Monika Basile's Blog: Confessions of a Bleeding Heart

I have never believed in ultimatums—at least until I needed to give one. I never thought it was fair or right to expect someone to do anything if they did not choose it themselves, if they did not come to some conclusion that something must change. I never felt it was good to impose what I believed on anyone else.

What I didn’t realize is that an ultimatum doesn’t actually make anyone choose anything one way or another. The choice is in the giver of it. There comes a time in life when we inherently know what we can and cannot not live with. There comes a day when we look on our life and ask ourselves, “Can I do this another 20 years, another ten years, another year, another week, another day or even for one more hour?”

I discovered that no matter what prayer I had for another to change, the ultimatum given is to me. I had to decide that if what was destroying me did not stop—that I was worth saving. You would think that this kind of choice would be easy but it isn’t. It is devastating. It is an earthquake even if it is only that way to me. It is an actual shattering of something deep inside of a past, a present and a future even. How can that decision possibly be easy? And how do I decide and believe that I am worth saving, when for the majority of my life, I was too busy saving others to bother to examine my own existence which had been teetering on the edge too closely?

I have never been one to give up too easily—not on anything and especially not on someone I love. I guess I have always looked at it as a failing to give up on the people around me whom I hold dear. I mean what would that say about me as a person? What does it present to the world for me to put my salvation before another? What will I think of myself? I am someone who has lived their life in service to others and if I turn my back, if I say, “enough”, if I shut myself off from another—how can that possibly be true? And how do I live with the ultimatum? How do I keep going on knowing that my decision has hurt someone else?

This past year has been one of immense heartache and loss and yes—guilt. I chose me. It is not something I am used to doing. I chose my own well-being, I chose my own safety, and I chose my own peace by holding to an ultimatum to allow myself an end to what had become quite miserable. It is the aftermath part that pain lingers in. It is in this spot where I doubt myself, wondering if I tried harder for longer and did not give up. This is the thought that keeps me up at night.
It is different than regret. My mind and my heart both tell me sticking to this ultimatum is what saved me. I know the choices were very few. In the end there were only two things to choose from—fall to pieces in someone else’s destruction or go on alone. That is where the ultimatum I gave came from. Them or me. I am just not used to choosing me. I wasn’t even sure if I was capable of choosing me as the end approached.

I surprised myself. As you see, I am still here—going on.

Monika M. Basile

“They are all going to die!” that was what an old client of mine from my former job said when she found out what my new job would be.

And in a way, she was right. Everyone eventually dies. Many of my clients have died and many may die while they are under our care.

It is painful—as it should be.

Today I am writing Christmas cards to clients and to families and as I have scrolled through I see the empty spaces of where other clients were. I remember them and their families and what the team of us did. I also remember what they have taught us about living.

I do not meet my clients under happy circumstances. I meet them in the midst of devastation and heartache and a confusion of where to turn. I meet them at the lowest point. I meet them when the last thing they want in the world is to meet me.

I have become so familiar with Alzheimer’s, dementia, strokes, cancer, heart attacks, diabetes and such an assortment of destructive illnesses that I feel as if I wear the knowledge of it as a second skin. I can’t shake the heartache I witness. More importantly—I don’t want to. What I have the blessing to be witness to—are miracles.

I watch caregivers bloom into even more extraordinary humans than they were to begin with. I listen to their funny stories, or sad stories, or concerns. And I hear the caring echo so loudly between each word—like church bells ringing. I witness the tenderness of loving and exhausted families still touch their loved ones with love and speaking words of gentleness through laughter and tears. I get to see the difference that we make when someone can leave their mom for a while and see a movie, or go to a party. I get to know that someone is relearning how to live their life as they come out of battling a horrid medical treatment. I get to see that it counts.

As I write out Christmas cards, I tell each how dear they are to us—we who care for them physically also care for them with our hearts. I write to daughters and sons, sisters and brothers and tell them how their kindness and their strength to carry on is amazing to watch. I write the families of clients who have passed. I tell them I remember and how each is remembered fondly. It moves me to know each of them.

