. But for the past 27 years now, my arousal has been decidedly relational.

Margaret and I have had a rich, varied, fulfilling sex life. I won’t regale you with all the details (though I have put some of it into erotic poetry …). For this essay it’s sufficient to say that our lovemaking has been profound in its mutuality. Our hunger for pleasure and satisfaction has consistently been met by the other’s enthusiastic desire to pleasure and satisfy. We’ve navigated the unexpected challenge of my Peyronie’s and the changing seasons of our lives with grace.

This present navigation, however, is its own beast. Margaret’s libido has diminished a bit, but mine is altogether gone. I never “want” to touch her—a lie told to me by the chemicals coursing in my blood. A lie double-told, because I don’t even miss wanting to touch her. This is some even sadder shit!

I love her no less these days. Fair to say, I love her infinitely more. We’ve been through a bit much together these past years. But love is not lust (in its healthy hearty hunger for another). And at present there is NO bodily longing, not even the tiniest hint of arousal in that love.

We have made love several times in this new state of affairs. My penis has resolutely remained short. No surprise there. The real challenge is that my arousal—my very “interest” in the act itself—remains resolutely short as well. Lovemaking is still a holy moment for us, but now it is charged with complexity as never before.

I can still appreciate the gentle caress of her hand on my body as we make love, but that caress ignites nothing in me. I am choosing to be wholly present; meanwhile, my body is choosing to be wholly unaroused. It doesn’t mean I don’t welcome the touch. But it used to thrill me; it used to send my desire into overdrive. Now it merely “feels nice.” Worse, it doesn’t even bother me that the arousal isn’t there anymore. Arousal? What was that?

For my part, when I touch her, it is almost like an out-of-body experience. In our previous lovemaking my arousal rose with hers, my fingers and lips guided by her sighs, syncing my longing to her rising joy. Today I still bring her to satisfaction, but my body’s half of the conversation is absent. It is hard not to feel merely performative while I make love to the woman I love so entirely. My “longing” is definitely there: I want her to feel pleasure at my touch. But my longing is now completely detached from any bodily arousal. It is a willed longing, summoned moment by moment by fierce determination … into a body (mine!) that absolutely could not care less.

The words are fraught here! It is no chore to touch my beloved. But my own body is so muted in its capacity to sensually participate, that lovemaking in each and every moment requires choice after choice after choice. There is no embodied inertia. And there is no embodied reward.

Our intimacy is stronger, deeper, more mutual than ever. Our lovemaking remains a grace (at least an attempted grace!) even while this tactile terrain is so unfamiliar, unrecognizable, and uneven for both of us.

This, in all its layers, is the short of it. Here, too, I choose joy. That choosing has no power to re-lengthen my penis, restore my erection, or renew my arousal. I live with the radical (to the roots) uncertainty that any of these things will ever happen.

The choice for joy, though, reflects the gift that is my shared life with Margaret. There is much in our marriage that we chose. Just days ago, on our 25th anniversary, we re-read our marriage ceremony. We have lived out so well the promises we made to one another, the life we imagined for ourselves. We’ve raised our blended family into adulthood; welcomed grandchildren into our lives; set hospitality at the center of our household; and more. All chosen or welcomed causes for joy.

But there has also been much we did not chose. The death of Margaret’s mom just months after we married. My brother’s long struggle with alcoholism—and his sudden death too soon after finding his sobriety. My mom’s long slow descent into dementia before her death. My dad’s broken neck and the many struggles of his last year of life. The pain of a child’s divorce. The diagnosis of cancer or other serious disease in our family. Also, the ongoing plaque of deaths among black men and women at the hands of police and the scourge of gun violence in our communities. The fascism that afflicts our nation and the recent terror of the ICE surge in our state. And the coming climate fractures that will imperil much of the natural world. These are not chosen or welcomed causes for joy.

Indeed, like my present experience of sex, these are the undesired realities of our lives. The choice for joy here is not to celebrate any of these things. It is rather to say “I do, I do, I do” to Margaret again and again. It is to say with heartfelt fierceness, as we face all these messy, tragic, and unconscionable things—and strive to be a balm of mercy and a force for good—“I am still, more than ever, glad to be your beloved—short penis and all.”

Please don’t imagine I’m making light of an unfortunate situation. This is all deadly serious. It’s the latest in my cancer journey. The long and the short of it. And the disciplined choice for joy.

***

Trashing My Dad (or What’s Left of Him)

May28

Trashing My Dad (or What’s Left of Him)
David R. Weiss – May 28, 2026

Honestly, this has been a hard piece to write. Hagiography (saint-making) comes easiest with the dead. To be faithful requires something more. I intend to be faithful.

Now, I’m not about to pick a fight with a dead man. I love my dad. He remains one of the clearest measures of character for me as I live my life. However—

And let me say this as gently as possible: he left a lot of trash behind for us kids to clean up. That’s maybe more blunt than gentle. Let me soften it a bit. My dad was no hoarder. I spent several years working for a nonprofit, delivering groceries to homebound elderly persons. I’ve been in several homes where hoarding was afoot. Dad was no hoarder. His home was probably typical of many elders who’d been in the same home for decades (six decades for my dad). Stuff happens.

Still, as I helped clear out closets, drawers, and boxes—and especially as my sisters and I emptied his attic, backyard shed, garage rafters, and the garage itself—I was stunned by how much stuff had happened. Accumulated. Piled up. Things held onto and never revisited, never relinquished.

We rented a dumpster and, even while recycling most everything we could, the dumpster filled with all the stuff that had happened over the years and now had nowhere else to go. Had it been dealt with “on time” bit by bit over the years, I’m quite sure much of it could’ve been repurposed, redirected, or more easily recycled. But with Dad dead (Mom died in 2022) and the house needing to be emptied and sold, that dumpster became destiny for too much stuff … reduced to trash.

I was frankly exasperated by some of the stuff we found. The well-used, flattened-down, back-in-its-original-box luggage carrier from the station wagon Dad drove … probably three decades ago. Monthly IRA statements, three-hole-punched and in binders, all neatly boxed … going back forty years. A baby crib, disassembled and stored in the garage rafters for close to forty years as well. Really, Dad? Really?!

Despite my title, I’m not really out to trash my dad. In fact, it’s the very strength of his character that makes the amount of his stuff that became trash both tragic and teachable. The stark contradiction here tells me that even good—even remarkably good persons can have their actions, their habits, their attitudes distorted by the slow but inexorable press of societal norms.

And in our society, the norm is strong to deny finitude. Close kin to our denial of death, this denial of finitude reaches further, subconsciously shaping us to live as though limits have no claim on us. And so even the best among us (like my dad) live … shop … accumulate … store … and finally trash … all manner of stuff. The norm of denying finitude—carried by our ads and our societal attitudes and aspirations—is to live as though unlimited consumption, accompanied sooner or later by unlimited waste, is simply the way it’s meant to be.

