Where is that confidence?

Wow, who was it that said I had come to grips with this and had found a home in my purpose? Surely it wasn't me, because I don't feel anything like that today.

I've been with my parents for 5 days now. My dad has come home from the hospital and we are "managing" his pain. But he is in pain quite often. He still gets around some...very slowly, with a very nervous me standing at his elbow at all times ready with the catcher's mitt. He sleeps alot. In bed and in a chair. He has no voice and is hard to hear and understand a times. But his mind is still very much "on" with the occasional word that plagues us all on the tip of our tongues.

The greatest challenge I have found so far is my own selfishness. This is not "home", the place where I can relax. It's very uncomfortable here, in many, many ways. If I could know my own family and home were just across town or nearby, it would relieve some of the stress I feel. My poor son had to be on the receiving end of my first breakdown (yes, I said first because I highly suspect it was only the beginning) yesterday, via telephone. What started out as a "how was your day, dear?" conversation, turned into a full-blown blubbering mamma apologizing for doing so. It wasn't a pretty sight. Bless his heart, he's still talking to me today...he's a good kid.

I am quickly discovering that there is no relief or respite for the caregiver. At my father's advance stage, I am needed even when he is asleep for such duties as dispensing meds or going to the bathroom. And no one comes to visit. So all three of us are homebound. Day drags to night, night turns to day, day drags to night.....a perpetual swinging of a lone pendulum. Isolation. That's a good word to describe this, isolation. It feels like the whole world has stopped spinning but you can't find the way off the merry-go-round and everyone has gone home...deserted you.

I do know better. In the dead of the night, when I am needing to stay awake for the final medicine dispense, I am surfing my virtual community of friends that I used to chat with, laugh with during my days. Many of them leave me very encouraging words and wishes and let me know how proud they are of me and are praying for me. I wish they'd quit thinking grand things of me, though. I certainly don't see the same traits in myself that they seem to see in me. But I will take all their prayers! Maybe this will become easier and I will find some sort of footing. I really don't want to feel begrudging. My dad deserves the care and if that means some sacrifice or hardship on my part, then I am going to keep trying.

Ready, set....

I have come to grips with what is coming. I've had the time to find a "home" inside myself with my place and purpose. I know that there are still alot of unknowns, but I have found something inside me that says I can do this.

My father was placed in the hospital for pain management and they discovered a blot-clot in his leg. The meds used to dissolve and manage his pain finally kicked in and started giving him enough relief that he was resting better and sounded rested. There is a little voice to his hoarseness also. So, I'm hopeful that when I get there, he will be in better spirits and be ready to face the business of making arrangements and talking through everything that needs to be talked through.

My own husband and son have left me alone just the right amount and reassured me that things will happen as they should. I am reminded that even when things aren't done "right", they do get done and "well enough". I will miss some key days and activities with them, but I am also realizing that I can actually grow in many ways, and different ways, closer to them through my time away.

So, here I go.

Being stretched

I am entering into the hardest time of my life, so far. And I'm also realizing that as much as I work at not being a selfish person, that it's that same selfishness that is weighing the heaviest on my heart and causing myself the most pain. So here I am at 50 years old realizing that I'm basically throwing a temper tantrum inside myself. Lovely.

My father is at the end of his battle with cancer. He's a very proud and stubborn, self-sufficient man. Asking for help does not come easily, to say the very least. My mother is not able to live on her own and has not come to the point she can acknowledge that fact. I'm an only child that lives 1000 miles away with my own family. My only child, my son, is about to graduate from high school, march drum corp all summer and begin community college in the fall.

My parents' home is stuffy, stale, quiet, television-free, quiet, negativity you can choke on, stuffy, stale, television-free, negativity...did I say that already? Its just not "home", you know? And I've suddenly realized that not one thing about being there is about me! I mean, seriously, I'm an only child, remember? I'm going to be missing my own family, all of my child's "lasts" of high school and I'm not going to have anyone doing anything for me. No hugs for ME. No thoughts about ME. See? I told you I'm having a temper tantrum inside myself!

I find it ironic, yet very telling, that my epiphany is becoming clear on Easter Sunday. All the emotion of my worry and stress so far came to a head earlier today in tears....and tears....and tears. It was in those tears the thought came to me, how selfish I'm being. And that Jesus gave up His comfy little life here on earth on Friday for me. For you. For everyone. For His Father. Not for Himself. He actually prayed that what He was about to go through would pass over Him. He had a human moment. Probably one of many more that we don't stop to realize. He didn't want to die, to leave His family and friends, to go through the pain and unknown. He was one-up on the rest of us in knowing exactly what is on the other side. But all the rest, He was much like you and me. But He did it for me.

For me. For me. With every "for me", the point is driven home just a bit more in just how selfish I've been and that I have an opportunity to serve. And often service isn't completely comfortable. It's an exercise in stretching. Stretching my knowledge, stretching my patience, stretching my stamina, stretching my compassion, stretching my love, stretching past myself. I can do this with His gentle help. And the love and support of all my wonderful friends and my family is priceless.

More writing!

I have a friend that reminded me that writers write, even when there's nothing inspiring me to write. She said it doesn't have to be topic-driven or well thought out. Just write. So here I am.

Life has suddenly gotten very complicated. Aging parents are at the center of a majority of the angst. I cannot write more about it without going on and on and on and telling all sorts of things that just would not interest anyone else. Add to the severity and degree of their needs at this moment, a sudden health scare of my own, a smaller health issue for my husband and readying our only child for his graduation in two months and summer-long departure soon afterwards...needless to say, my own mind has been whirling non-stop and "inspired" has not been a descriptive I would include.

But upon a short, albeit productive consideration, I have to agree that I need to write. And perhaps right now is the perfect time. I will have alot of thoughts and need to unload them somewhere. Maybe somewhere in it all I will find a release and peace and if someone else reads it and finds a shred of anything that helps them, then "mores the better".