Caretaking

A day in the life

 

Staying one step ahead. That is what you consistently have to do. And if you forget, it throws the whole day off. That kind of living alters your life. It’s very much like having a toddler in the house, you must think of things they may get into before they do. Secure the area at all times.

You leave the washer open in the morning and ready for her soiled PJ’s to go into. And you never  leave washed clothes in the washer, soiled clothes will go on top of them. Many loads had to be repeated because of that.

Check room for dirty clothes she puts back in closet.

Secure unopened mail. Put it somewhere she won’t find it.

Leave phone turned down, always.

Don’t leave suitcases out unless you are ready to answer 100 questions about where you are going and when.

Signs on doors, on microwave…….so many rules.

Yesterday the pacing was bad. Every time I settled down to write she would come back in the door. Or go out again. The silent close of the screen door……50 times a day. And every time, the air conditioner would click on trying to keep up with the raised temp in the house.

There used to be a zoo in my hometown that I liked going to, but I always felt sad for the coyote. He paced all day in his little cell. As a kid I wanted to set him free and live the life he was meant to live, running through fields chasing rabbits. I have never really liked zoos since.

I know Joyce must feel a bit like that coyote, and I can’t imagine what it’s like inside her mind. So I really try to be patient. We take her to Walmart and buy her an ice-cream and let her sit on the benches and watch people. She likes that and so far has only wandered off a few times. Security had to be called.

But yesterday I was in a hurry and just wanted to get there and back.

By the end of the day I felt like the coyote as well, so I went to the store again……..I found myself whistling in the aisles…..I felt that sense of freedom that happens when you are suddenly sprung. I understand now how women with small children feel, just wanting to go…….anywhere away.

Elaine dreams of Alaska with an unlisted number.

This is our life right now. And Jesus is here with us. So it is going to be okay. Because…..

“Never will I leave you or forsake you…….”

Asking the big questions

Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Ephesians 5:17
 
I slept late because I took a Walmart sleep aid. I missed prayer this morning……and running. That threw me all off.

Then I was messing around with the template and header on my blog yesterday and messed it up. So now it is beautifully off centered…..and the lettering is also not centered. Bless Dusty Rayburn for sending me the code. I know what he sent was right because he is a very smart guy, and a techie. But I put the code in and nothing changed.

And I decided that was okay because my life is very much like my crooked blog header right now. A beautiful picture  but gloriously off center. Not perfect. So I decided to leave it like that as a reminder.

“How did you love today?”

At the close of each day it’s what I ask myself. It seems more often than not there is a big fat red “F” on the report card in my heart. Mentally I check off everything I did wrong. I see fail after fail. Glaring at me from inside their smug little boxes.

We need to ask ourselves the hard questions as Christians. That was what came out of the church service on Sunday morning and ever since, I have wondered. Have I fit Jesus into a comfortable niche in my life?  Am I a “friend” or “follower” like on Facebook or Twitter, or am I a Disciple?

Disciple has definite connotations.

I felt the weight of it all as I stepped out the door to finally go running. I needed it to clear my head, and heart. And as I ran, something happened. I felt it lift. As I heard the words to East and West, I felt the warm oil of His grace from the top of my head all the way down to my toes.

It was like the oil I was anointed with once for sickness. And now I was feeling the healing of His Grace all over again.

Grace that is always greater than all my sin.

And where grace enters in, He always brings His love with it.

Oh God, this is it. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, for the assurance I am still and always Your child.

Only in Jesus can I be that picture of perfection. God sees my heart. The truth is, there is a lot I will get wrong today too, but there are some things I will get right.

I will get up and try again tomorrow with Jesus. And I thought another thing too this morning. That like Alzheimer’s? Once we confess to God, he not only forgives, He forgets all about it.

He has given me a living, breathing example of that right in my own home.

I guess you could say that God has a form of Alzheimer’s too when it comes to our sin.

As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us. Psalm 103:12
 

A day in the life…..