This norm has guided the present dominant version of humanity (there have been other versions) for several centuries, of which global industrial extractive exploitive consumptive capitalism is simply its most extreme, tragic, deadly expression.

And, as we filled that dumpster out in front of my parents’ house, this was the unavoidable damning truth: even persons with remarkably strong character get pulled into—and misshapen by—the irrepressible current of this worldview.

Let me be clear, neither of my parents were excessive consumers. By most measures the stuff they accumulated was pretty modest. And it was likely the virtue of frugality that held on to all that stored stuff—just in case. Death just arrived before “just-in-case” ever came calling. And, unlike my dad’s IRA, even after he crested 80, there was no required minimum distribution of his stuff.

But there are two more things to say. (Well, three.)

First, this world (our world, the human world we inhabit, which is seamlessly—perilously!—interwoven with the natural world in which we dwell) has arranged itself structurally, systemically, socially, and economically through a cascade of choices small and large (most of them driven by profit, convenience, or the consolidation of power) into a flow pattern that require a garbage dump as part of the consumer “circle of life.”

Except this garbage dump (ubiquitous around us, though usually unseen by us) is so out of balance with the planet’s capacity to safely absorb waste and renew it. Additionally, much of what gets sent there is stuff utterly orphaned from its place in nature—deprived of its ability to break down. Our established flow pattern becomes, in fact, a circle of death. A slow death, to be sure. And we keep our dumps mostly out of sight, so they don’t unsettle our sensibilities. But eventually all the stuff-turned-trash will trash us.

Second, my parents had little option other to live and die (that is, purchase and waste) within that system. It enveloped them, making it extraordinarily difficult for even remarkably good people to live in ways that didn’t deny finitude. But for the few days we filled that dumpster my sensibilities were unsettled. Profoundly. My gut churned with each load of stuff I unloaded into the dumpster where it became trash in the unholy alchemy of this world. Our world. My world.

I do not blame my parents. Forces far larger than their best intentions framed their lives—though it makes the amount of stuff left behind no less tragic. No less deadly on a planet that is decidedly finite. I suspect my nearness to them, my love and admiration for the life they built together, is precisely what deepened my pain as I filled that dumpster. Thus, tragic—and teachable.

Which brings me to my third learning. I, too, live inside the same death-dealing worldview that my parents did. I, too, am tempted—kettled* is not too strong a word!—to live as though planetary limits do not apply to me. This stuff-becomes-trash is an intergenerational dynamic. (You could easily argue that the denial of finitude has only amplified itself as we get closer to crashing up against it.)

Margaret and I are deeply invested in being good partners with the planet. We recycle religiously. We compost conscientiously. We push back against consumptive practices, rituals, and habits that are intrinsically ungreen. But we are far from perfectly green, entangled still within a worldview that whispers to us daily this mantra: no limits. And those whispers have done their work even on me.

If I were to die tomorrow, my kids would be renting a dumpster for a bunch of my stuff. From that perspective this piece is less about “trashing my dad” than challenging myself to double-down on my efforts (kettling be damned!) to repurpose, redirect, and recycle my stuff while I still have the time to do so. And to deliberately weave the truth of finitude into every choice I make.

Trashing my dad was painful. I hope I can turn that pain into action.

*To “kettle” (from the German kessel: cauldron or kettle) is a police technique that constrains the free movement of protesters until they are “boiling” on top of each other. Used for crowd control (or entrapment) it seeks submission through a show of irresistible force. Our worldview is so all-encompassing, that any persistent choice against it can precipitate an experience of being kettled: constrained by systemic-structural forces into acting as they desire.

***

David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind atwww.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

The Eulogy for Liz Winkel

Apr17

The Eulogy for Liz Winkel
David Weiss & Margaret Schuster – April 13

On Monday, April 13, we held the funeral for our neighbor, Elizabeth “Liz” Winkel. It was a tender gathering, with a mix of elderly friends, extended family, and neighbors. (Liz was not in regular contact with much of her family, but we found her 2024 and 2025 Christmas cards and tracked down contact info for those persons, as well as her closest lifelong friends.)

We selected a few readings that we felt reflected who Liz was. These were read by family and a friend. Margaret sang two beautiful solos: How Great Thou Art and You Have Come Down to the Lakeshore (in honor of Liz’s love for Como Lake). The funeral home arranged for a pianist, a second soloist, and a Catholic deacon to preside. It was a very meaningful service to memorialize Liz. Afterwards, most of those who came rejoined us at the cemetery where Liz was laid to rest.

The deacon speaks the final blessing on Liz.

Below are the readings we selected, followed by the eulogy that Margaret and I gave.

THE READINGS

1. Liz appreciated the wisdom of the Trappist monk and mystic Thomas Merton. Perhaps these words of Merton echo in Liz’s soul:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following Your Will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

2. Liz was transformed by her years in Young Catholic Workers. She longed to be part of making a world where justice and equality rang true. This reading is from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, chapter 3, verses 26-28:

For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

3. Liz loved it as her yard came back to life in the spring—to see the grass become green and to watch for the first flowers to appear. This reading is from the 35th chapter of Isaiah, verses 1-4:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, the ground shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. It shall be as beautiful as the forests of Lebanon, as majestic as the hills of Carmel, and as fertile as the meadows of Sharon.

All people shall see the glory of the Lord, the wondrous power of God, who strengthens the weak hands and makes firm the feeble knees. Say now to those with an anxious heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Your God has come to save you.”

4. One of Liz’s favorite writers was the British novelist, Rosamunde Pilcher. She had hand-copied this quote from the novel September in a reading journal she kept:

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word it always was. Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well.

THE EULOGY

Margaret:

We’re going to share a few memories of Liz … working backward in time.

Liz spent 17 days in United hospital from March 17-April 2. Just two days before, on March 15, we had 14.7” snow that David, our housemate, Fernando, and I cleared the snow off Liz’s sidewalk and steps. She peeked out her blinds at one point and I waved to her. She’d also talked to a couple of her friends that day, so we knew she was up and moving around her house on March 15. On March 17, after not hearing from her for over 24 hours, David and I got into her house, found her sitting on her TV room floor, eyes open, dressed in daytime clothes, and when asked what happened, she said, “One minute I was up and the next I was down here.” But she couldn’t say how long she’d been there.

We called the paramedics and off we went to the hospital. While there, she had a battery of tests – all seemed normal, except to receive confirmation of significant brain tissue deterioration due to Lewy Body Dementia – a diagnosis David, Liz, and I just learned about on March 3 – Liz’s 89th birthday.

Liz experienced ups and downs while in the hospital – seeing people in the room or outside her window, many hours deeply sleeping, and spending a good number of days in delirium. One wakeful day, we had a most extraordinary conversation with her – one that was deeply and emotionally honest. That day, Liz was very aware that she had lost a grip on her mind and on life. She told us she felt like she was moving in a fog and had lost pieces of herself that she could not get back. She could pluck things out of the fog, but much of life was not within her reach. She said, “I think I understand now how people feel when they have a brain concussion or wake up after a car accident. Nothing makes sense to me.”