It is such a wonder to see who each of these really are, to catch glimpses of those who have forgotten how to carry on a conversation yet personality shines through despite the words not making sense. It is a treasure to know the people I work with—the caregivers, the bosses, the families and these dear clients. It is so much more than most people realize. I didn’t quite understand until I was in the midst of it.

I realize that we are not here to help with the dying. Life takes care of that part on its own. We are here to help with the living parts. We are here to find the joy in it. We are here to acknowledge the dignity of a life that is being well lived to the very end. And we are here to remember how that life has touched us and every one intermingled with that precious soul.

It is painful to know that there is an eventual end to everyone. It is a privilege to be a part of that. It is a miracle to behold how strangers come together and become family. It is both simply and intricately love as God had intended. Truly.

Monika M. Basile

My opinion most likely will not matter to anyone—except maybe my father who is a war hero. That’s okay. I’m saying it anyway. Because you see, this is America—where we are allowed to have opinions, and dreams, and opportunities. We are allowed to disagree with anyone and everyone without the fear we will be thrown in jail or exiled because what we believe may be utterly different than what is popular, or politically correct or is even correct at all.

We are free to hold fast to our convictions and we are just as free to change our minds. That is what Americans are allowed to do.
I have been watching the controversy and how awful so many on either side of these political battles are. I have read the name calling and heard the name calling and watched some just blatantly ignore anyone else’s thoughts while they spew their own. It makes me sad. And at the same time—I know in my heart and in my brain—this is America.

I have a very hard time watching folks kneel down for the anthem—to show some sort of solidarity they believe is justified. It is their right and it is their freedom to do so. It just saddens me that from their bowed heads and bended knees they do not look up—they do not look up in the stands and see so many of our veterans who fought and lost something of themselves—standing up and singing. They do not see a daughter who lost a father, a father who lost a son, a brother who lost a sister, a mother who lost her child, or an old soldier who lost a dream or two while they battled the demons of wars so very far away so the folks down in front can kneel and dishonor them. I have a hard time with that. I do.

I have difficulty listening to one celebrity or another shout in indignation, “I am leaving the country if so and so, or so and so gets elected…” So go. Leave. You are not an American if you can abandon this wonder of a country in the blink of an eye. There are people who are here, legally and even illegally who would never leave unless forced to do so. But you—you person—who has all the money and power in the world to go live someplace else—please do so. I’m staying. I’m staying no matter who gets elected.

I am an American.

I will support my president even when I disagree. I will honor our forefathers and my own father who fought valiantly so I can speak my mind and live without fear of persecution for my very own thoughts. I will forever stand for an anthem with tears in my eyes as I remember the hurts of the people who struggle to make America a place people still dream of coming to. I will never bow my head or kneel down and ignore my country. Instead I will stand with my hand over my heart and I will have hope in my soul and I will continue the battle with single acts of kindness to make the parts I can actually touch a better place.

Monika M. Basile

Ready or not, here I come. We shouted this as children when playing hide and seek. There is a fascination in both parts of the game, the seeking and finding, and the staying hidden so as not to be found. There are more who are hiding.

So many of us remain hiding within our own lives. I think we may be afraid that if anyone looks too closely they will find something that is less than pretty. We are afraid we will be judged. We fear others will think we are weak or foolish. We tremble at the mere thought of someone knowing how low we might have sunk, how deep the hurt lies and how there are things in our existence that give us nightmares. We live among the shadows of our past and the ghosts that linger and we pretend that none of it mattered and nothing has touched us that deeply.

We hide. We don’t have to. We just do it as some misguided attempt of self-preservation.

There is a piece of my life I kept hidden for many years. The saddest part is that I hid it from myself too. I was afraid of examining it all too closely and having to wear the title of victim. Who wants that name associated with themselves? Who wants to think that they are someone that was caught in a nightmare, with little opportunity to escape into the unknown? Who wants to be known as a victim of their own choices and mistakes? Not me. That is a phrase I have whispered in my soul for years with little understanding of why I said it. Not me—I did this, I didn’t fix it, and I didn’t run.

It took me many years to realize that fear can paralyze you.

It was strange to think that I deserved sadness and heartache because of a choice I initially made. I allowed things into my life that I didn’t realize would attempt to destroy me. I didn’t know how to ask for help. I didn’t know that I even was entitled to help since I chose the spot I was in not comprehending exactly where that spot really was.

Battering is not always physical punches and kicks. It is a left hook at your heart and a karate chop to the soul. It leaves you shaking and quivering and stunned and then telling yourself it’s only words and they said words can never hurt you. It’s a lie. Words haunt you. Words can beat you down. Even after a voice stops shouting, stops sneering, stops degrading—it is not silenced. It is a bell ringing with echo upon echo into your very being. Words are left resonating inside of us and then our own timid chirps will join in and give the monster in our nightmare more power. “It’s true. It must be true. It is real. I am what he says I am.”

Ten years after escaping, ten years later I finally realized what the hell had happened to me. I finally understood that my reactions to other events in my life were a direct result of what I had been a part of for twenty years.

The healing didn’t come with leaving and starting over. The healing came with love. I was graced with family and friends gathering around me; the same people I hid my life from, were the same people who drew me back to the living.

The healing came with finding out that I could go on—no matter what, I could go on.

The healing came with the understanding that I was still me, a woman with hopes and dreams and a good amount of ability to love grandly and deeply and greatly.

The healing didn’t come with the knowledge that I didn’t deserve to be a victim. No one deserves to be the victim of someone else’s misery.

The healing came with actually believing it. Truly believing it.

That voice at times still echoes—not so often, but yes, it is still there to creep up on occasion. Only now, I am louder. My voice is louder. Even when I am only whispering, my voice is singing a song of a survival so strongly it drowns out the echoes until they fade away into nothing.

And I am so utterly grateful that I have found my life’s song.

Monika M. Basile

The phone rings at 12:46 p.m. My heart leaps in my chest. I am shaking. There has been an accident is my first thought. I reach for it and see who is calling is not someone I talk with much and I wonder why. Voice mail picks it up before I can answer. I’m tired and roll back over and fall instantly asleep until the bleep of an incoming message wakes me up again.
I stare at the phone and figure that I better listen. It must be important. It must be very important for someone to call at this hour. I press the voice mail and hit speaker so I can hear well. And here is where the darn imagination gets going…

“Oooohhh. Ummmmm. Ahhhh. Owww….” I hear a woman’s voice. My blood turns to ice water in my veins. Is she hurt? What is going on? I hear a man’s voice in the background. He sounds angry.

Oh my God! She called for help! She is trying to get help and hit my number by accident! Oh God I better call the police! I hang up the voice message and flick on the lamp. My body trembles as I go to dial 911. I realize I don’t know her address off hand.

Wait! What if that wasn’t a cry of pain and one of pleasure instead? I better listen to the entire message…

A repeat of the ooohhh’s and ahhh’s and I listen further. A man’s voice, “I can’t believe he did that! I am going to kick his…”

And her voice interrupting, “Leave him alone!” and more groaning and moaning and some heavy breathing. What the hell is going on? I am up and pacing now, listening intently. Afraid I may be missing someone’s secret code of begging for help.

He is yelling now. Oh God she must be in trouble or is she having a wild kinky night? Which is it damn it!!!

She is louder now, “What do you expect? He can’t be normal being around us.” And more moans and more groans but I think not passionate ones. “Don’t leave the bedroom door open. I’m cold.” And “Ahhh and owww!”

Finally I hear her speak again. “Jack! I love you but you are just bad…”

Oops. I am eavesdropping on a very private conversation.

“Jack-o-lantern!” she shouts as if she is also wincing in pain. “You are a bad, bad, bad boy.”

I go to hang up the voice mail and as I stare at the phone, embarrassed and feeling stupid, I hear one final sentence, “You are so lucky you are so cute because you are such a bad cat tripping me like that.”

Ta da!