We accompanied her into this grave uncertainty – hearing her pain, knowing she’d been off balance for a number of months, and that there wasn’t anything we could do about it. Even the doctors, nurses, social worker, and palliative care staff rode a roller coaster with her care options. They had us look at transitional care facilities, then briefly considered long-term care, then memory care, and finally said Liz was ready for hospice.

David and I knew Liz desperately wanted to die at home – she’d been clear about this for many years. And we wanted to honor her desire. We hired a home hospice agency and an agency that could provide 24-hour home care. We recruited friends and neighbors for a “cleaning day” so that the house would be ready to welcome Liz home and to provide a welcoming environment for the care givers. When we told her she was coming home … she smiled and squeezed my hand. And we moved her home on April 2 – Maundy Thursday. Once home, she spent several hours weeping, covering her face with her hands, expending all the emotions she’d had pent up. We’re sure she was well aware she was home – and was home to die. Some of her dearest friends and neighbors stopped by to visit her, and as you are all aware, she passed peacefully in her sleep on Easter Day.

David:

Over the past couple of years—especially the last couple of months—Liz’s life became more precarious as Lewy Body Dementia took over. She rarely slept well; her walk became a shuffle; her balance was always off; and her memory for daily tasks became unreliable. More recently, her world became populated by hallucinations left and right. Small animals and people became constant fixtures in her home. We steadied her life as best we could: cutting the lawn, shoveling the walk, putting the air conditioners in and out, taking her grocery shopping every Sunday. Assisting with a multitude of tasks that were now overwhelming for her. Eventually reading and explaining her mail to her. We knew this couldn’t continue forever, but we knew Liz couldn’t bear to think of living anywhere else than this house, where she’d been born 89 years ago.

Margaret:

In 2002, we moved in next door to Liz. She was busy caring for her mom and we were busy with our blended household of 5 kids and two cats. As neighbors do, we mostly waved at each other coming or going from our front doors because our lives did not have many spare moments to develop a deeper friendship.

Liz often talked how much she loved our neighborhood – for good reason. There were a number of families with young kids and lots of neighbors who had lived in their homes for decades. And although Liz often preferred the quiet of her house or backyard, she seemed to know – or was always curious about – the comings and goings of the neighborhood.

Plus, as a natural historian, Liz was always eager to share the history—and the colorful shenanigans—of other homes on the block.

David:

Liz often reminisced about her time in Young Christian Workers, which she was part of for about a decade, starting at 19. Small groups of young adults met weekly to discuss the moral challenges of their lives—and of larger society. They reflected together on Scripture and church teaching. And they committed to act. YCW changed Liz’s life in two profound ways.

First, it gifted her with deep friendships borne of mutual vulnerability. Many of these friendships followed her for the rest of her life.

Besides this, YCW ignited her passion for a more just world. In the late 1950’s she went door to door in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood striking up conversations about racial equality. Years later she handed out leaflets encouraging shoppers to boycott lettuce to support farm worker justice. Liz could taste that better world.

One extraordinary anecdote shows this. In 1962, at age 25, Liz left a promising career as a retail buyer at The Emporium, a local upscale department store. Fueled by the ideals of YCW, she joined the staff of the Catholic Bulletin, the newspaper of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Archdiocese. She was eager to help the church … be the church.

Two years later the newsroom staff unionized and began bargaining for a first contract. The publisher’s initial offer was abysmal. Liz took it to her YCW group. They discussed it, drawing on Pope Leo XIII’s social messages on labor. Then, risking her job, Liz wrote a letter to Archbishop Leo Binz, quoting from several papal messages and asking what they were worth if even within the church they weren’t lived up to?

Four days later the publisher made a second offer. It was astonishingly fair. The publisher told Liz that the archbishop had called him into his office, thrown Liz’s letter across the desk, and told him to offer a decent contract or he would shut the paper down.

Think about that. At age 27, Liz leveraged her YCW training into prompting an archbishop to direct a publisher to make a more just world possible right then and there.

Margaret:

Liz was 65 when we moved in and lived a lot of life before we really got to know her. And we were graced with accompanying her into her next life. But her physical presence is still very much here … in her writings, newspaper clippings she kept, photo albums of the many trips she took, readers journals, and more. We are discovering the Liz we never knew… the Liz many of you interacted with. And it is an honor to be on that path.

One of the greatest gifts we experienced was getting to know some of Liz’s dearest friends. As we truly became her go-to people, she was more willing to share her friends with us. Sometimes at their urging, but often of her own accord, she’d share their phone numbers with us. Then if they couldn’t get ahold of Liz, they’d call us and over time, many of these calls turned into longer conversations about their concerns for Liz and her needs. We all loved Liz and wanted the best for her.

I pray this prayer of Young Christian Workers at the grave.

David:

As we consider the whole of Liz’s life, there is as much loss as there is promise. She went from the Catholic Bulletin to hold two positions in religious education—very successfully. Both times she was ultimately betrayed by the men above her. The exact details matter less after all these years than the deep wounds they left on Liz. Ever a Catholic in her heart, she came to distrust the church and resolved to keep herself at a safe distance.

We knew Liz only over the last two decades of her life. You might say we knew her when the promise of her life had faded. Still, we befriended her. Against all odds we won her trust. Alongside the faltering foibles of her latter years, she offered us shimmering glimpses of who she once was. And we came to love all of Liz, just the same. We didn’t plan on that. We were just trying to be good neighbors. But Liz needed us to be so much more. And somehow—by grace—we became the people she needed us to be.

We moved heaven and earth to bring Liz home at the end. And then there is this deep mystery. Liz Winkel, lapsed-devout Catholic, entered hospice on Maundy Thursday as Holy Week turned toward its conclusion. And she barely but resolutely clung to life until Easter Sunday, when she finally answered Jesus’ call to go home.

Liz, we were so glad to know you, to discover you, and to love you from earth all the way to heaven.

Liz told one of her closest friends that she prayed this prayer daily. I prayed it on her behalf as the last words spoken at her grave.

***

David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind atwww.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

Bringing Liz Home (RIP – April 5, 2026)

Apr6

Bringing Liz Home (RIP – April 5, 2026)
David R. Weiss – April 2, 2026

This tale is built of a million shards, some jagged, others glistening. I can’t pick up them all. And there are simply too many places to begin, so I will begin here, there, and everywhere.

In 2002, Margaret and I—a year married but finally able to live together—moved with our children into the house next to Liz. She was 65 that year, tending her elderly mom. Today Margaret and I are 66 … tending an elderly Liz.

In 1937 Liz was born in this house. She moved into her own apartment as a young woman, but at some point she moved back home. She helped her mom care for her dad whose health waned for years following a heart attack, then stayed to keep her mom company after he died, then stayed to care for mom. Altogether, Liz has lived about 87 of her 89 years in this house. No wonder she was determined to die here, too.