A voice mail lasts three minutes. Three minutes with a thousand scenarios rushing through my brain. But not once did I consider the danger to be coming from a feline. An ax murderer yes, but a kitty? Nope. My imagination just isn’t wild enough for that.

Monika M. Basile

Superman wears boxer shorts. I know this for a fact.

It was a mild mannered night and my new landlord controls the heat and had cranked it like any villain would do. In my room, it was boiling. We had the window open and a fan blowing the cool air in. I couldn’t sleep knowing I had to get up extra early to fill in for a caregivers shift. I couldn’t sleep because I seem to be fading in and out from hot flashes as my arch enemy, “The Mentalpause”, was also making an appearance in the dead of night.

My hero was softly snoring beside me, hogging the bed, slumbering peacefully as I sweltered into the wee hour of 3:00am. I got up and went into the living room and contemplated turning the air conditioner on though the heat was blaring through the registers. Instead, I opened the balcony sliding door and stood in the frigid air. I went back to bed.

Howls awoke me. Pitiful mewling seemed to be coming from outside. I thought of Sam, my wayward cat, and feared I had somehow let him out on the balcony when I had opened the door. I ran to the balcony, wrenched the crooked screen door open and went out. He wasn’t there. I live three floors up and was sure he was lying with a broken leg in the grass below.

I ran through the apartment screaming, “Sam’s outside! Oh my God help me find him. He’s outside.” I stormed down the stairs in my nightgown, running like a maniac up and down the side walk looking for him in the grass, trying to find exactly where the howling was coming from.

Superman, wearing blue plaid boxers, stood on the balcony calling softly, “Sam. Sam. Where are you?”

“MEOW!” was the reply and I could spy two little ears sticking up over the gutter attached to the roof.

“He’s on the roof!” I screamed as I raced in with the thought of calling the fire department to save my cat.

However, this is where a hero usually steps in.

“Get a chair!” he yelped as I rushed to bring it. I arrive in my bedroom to him pulling out the screen and pushing out the window and he scrambled onto the chair and starts leaning backwards out the window. “Grab my leg!” I immediately obeyed and watched him contort his body around the open window, grab Sam by the scruff of his neck from the gutter and toss him in.

He climbed back in the window. I hugged him hard. “I can’t believe you just did that—hanging out of a window three stories up in your underwear…”

“I had to save Sam.” He sighed. “You know, I’m afraid of heights…”

There you have it. Superman wears boxers. Most people wouldn’t realize it just by looking at him. Most people might not even think to wonder. I did and I am so damn lucky that I already had some idea of who he really was under his everyday appearance.

Monika M. Basile

There are no picnics in the jungle. There aren’t barbeques in the desserts. There isn’t a parade in the hearts of men and women who go to war, who fight for their country, or for those who stand by and wait. And still there is no way to express the amount of gratitude for our countrymen for being so utterly brave.

We cannot raise the dead. We cannot erase the damage of what each serviceman has witnessed and experienced and the horrors they carry with them. Our honoring of their bravery is to not trivialize it—to not pretend that war is something someone gets “over” or that anyone who has been part of it will ever forget. They merely carry on which is also another example of bravery—to carry on and still live a life despite all that has attempted to destroy it.

Think of how many have never come home—those who died somewhere “over there”. Think of those who left pieces of their souls somewhere on a battlefield, in the jungles, in war torn cities and across barren deserts. How can we ever thank someone for that? How do we ever express to a widow what her husband’s sacrifice truly did for us as a country? How do we describe to a father that his son or daughter fighting for us changed us even though the loss of their child crushed them. How is there a thank you big enough for that? There just isn’t. There won’t ever be something huge enough to engulf that magnitude.

Think of all the soldiers who have lost their comrades. Maybe they were lucky, maybe it was chance, and maybe it was reprieve. The battle for our veterans is not over simply because their war has ended. So many still fight to get back to and stay and reconnect with the living. There are thousands and thousands who suffer from PTSD and other afflictions. These dear men and women are here all around us. We can’t forget it and we can’t think that any should be unchanged by losing a piece of themselves “over there”.

Most Memorial Day parades are silent. There are no words here that can encompass what has taken place. There is no voice to describe the unspeakable loss of our fallen soldiers and for those who are left to carry on.

I pray for all who have lost someone to this weariness of war. I pray for all those who suffer the aftermath of battling for freedom—not just for America but for all people who need someone to fight for them. I don’t know how any of those can find peace even in such an honorable ending of life but I pray they do somehow find it.

I am thankful, so very thankful that I was one of the lucky ones. I am not laying flowers on a grave this Memorial day. I was lucky because my father was a soldier who came home.

Monika M. Basile

There was a time when I was a young mother that we had very little—little enough that a church basket gave both the feeling of humiliation and utter gratefulness.

Inside the basket were your typical items; a few cans of green beans and corn, instant potatoes, gravy mix, a ham etc., and something extraordinary—a bag of Oreo cookies. Oreo’s had always been and are my favorite. I remember holding them and trying to figure out when the last time I had one was and I couldn’t recall it. I was grateful for every bit of food that was given, but I was in wonder over the kind soul who thought to put an indulgence in a donation basket. I was incredulous to think that someone actually considered that even people coming from a place of need are deserving of some indulgence and they are deserving of our best.

I am thankful I have learned that lesson early on. I am grateful too that I have witnessed this phenomenon in others.

A woman once told me a story of her father, and how her brothers and she had given him a beautiful cashmere coat for Christmas. The father saw a homeless man on the street. He pulled that coat from his shoulders and wrapped it around the man. The children were all upset; reminding him they could have gotten his old coat and given that away. The father told his children, “When we give, we are to give our best and not our cast offs. Even a man without a coat deserves the best coat to keep him warm. I can get another coat.” The woman was overcome and never forgot what her father had done that day. (I don’t know what the brothers thought about it all as I only knew the woman.)

I get it. A lot of people get it and not enough people get it. We are to give our best and even more important, we are to know that all deserve our best.

We are not to hand the cast offs from our soul to others and expect them then to kiss our shoes. What is truly amazing is that even those receiving the least from others can still be so grateful. These are the good people of the world. How can anyone not want to make a life better? To add the joy of a luxury—like Oreo’s or a beautiful coat is the extra part of remembering someone is human. Filling basic needs of another is humanity—doing so with kindness and respect and a generous spirit—is what makes the giver human.

We should be giving each person in our life the best parts of ourselves and not just the leftovers. We should be fulfilling each need that we are capable of filling. What we don’t realize is that if every human being did this—no one would be needy or lacking or doing without any of the important things.

Sometimes all we can give is our time, a kind word, a smile or a simple hello. How much sweeter it is to go through the day giving away hope than ignoring someone who needs us. And guess what? It costs nothing! It takes nothing from us in any way to give the best of ourselves. We only need to realize how much we actually have to offer and take that first step. Being generous is giving more than is needed or expected. It is opening yourself up to knowing the person next to you is just as valuable as you are no matter where they are, where they have come from or where they are going to.

Giving is not unselfish. It makes you feel better. It’s a boomerang, the more you put out into the world—the better you feel just being in the world.

I don’t quite believe the old adage of you get what you give. You don’t get exactly what you give. You get something more; you get to make a difference. You get to change one small piece of the world for the good.

You get to be the bag of Oreo’s in a life filled with canned green beans.



Monika M. Basile

The plan. Everyone talks about it in one way or another, but no one knows exactly what it is and exactly where it leads.
Sometimes we notice the patterns, the twists and turns, the intricate dance of coincidence—or if you believe as I do—that there are no coincidences, then the intricately magnetic dance into the places we are supposed to be.

We are lucky at times and notice it as it happens. And sometimes we can only see it clearly as we look back on the journey we just took. “Ahhh, now I know why that happened. Now I know why I had to be right in that particular moment, because it brought on this moment here right now.”

Some would call that thinking insane. Some would call it backwards or stupid or silly. Some would call it a variety of names instead of the name I give it. God. That’s the name I choose and that is what I believe. It doesn’t even matter that the people who have been lead into my life don’t believe it at all, or question it or ignore it. They are here as they should be. I am here where I am supposed to be.