About three years ago, Liz—by then an aging 86-year-old—began to lose things: her watch, wallet, credit card, checkbook, telephone handset … and finally her mind. She found them all sooner or later (or we found them for her). Even her mind. Until that developed a mind of its own: Lewy Body Dementia. After that, no matter how much we chased it, her mind was always a step ahead of all of us.

Thursday morning at the hospital, waiting for the ambulance to arrive to take Liz home, Claire from Palliative Care stopped by for the third time. She’d helped us navigate the decision to shift Liz to comfort care as a prelude to home hospice. “Hi, David, how are you doing?” I started to reply, but my words were already awash in my throat. “It’s … a lot,” I croaked, my voice breaking. “Yes, it is,” she said. “These can be hard days.” Through my tears I explained, “This isn’t sadness. It’s awe at being trusted by another person—who has no one else—to hold their life in our hands and our heart. So many feels, and today they just overwhelm me.” “You and Margaret have done a … very … good thing.” My tears trickled down in agreement.

In high school Liz got a job in the boys clothing department at The Emporium (think a locally owned Macy’s Department Store). By age 19 she was their youngest and first woman buyer, travelling to New York to help select items for the next season. She was being groomed to be a senior buyer, but after several years she left. She remained a sharp dresser until her latter years, but she preferred variety to advancement in her jobs.

The first few years we lived next to Liz we barely knew her. She was busy with her mom. We were busy with our own lives and our kids. We waved to each other as we came and went and exchanged pleasantries across the fence. Nothing suggested we would carry her into hospice at home.

In the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s Liz was potential in every direction. Every job had its own set of stories. Margaret and I heard many of them. Over these decades she worked for the telephone company, a Catholic parish, the Minnesota Attorney General, a bank, an insurance company, a plumbing shop, and many others. She seemed to excel at everything. After writing family and children curriculum for her local parish, the bishop, who was being moved to Washington D.C. to establish the new (Vatican II inspired) US Catholic Conference, asked Liz to come with him to D.C.—to help shape Catholic education nationally. She considered it—she respected and admired the bishop—but ultimately chose to stay near her family. Until all the family she’d stayed here to be near died and left her all alone.

Around fifteen years ago we slowly but surely became Liz’s family. I took over cutting the grass and shoveling the walk. Putting in and pulling out her three window air conditioners each season. Pleasantries across the fence became longer conversations—including colorful tales about the house we’d bought since she’d witnessed generations of shenanigans next door. Eventually, the three of us went grocery shopping every Sunday. I pushed one cart for our groceries while Margaret walked with Liz, reading the shopping list Liz couldn’t make out for herself.

My hand, Margaret’s hand, and Liz’s hand on the covers of her hospice bed.

Liz’s life was transformed in her twenties by her participation in Young Christian Workers, a Catholic young adult program that blended education, critical thinking, faith, and action. Some of Liz’s dearest and longest friendships date from her YCW days. From attending conference around the Midwest to the many YCW get togethers she hosted in her own home, this circle of friends became a second family to her. Many were scattered over the years; by now most have died as well. But a couple of them remain: a silver thread running through seven decades of Liz’s life.

On March 17, we found Liz on the floor in her TV room, awake and upright, but with no memory of how she got there or how long she’d been there (somewhere between 2 and 22 hours). She assured us she could get up. It was perhaps the most preposterous thing she ever told us. And over the past year Lewy-Body-Liz said some pretty preposterous things. Liz couldn’t get up to save her life. (Turns out that was all too true.) When the EMTs (after checking her out) lifted her to her feet, she couldn’t put any weight on her left leg. No broken bones but it seems she badly twisted it on the way to the ground. Liz wouldn’t get up ever again. And so here we are today.

Over the past several years, Margaret and I resolved all manner of little troubles for Liz. From fixing her TV remote to reassuring her that she didn’t need to respond to that letter about her home warranty running out. We made sure her property tax got paid and that her cable got cancelled—soon after which she could no longer remember how to work the remote.

Just a day before she died her friends Bill (88) and Mike (82) came by to see her. Unplanned, they arrived within minutes coming from opposite directions. Liz was aware enough to know they were there; she managed a couple sort of twisted smiles and offered several garbled comments in response to the many memories Bill and Mike recounted from childhood antics to YCW adventures. Seated on either side of her bed, they regaled Liz (and us) for nearly two hours. Liz fell asleep before they left. These were her last moments of awareness—they were moments of joy.

Bill (88) and Mike (82), having exhausted Liz with the joy of their presence.

Quite a few of Liz’s other neighbors on Blair knew her. She was something of a keeper of neighborhood lore, and most of us who got to know Liz even a little bit received from her unexpected trinkets of history, legend, gossip about the earlier occupants of their house. She loved telling these tales. It was her way of weaving community across the generations in each house.

In 2023, Liz made the two of us (me and Margaret) her health care agents, co-executors of her will, and power of attorney over her affairs. At the time she still felt quite in power of everything herself, though, truth be told, the precarity of her power was building with each passing week.

On her second day in the hospital, Liz had her last day (ever)—and her first day (ever)—of genuine clarity regarding her circumstances. As we sat with her, she explained with painful honesty how lost she felt—as though part of her had gone missing, and she couldn’t find the missing part. No desperate abstract reflection, she was speaking from inside the lostness itself. We knew the name Lewy Body Dementia and the list of symptoms. Liz had been swallowed entirely by the inner chaos of it. Her walk had become a shuffle; her sleep a wishful idea; her executive function no longer functional; and her world populated by more hallucinations than real people. On this day alone, we heard Liz speak plaintively from within this swirling chaos—fully aware of it for a passing moment, but unable to find her bearing. With Lewy Body Dementia there are no bearings. Margaret and I knew that … from a safe distance. Liz was knowing it up close and speaking that anguish—as it tore her apart. And we held her in helpless love as she was swept away.

One of Liz’s dear friends from YCW days is Marilyn. They met at a conference in Chicago in 1963 and became pen pals, phone pals, and more through the ensuing decades. Marilyn, now 86 and living in Portland, Oregon, remains quite a traveler. For years she invited Liz to travel with her. For just as many years Liz demurred. We know she took trips into her 60’s: there are photo albums to prove that. But at some point, Liz decided to stay home for good. Marilyn would call Liz from her travels and recount her adventures of the day by weaving Liz directly into them: “Let me tell you what Liz and I did today …” That’s friendship.

We’ve gotten to know Marilyn a bit ourselves as we’ve kept her updated by phone and text on this last trip Liz will take. The two of them spoke by phone for the final time last Saturday. Since then, Liz has gone radio silent. Moving steadily toward completion, pulling her energy, her self, ever inward.