It doesn’t mean life is hunky dory or that I have not had immense struggle through many moments just to get to this one moment. It just means that I see how it came to be and I am grateful for the lessons that directed me to this part of my life. But I am more grateful that I can see the pattern—the connection of one incident to another—the connection of lives as if we are all part of some extravagant string of pearls. Each of us is needed to touch each other for the world to wear us well. We are not loose baubles rolling around in this life; an unbroken silver chain runs through us all.

I have been graced lately with seeing how my actions may affect others. Simple actions that I think have no bearing on someone else actually do. I need to be more aware of this. I need to be better at making sure that what I do doesn’t hurt as I go along this unknown path, living a plan that I have no idea about other than—I am supposed to be right here, in this moment and in the next if that is part of it.

We all flounder in life. Each of us have had minutes and days and weeks and months and years of not knowing what the heck we are doing or what in the world is going on. We ask ourselves, “Why me?” or “Why now?” and “Why did this happen?” There aren’t any clear cut answers. Rarely do those answers even come when we are in the midst of our moments. They come later, when we retrace our steps, and sometimes they never come at all.
We still need to have a fumbling sort of faith that there is actually a reason to go through the things we go through. We need to remember—it leads us to now and that it isn’t about only us.

Our journey is not solely about “our own” journey. It is the people we touch along the way. It is about those lives that we pull and push along with us even when we have no idea that a simple act of kindness, or an encouraging word, or just not saying that horrible thing you were thinking—is leading you and whomever you encountered to this moment.

It is a dizzying thought. It’s like trying to see every star in the sky at the exact same time when I think of how every action taken affects someone at some time. Our existence is so much bigger than we could ever imagine and the impact lasts so much longer than a lifetime.

I supposed that is how it was planned.

Monika M. Basile

It is very rare to hear someone tell you exactly how you have impacted your life. It happened to me this week. I am overcome with the magnitude of the words spoken by a former client of mine.

“I did everything because you told me I could. I didn’t want to live here. Who would ever want to live in a group home? But you made it home and my life was better because you were here to help me.” Wow.

She came to tell me goodbye as this was my final week at the group home before I started my new job yesterday. I couldn’t bear to hear her speak those words—and how can that be? How can it be so darn nerve wracking for someone to tell me I did good? It has been very hard to leave this place I have spent the last fourteen years. It is hard to leave my clients and my coworkers and everything I have known to start out again into the great unknown. However, I leave it knowing my time here really mattered.

That is a treasure I hold dearly in my heart—the knowing that it mattered.

It’s funny, I was employee of the month twice and that didn’t matter at all. In my mind and heart—who cares? What mattered most to me is that I brought a bit of joy to these dear folks who had the blessing to be in a safe environment yet had carried the tragedy that brought them to the group home in the first place.

In this business, we are told not to get attached, to not get personal, to avoid touching our people and to keep a professional distance. I failed miserably at those rules. Truly. And I don’t regret it. I never could reconcile the thoughts of my mind, that I have become too close, with the feelings of my heart insisting I get closer.

I am the one who was blessed to know each of my clients. They have taught me more than I can ever explain about resilience and persistence. They taught me about faith and the power of hope. In my day to day working with those under my care, I learned firsthand that kindness and laughter and understanding goes so much further than anything else I can do for them. I hope too, that I taught them the lessons that I tried intentionally to teach—the ones about their value in the world, their strengths, that there is still joy despite the heartaches in life, that they are human, completely utterly human and a wonder in this world.

I was blessed enough to have former clients, present clients and family members of clients tell me exactly who I was to them. I wasn’t and I am not perfect, but I made a difference. I am so thankful to know it.

Now I am on to the next adventure and I have every intention of leaving my mark in this new job. I will carry the lessons I have learned with me and hopefully learn new ones too. All of us who care for others, no matter what our profession may be have the power to leave something good behind us. I don’t ever want to forget that—to leave something good. I intend to leave heartprints rather than just footprints as I journey forward.

Monika M. Basile