Altogether Liz spent seventeen days at United Hospital. Initially the doctors and therapists thought a stay at a transitional care unit (for physical and occupational therapy) would be her stepping stone into long term care or memory care someplace. But Liz’s leg never regained its power, and each day of continued immobility cost the other leg strength as well. Plus, her dementia severely limited her ability to follow instructions or even pay attention. We were regularly joined by children painting on the wall, a parade of adults strolling by, and others whom she was sure wanted a taste of her meal.

Then there was the delirium—when she slept all day for 5-6 days in a row and another couple at the end, never waking, but moaning and offering garbled remarks, free for the taking. Those days she barely ate. By Day 11 the hospital staff suggested it was time to consider hospice. No restorative measures were going to offer any gains for Liz. So, with our consent, we turned to comfort care and began exploring what it would mean to bring Liz into home hospice in her home.

Theoretically, we could have brought her home into hospice at our home. That might have been marginally more convenient for us (though with its own mighty challenges and complications), but we never considered it. Liz had been clear and consistent over the years. “I just want to die in this house. It’s where I feel most safe.”

By the time she was carried in on Thursday she hadn’t eaten for days. And her eyes only fluttered open on occasion. Her ears only very rarely perked up any sound. And her voice mumbled from somewhere far away. Still, the familiar smells carried the scent of safety. From wood floors to ancient carpets to roving dust bunnies (mostly vacuumed in advance) and the million magic spices in the air, this house reaches into Liz’s labored breathing and whispers, “Welcome home, we’re so glad you came.”

The home care coordinator and I hold Liz, keeping her grounded, amid her sobs of awe.

Indeed, as we settled her into the hospital bed, liz did something she hadn’t done before: opened her mouth and wept. Not loud weeping. It was more a shoulder-trembling mouth-wide-open silent sob. For two hours. We were transfixed. Margaret, me, the home health coordinator, and the hospice nurse. We tried to comfort Liz, but nothing worked. Ultimately, I decided (I do not know, but I believe) that what we witnessed was Liz’s two-fold recognition that she was finally home and that the only thing left to do was to die. I didn’t hear pain or grief or fear in her sobs. I heard the emotion of sheer awe. Overwhelming, wordless, nothing but tears and sobs could give it voice.

Before Liz came home, we needed to arrange for 24/7 wakeful presence in the house. Margaret and I could keep vigil long hours with Liz, but we’d need to sleep, too. (It being Holy Week, Margaret had a full slate of choir-singing at church.) We also chose a hospice agency to coordinate Liz’s end-of-life care. And we cleaned. Liz was actually pretty fastidious, even as age and dementia slowed her down. On a day’s notice, seven neighbors showed up to prepare her dining room for a hospice bed, raise some shades, chase down cobwebs and dust bunnies, give her bathroom and kitchen a thorough cleaning, and tackle her fridge—the only project that was a bit scary.

Thursday, as I rounded the corner to Liz’s room, I passed a pair of hospital social workers. Linda had given us leads on hospice and home care agencies days earlier and had been at pains to make sure we understood what we were getting ourselves into. I had just cared for my dad through home hospice in February, so we had a pretty good idea—although providing home hospice in someone else’s home is a unique undertaking. But as I passed Linda I turned back and told her, my eyes brimful of joy, “We’re ready. We have hospice and home care lined up. The house has been cleaned; the bed was delivered yesterday. And today we bring Liz home.” It’s possible my voice cracked with emotion. Linda beamed. I’m not sure how often hospital social workers get to beam, but on Thursday Linda did. She said, “You two make my heart happy. Thank you for being there for Liz.” It’s possible her eyes sparkled with a tear as she spoke.

Countless people—nurses, aides, friends—have told us we did something extraordinary. And we don’t argue with that. But I think we understand that the really extraordinary thing is that we (me and Margaret) found each other. We couldn’t do a fraction of this on our own. But as a couple we amplify each other’s better angels. We reach after goodness in so many ways we’re no longer surprised—but never less than delighted—by the things we manage to pull off.

Once Liz stopped sobbing, she breathed. Quiet, labored, sonorous in turn. Heaving at times. Groaning now and then. We repositioned her, gave her comfort meds, swabbed her mouth to keep it moist, combed her hair, lotioned her skin. Anything to ease the transition. But this last step was for Liz to take on her own. She seemed to spend much of Friday and Saturday near the edge. Her breath would slow, or her body would stiffen, and we’d think, this is the moment. But it never was.

We found a small book (a reading journal) in which Liz had collected favorite quotes from her current reading in the late 1980’s. As she crested fifty, she was enamored with woman’s self-worth and gender equality in both society and church. We took turns reading these quotes to her as she slept. They hinted at a woman far more daring in her ideas than 80-year old Liz, whose worldview was shaped around the fear mongered by talking heads on right-wing TV.

On Easter Sunday, Mary Jane (89) stopped by. Friends since elementary school and later YCW, they spoke on the phone regularly in their 80’s. By the time she came to visit, Liz was wholly unaware. There was no twisted smile or garbled rejoinders today. But Mary Jane greeted Liz nonetheless, told her what a good friend she was, and then chatted with us for thirty minutes about the Liz she knew. When she left, Margaret and I accompanied her outside to her car because she’s gotten pretty unsteady on her feet.

Unbeknownst to us, as we crossed the street to Mary Jane’s parked car, Liz was inside taking her last quick gasps of air. Alaysia, the home care aide on duty leapt to Liz’s side and held her hand until she was still. She knew Liz wanted someone near when she died. Only then did Alaysia come to the door and call us in.

We called hospice and did some cleaning. We hugged Alaysia in gratitude for her steady caring presence to Liz over the past three days. To be fair, we were moving in a bit of a daze. Overtired and overwrought. But this was the sweetness in our hug at the end: some three years ago Liz asked us to make choices for her if it ever came to that. We knew what she wanted. And with the help of many others, but especially the grit and love between us, we chose to bring Liz home. And we did. And now, having taken that last leap on her own, she was.

Home.

***

David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind atwww.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

Frederick Albert Weiss – September 26, 1936-February 14, 2026

Feb16

NOTE: My dad’s funeral service (2/20 @11a) will be live-streamed from the church’s Facebook page.

Frederick Albert Weiss was born to Robert and Hilda Weiss on September 26, 1936, in Michigan City. The oldest of five children, he was baptized at St. Paul Lutheran Church and grew up on the west side with the dunes as his backyard. He attended St. Paul Lutheran Day School and graduated from Elston High School in 1954.

In 1955 he met the love of his life, Carol Belling, when she came to Michigan City to teach at the Lutheran Day School. They were married in 1957 and for nearly 66 years the sun rose and set on their love. As Alzheimer’s Disease claimed more and more of Carol’s mind, Fred remained her beloved companion and caregiver until her death in 2022.

Fred studied drafting at Purdue Northwest, eventually finding work as a draftsman for Clark Equipment Brown Trailer in Michigan City. He worked for Clark for the next 35 years, including stints with Clark Michigan (Benton Harbor) and VME (Euclid, Ohio). While with Clark, Fred created his “Pray for Snow” festival which featured the annual hanging of the namesake plaque, much to the delight (or chagrin) of his workmates.

After retiring from VME as an engineering manager, Fred spent the next 11 years as a part-time bagger and delivery driver for Al’s Supermarket on Karwick Road. This “second career” allowed his conviviality and sense of service to flourish. During these years, the “Pray for Snow” party came home, becoming a treasured herald of the winter season for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Together, Fred and Carol raised four children in a home filled with family, faith, and love. Besides providing for his family, Fred was a devoted husband and father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Ever ready to play a board game or card game, read a book aloud, write a special note, or share tales of family history, their home became one where welcome ran wide and deep.

Fred was active at St. Paul Lutheran throughout his life, serving on the Day School board, the church council, and as congregational president. He was also a deacon and a Sunday school teacher. In church nearly every Sunday with Carol, they brought communion to homebound members for years.

In the early 2000’s Fred (and Carol) became active in Al-Anon through Dunes House, supporting each other and their son, Don, in his recovery journey. Fred spoke publicly at Al-Anon meetings across NW Indiana for several years. Around that same time (and likely as an extension of his love for Don) Fred started volunteering weekly with PADS (Public Action Providing Shelter), the precursor to Nest Community shelter, when it began as a men’s shelter rotating through church basements. For nineteen years (into his early 80’s!) he covered the 10pm to 4am shift every Friday night from October to April—some 535 Friday nights. In 2024 Nest honored him as the inaugural recipient of the Weiss Award for his dedicated service as a volunteer. Fred would say the real honor was to have served those in need.

Over the past year, as Fred’s health challenges multiplied, he had to learn how to be the one in need. His caregivers—in hospitals, rehab units, and at home—consistently marveled at his gentle good humor, even as his body’s pains grew. At the end, at Franciscan Hospital, he knew one thing: that he wished to go home. And so, his children brought him home and kept vigil with him, until he died peacefully in a bed set in the living room of the home he had so filled with love. Thanks be to God.

Fred is survived by children David (Margaret Schuster), Deon (Jerry) Bishop, and Deborah (Leroy) Reagor; brothers Philip and James; and a host of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife Carol, oldest son Don, sisters Suzanne and Judith, and parents Robert and Hilda.

Visitation will be Thursday, Feb. 19 from 5pm to 8pm at Geisen-Carlisle funeral home, 613 Washington St., Michigan City, IN. Funeral service on Friday, Feb. 20 at 11am, with additional visitation from 10am to 11am before the service at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 818 Franklin St., Michigan City, IN. Burial will follow in Greenwood Cemetery.

Fred would be honored by memorials to one of his beloved causes: Nest Community Shelter (1001 W. 8th St., Michigan City / www.nestcommunityshelter.org) or Dunes House (211 E. 6th St., Michigan City / www.duneshouse.org).

Dad Seizes the Day

Feb6

Dad Seizes the Day
David R. Weiss –February 4, 2026

In my last post I described how, after five weeks in rehab following sepsis, we moved Dad into Trail Creek Place, an assisted living facility just a mile from the house that’s been his home for the past 61 years.

About this move I wrote: “He would’ve preferred to die at home. But he can’t live at home any longer, so he might not get to die there either. (Spoiler alert, I have promised him that if he wishes to go home when the end is near, to take his final breaths in that house, I will make that happen. But he is so weary by now, that I’m not sure he much cares. Still, that’s his call if he chooses.)”

It turns out he does still much care. On Monday night we met with a nurse from Franciscan Hospice at the hospital to discuss his transition to hospice on his discharge from the hospital and return to Trail Creek Place. When the nurse asked Dad if he was okay with that plan, his response hit me hard. “Well, I think it’s the way it has to be.” If you know mild-mannered Fred Weiss, you know that’s Fred-speak for “Hell no! I’m not okay with it. It’s the only option I see left.”

At that point I swiftly interjected—to remind Dad of the solemn vow I made a month ago when he was still in rehab: “Dad, you only get one choice here. Wherever you start hospice is where you’ll end hospice. So, you need to make the choice you want. And if you want to die at home, you need to say that tonight. Because I promised you, if you want that, we will make that possible.”

His answer was even swifter than my interjection and unmistakably clear: “I want to go home.” His voice was desperate, pleading, but also fierce and resolute. It was his carpe diem moment. He seized the day by declaring where he wanted to die.

So, we switched plans then and there on Monday night. Spent all day Tuesday moving back home all the furniture we had moved into his small apartment at Trail Creek Place just two weeks earlier. (Huge kudos to our cousin Don, who offered very big help on very short notice!) We rearranged our living room and to create a spot for his hospital bed and moved extra seating into place for us kids and other family who might come by. We moved a mountain on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, around noon, we brought Dad home.

Okay, he came home by ambulance, entering the house through the garage, strapped to a gurney, from which he was deftly shifted over to his waiting bed. But we were all there to greet him. He was clearly relieved to be home at last. It may have taken him a few moments to realize this wasn’t a dream. But when he took his first sip of Coke from his sippy cup, the look on his eyes was priceless. And when, for supper, he indulged in some pickled herring in cream sauce, he knew he’d left hospital food far behind.

Not to say there haven’t been a few bittersweet moments when his full grasp of his situation wobbles. Several times he’s tried to remind us he needs to take medications at this time of day or that. And we gently explain, “No more meds, Dad. No more meds from here on, except as needed for pain, nausea, or anxiety. You’re home free now.” To which he sheepishly replies, “Okay.” He’s happy to be done with the strict medication schedule (happier still to be done with all the needle pokes), but it’s hasn’t quite sunk in yet. The habit of his pills still whispers in his ear.

More bittersweet was his request last night that we bring his walker into the living room. Deon and I traded confused glances. I asked, “Why, Dad?” “Well, so I can use it when I get out of bed.” Even more gently, I say, “Dad, you’re not getting out of bed again.” I don’t add “ever,” because that seems cruel. I don’t cry, because neither of us needs that right now. An instant of unspoken recognition seems to pass between us. He tells Deon, “Well, bring it in here anyway. I want it by me.” And she does. And it is. He hasn’t mentioned it again. He will, sure enough, leave this bed one day. But when he does no walker will be needed.

Today the hospice health aide who will bathe him twice a week stopped by to introduce herself. She is comfort and joy. “Well, Fred, when I come, I want you to think of it as having a spa day. It’s all about you.”

After that I remind Dad that supper tonight will be potatoes, corn, and city chicken—a favorite dish from his childhood until today. His mother made it; then his wife made it; then (because I also love it) I made it. And then, after I became vegetarian, I perfected a version using plant-based meats that Dad gave two enthusiastic thumbs up to. The first day I got to the hospital last week Dad tells me in a tone that suggests this is his Make-a-Wish wish, “There is no rush for this, but I want you to make your city chicken for me.” He leaves unsaid the word “soon,” but we both know his dining days are numbered, even though neither of us wishes to know their number.

But today is a feast day. And so, for this meal I tell Dad, “No veggie meat tonight. I bought beef and pork. This will be Grandma’s city chicken, not mine.” He whistles softly. Sometimes wishes do come true. I add (because Bloody Mary’s are the only alcohol he drinks anymore, and he’s missed them these past months), “I also have the fixings for a Bloody Mary, so I can make one to go with your supper tonight. I’ll even join you.”

“I want one now.” It’s not yet 2pm. I ask again, because maybe he’s kidding. Nope. So, I make him a Bloody Mary, served up in a sippy cup with the celery garnish held alongside the cup with a rubber band. And I make myself one, just a bit nervous what an afternoon drink will do to me. But it’s all good.

Just as we finish our drinks his hospice nurse stops by to meet him and do her official intake. She’ll be his nurse now until death takes him. Coming twice each week (more at the end) to make sure that comfort is his best friend from here on out. She’s great. With help from me and Deon she gets a clean sheet underneath Dad, along with a couple of clean pads. And we trade his hospital gown for an old Baraboo Circus Museum t-shirt, now slit up the back for easy access. He has a deep bench of old t-shirts, many from schools his grandchildren attended. I can already imagine a “farewell t-shirt tour”—each of Grandpa’s prized t-shirts slit up the back for one final encore. He will be clothed in love on his way out the door.

Supper is divine if I may say so myself. Dad eats with relish. A couple times with a bit too much relish as he starts to choke (just a bit) and needs to pause for a water break. I watch him, with joy, and I say—not with pride, but with a profound sense of accomplishment, “Grandma would be proud of me. Mom would be proud of me. I’m glad it tastes good.” He nods with something close to glee. This is what he came home for. Not just this, of course, but having his favorite foods in front of him—foods as rich with memory as with flavor—is a blessing. He will be tasting love right up until he pushes himself away from the table. (In his case, the hospital tray.)

After supper, he is chipper and chatty. All three of us kids are there—making the most of the sofa and love seat just positioned around his bed yesterday. We recount the day to Debby who has joined us after work. We joke. Dad smiles. I say, “Dad, I know that lately everyone is asking you to rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10. But I’m curious how you would rate today—in terms of satisfaction—on a scale of 1 to 10.” “Today? Well, today was very satisfying.” I know, he didn’t pick a number from 1 to 10. But I’m pretty sure that’s because even a 10 seemed too small to capture this day.

I know, too, that not every day will be so satisfying. But, most of all, I know that even on the unsatisfying days, Dad will be glad he’s home. And we’ll be glad, too.

I promised him, this was his call to make. Monday night he made that call. Tuesday, we moved a mountain. Wednesday, we brought him home. And today, all together, we seized the day. Then again, scholars argue that carpe diem is really a horticultural metaphor that most literally means, “pluck the day when it is ripe.” Dad’s days are surely ripe now. Even when our eyes are moist, my sisters and I could not be happier to share in plucking Dad’s days for all they’re worth.

***

David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.

Somewhere on the Far Side of Respect

Feb2

Somewhere on the Far Side of Respect
David R. Weiss – January 16 and February 1, 2026

Before I know it, the small plastic cup filled with ice and Coke is filled with neither. The ice spins itself in lazy spirals across the tray top while the Coke races to the edges, beating my napkin and dripping down to the floor. “No worries, Dad. I got this.” I corral the ice back into his cup and refill it with the last bit of Coke from the bottle.

This is the constant peril of being at times reduced to peripheral vision. Since breaking his neck a year ago—his top three vertebrae are now fused together—he can barely turn his neck side to side or up and down. If he knows the Coke … or the newspaper … or the red grapes are on his hospital tray anywhere other than right in front of him, he reaches for them with all the precision of an earth-moving excavator. Which is to say, not so much.

But there’s far more than a stiff neck plaguing him these days. Meet sepsis. It’s a condition triggered by infection in the bloodstream—the last place infection should be (blood is meant to be sterile). When that happens, your immune system goes into a mad tantrum, over-producing white bloods cells and sending them out to attack anything they can find. In Dad’s case they seem to have found and attacked his muscles: everywhere, but especially in his legs. We’ve been told that between the damage done by sepsis and the long-brooding arthritis in his knees, he won’t walk again. But we hope, desperately, that his arms recover their previous fragility. Not asking for much, merely the strength and steadiness to feed and groom himself.

A moment after the Coke debacle, I watch him slowly—and precariously—lift the short cup with the tall straw to his lips, and I’m no prophet, but I can see another mess in the making. So, I offer to transfer the pop and ice into a sippy cup with a closed lid and a short rigid straw. He readily agrees. Happy to trade one more token of his dignity for a surer pathway to his preferred beverage.

Over supper his aide encourages him to drink “all” of his 4-ounce protein shake. It comes in a paper carton, a mini version of the 8-ounce milk cartons I used to get for lunch at schools. He’s agreeable enough, but it takes a special talent to maneuver the 8-inch straw flailing from the 2-inch carton to his lips. For Dad it’s a slow-motion game of hit-and-miss. He knows the straw is down there—somewhere—but he can’t lower his gaze to get it in his sights. I don’t want him to feel embarrassed, and he won’t ask for help, but after a long minute that seemed like five, I step forward to steady the milk carton and guide the straw to his pursed lips. Once there, he devours the shake in three and four draughts.

It’s about here that the room starts to spin for me. See, it’s finally settling inside me, with all the grace of a bull in a China shop (leaving shattered shards everywhere): my dad is infinitely more mortal than I ever imagined. I knew he would die someday. I did not realize how much he might wither before death.

Yesterday he asked me to shave him with his electric shaver. I’ve never owned an electric shaver—I’ve never even wielded one. I can count on my two thumbs the number of times I’ve shaved my own cheeks to bare skin over the past thirty-five years! But here I am kneeling beside him in his wheelchair, his face held perfectly still while I work my way feverishly toward aged cheek skin through the patchy ungainly fuzz that’s been given free rein on his face for the past week. It is an exercise in trust and humility on his part. An exercise in humility and honor on mine.

Tomorrow (compared to January 16 when I started this piece) he will put hungry helpless effort into eating his vegetable soup. Leaning slightly to the side in his bed (seeking to alleviate the nagging pain of a bedsore above his butt) and with his back raised to 45 degrees, he brings the soup slowly, unsteadily, and with exquisite care to his waiting mouth. Three times in a row, as he tilts the soup to match the tilt of his mouth, all the soup ends up on his chest. He surrenders his spoon to the tray in silent frustration.

I am trembling inside as I walk around the end of the bed, go to his side, and ask if I can try. He nods. Through the silent frustration, saying nothing. My first attempt fares no better than his, although I have cupped my left hand below the spoon, so I catch the soup in my hand before it reaches his chest. How do you get a soup spoon into a tilted mouth without tilting the spoon?! On my second attempt I coach Dad, telling him (as I’m sure he once told me some 65 years ago), “Open wide.” He does, and I slowly put the spoon all the way in, then he closes his lips around it, and I tilt the spoon allowing the soup at last to find its goal. We work like a team for four more spoonfuls. “That’s enough. Thank you.” I’m spinning.

Now I’m going to leap forward two weeks. In the interim my sisters and I have made the necessary arrangements so that on his release from Life Care Rehab in Valparaiso (where he spent five weeks), he can move into Trail Creek Place, an assisted living facility just a mile from the house in Trail Creek that’s been his home for the past 61 years. He would’ve preferred to die at home. But he can’t live at home any longer, so he might not get to die there either. (Spoiler alert, I have promised him that if he wishes to go home when the end is near, to take his final breaths in that house, I will make that happen. But he is so weary by now, that I’m not sure he much cares. Still, that’s his call if he chooses.)

I’ve brought as much familiar furniture from his home over to his small 2-room apartment, so the dresser and nightstands, the end tables and TV, his recliner and Mom’s wingback chair all whisper “You’re home, Fred.” Although I don’t know if he hears that above the chatter of all that is unfamiliar. We bundle him up and he gets loaded into the Trail Creek Place bus by wheelchair lift. I ride on the last bench in front of him. He seems to smile as we pull out. Maybe he is excited; I am sure he is relieved. I make small talk as we ride along. I keep to myself the words I want to say, “Don’t be scared, Dad.” I’m not sure whether they are there because I sense his fear—or mine.

Well, he lasted five days at Trail Creek Place before the sepsis that sent him to the hospital back on December 12 made an encore appearance. He wound up back in the ER and then back in the hospital, where he’s been for the past five days. This time they seem to have found the “magic” antibiotic that has actually cleared out the infection. It is a mixed blessing, however. In his earlier stay, they attributed the sepsis to a series of chronic UTIs and treated it with IV antibiotics primed for the usual bacterial suspects in your bladder. This time they opted instead for one more adept at the type of bacteria—including MRSA—that might enter the bloodstream by way of the multiplying bed sores that now punctuate—and puncture—his body. It was exactly the right antibiotic.

These pressures sores, abetted by Dad’s moderate (not even severe!) diabetes, result from his inability to move any longer. The largest one, on his foot, is larger than a half-dollar—and mostly black. An ugly orb where it appears death is getting an early start on him. The other significant one is on his lower back at the base of his spine above his butt. More diamond-shaped, it’s not as big and not at all black; it’s more a bright pinkish red, but it’s deep and the dull yellow-gray spot at its center is exposed bone.

Per the doctor, neither of these open ulcers is going anywhere. And I don’t mean “any time soon.” I mean EVER. Dad will take them to his grave. Or the reverse. The powerful IV antibiotic can kill the blood infection that sparked the sepsis, but these two open wounds (and a third smaller one, and others likely to follow) will be welcome mats—hell, open doors, literally!) for more bacteria. Topical antibiotics and regular dressing changes will keep them in check … for as long as possible.

Now, we’re finally that two weeks forward, when I got back into this document to finish this piece.

Besides the bed sores, Dad also has edema—noted swelling in his feet and left hand. Some days the swelling in his hand makes it more a decorative appendage than a functional one. Ever try reading a newspaper (one of my dad’s favorite things to do!) with just one hand? That’s its own Zen koan, right up there with one hand clapping. Thus, yesterday I fed him vanilla pudding (cook-and-serve, made at home), which he eagerly ate. I don’t think he had images of baby food in his mind—he was getting pudding out of the deal, after all—but as I raised each spoon to his lips, it wasn’t lost on me, that he is now, at least some days, almost childlike in his dependence on the care of others.

Today was a better day. Two working hands and wide awake. It’s a low bar, but even the low bars count these days. Plus, we found a Chicago public television documentary (two parts, each two hours long, airing back-to-back!) on the history and cultures of Chicago’s south shore and north shore suburbs which Dad found enthralling. (I did, too, but I had the luxury of taking a 2-mile walk in the middle of it.) Tonight, he fed himself pudding. A victory of sorts. In a life where those victories will become increasingly rare.

When he’s discharged from the hospital (maybe Tuesday?), he’ll return to Trail Creek Place, sepsis-free and yet still somewhat worse for the wear. Once there, he’ll enter hospice. Not that he’s done living. He might well have months to go. Or maybe just weeks. Still, as the doctor explained to us, he is pretty much done healing. Those open ulcers will never become his best friends, but they will be his constant companions from here on. And, because he’s completely unable to walk, they’ll be inviting their friends. With healing no longer on the menu, we’ll turn toward comfort care. There’s a lot we can do to keep him comfortable during this last glide home. And each of us—Dad and all three kids—are ready for that, though each in our own complicated ways.

Me? I had three good cries today. Short, but shaking sobs, so they count. Well, (wipes away tears) make that four. Part sadness, for sure. Part trembling at the awe-full holiness of being so near to where the edge of life meets the edge of death. And part realization of just how infinitely mortal and infinitely fragile he is. The room keeps spinning.

This man was The Mountain of my childhood. Airplanes rides from his hands to his feet and making models and climbing sand dunes and grilling out and playing games and listening to him read poems to us at bedtime. The ands are endless!

True, we clashed often. Our temperaments and interests were decidedly different in countless ways, but we unquestionably loved more fiercely than we clashed. He was the measure of manhood for me: reliable, faithful, gentle, caring, level-headed. (Damn it, five cries.) I knew how to push his buttons. But I suspect I only dared to do that because I loved him so much—and because I knew the reverse was true.

It’s been decades now since we clashed on anything more than sports teams. The tale to reach that point is long and winding, with occasional switchbacks, but here we are. Graced. We are hardly mirrors of each other, yet we have cultivated an abiding respect for the varied choices we’ve made. I suppose that’s because we’ve both come to see how even our differences remain diverse manifestations of our shared core values like decency, fairness, mercy, and justice. And here I am exercising those core values in my tender care for him. An echo six decades in the making of the same tender care shaped by those same values that he showed me as a kid.

I know, it’s “full circle,” the way it’s meant to work. But that full circle has me spinning right now. I somehow foolishly imagined that “abiding respect” was the endpoint—and a fine one at that. But this inward dizziness tells me there is yet one more alchemy taking place. In real time.

I did not know I was capable of love like this. I have fathered two children and parented several more. I have loved—and do love—each of them with a love that regularly surprises and astonishes me. But I did not imagine that the love for an aged man—a very much worn-down mountain—could be … so sweet. He is hardly any of what he once was. Except in my heart, he is all of that still and more.

So, I am now somewhere on the far side of respect. And so happy for the tears that leave salty traces of love on my cheeks.

***

David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.