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful!
For those of you who have been keeping up with this blog, you know the situation with Elaine’s Mom. Each day comes with its own challenges and the heat provides another. And when I work, there is always a story to come home to, last night was no exception. Since the heat has set in, the challenge has been to keep Joyce inside after around 11. The outside swing as been her safe place, but now with the barometer climbing to 110 in the shade, it is far too hot. Yet now her mind doesn’t make the connection that it is too hot.
For some strange reason, she has no inclination to go out when it is bearable in the morning, so Elaine kindly reminds her that if she wants to go out, she has to go in the morning.  Now anytime after noon, there is  a wooden board across it,  complete with sign……”Too hot to sit outside.”
This makes her Mom angry as you might expect.
Yesterday she was more disoriented than usual. In the morning she asked if she could have coffee. Later, she asked how many brothers and sisters she had. After Elaine told her 9, she then asked how many were left. Elaine told her, “3” and her Mom started crying. She then wanted to talk to her sister, Faye, who has been gone for about 6 years. When Elaine told her she had passed away, she cried again.
This went on for about an hour or more. Joyce kept wanting to talk to Faye. Ten minutes later she would ask again. So finally in desperation, she said, “Okay, I will call her.” So she called her other sister Shirley in Texas who also has Alzheimers’s.
They talked about the same thing for an hour. Needless to say it was a very interesting conversation. They talked about a Nephew that hanged himself and how sad it was that a young kid would get to so desperate as to do such a thing. That young kid was 55, and no telling how long ago this happened.
When I got home, I got the recap.
And yet…….God is faithful. So far we have mostly kept our sanity and sense of humor. I truly don’t know how Elaine does it, being with her 24/7…..and yet, I do, I really do.
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves <sup class="crossreference" value="(AA)”>with compassion, kindness, humility, <sup class="crossreference" value="(AB)”>gentleness and patience. Bear with each other <sup class="crossreference" value="(AD)”>and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, <sup class="crossreference" value="(AF)”>which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3: 12-14

When writing heals what is broken

“Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God’s recreation of the new day”
Morning has broken, Cat Stevens
Sometimes God does something that we really don’t expect. Well, usually He does.  And yesterday, I hinted at that something. It was something that was broken off me……and it was supernatural. It was an out and out healing, I really wouldn’t know what else to call it. I wrote a story recently, well God wrote it, actually. And I guess it was a kind of catharsis, because ever since it was posted, the anger that I have been wrestling with has left.
I remember the morning after I sent it, I awoke at 2:00 and it was there. The black presence. I was fighting with it in the dark. I was doing combat. And I was upset because I was robbed of precious sleep. In two more hours the alarm would go off.
It was a person I was mad at. And it was justified, because my friend was hurt because of it. You could say it was a righteous anger. But it was anger all the same. And I recognized it as a tangible thing inside me, building and brewing inside me since all these events of the past few years or so.
It was the anger that leapt up like a fire in me…….when a shirt wouldn’t come off the hanger, when someone pulled in front of me, little irrational things that caused it to flare. And I was never that way before.
That dark morning I prayed just I had other mornings, but that morning I fell asleep hard, and when I awoke that anger had packed its bags and left. God swept that demon out clean. 
I know it was the story.
I compare it to the other morning long ago when I got up and I suddenly knew my mind was healed of anorexia. I sat down and ate……with no guilt at all. That thing inside that held me captive was gone and I knew it.
And there was such joy at the kitchen table that day, my Mom and Dad and I all cried as I told them about a healing dream I had. That morning they got their daughter back from the grip of death.
I remember I ate scrambled eggs, usually a forbidden food.
I know it was the story. I gave it to Him and He did something wonderful with it.
This is powerful confirmation that Dawn is coming.
Once again He has reminded me in a powerful way, that whatever you or I are going through right now, its temporary, Hallelujah.
Tremble and do not sin;
when you are on your beds,
search your hearts and be silent.
Offer the sacrifices of the righteous
and trust in the Lord.
In peace I will lie down and sleep,
for you alone, Lord,
make me dwell in safety.
Psalm 4:4,5, and 8



The Lord will hear…….

But know that the Lord has set apart for Himself him who is godly;
The Lord will hear when I call to Him.
Psalm 4:3

I pulled out of the driveway a bit late for church. I was thinking that I might miss the music, and that was okay. Certain days, it’s all I want to hear, and other days I would be content to just sit in the silence for awhile. Just to be in church…..

As I sped along the freeway another thought came. What if, instead of doing church, I went and passed out bottled water to the homeless. Went to serve in the foodbank. Went to the rest home and spent the church hour sitting with him. Praying with him. It was a radical thought. That’s what made me think it might be a God thought.

Instead, I felt my tires go the familiar groove, the safe way. Into the doors I went, into the safety of the church. It’s what I need, I thought. This is how I get ready for the rest of the week. This is what keeps me going all week.

And I was glad I went. But at service’s end, I found myself going the back way home. The way that passed the rest home where he was, Curtis, my best friend’s Dad. He has wreaked such havoc over the last few years, well, longer than that. And though he provided for the family, he was an absent father.

Now everyone is absent from his life, well just about everyone.

Though the choices that have led to this result at the end of his life have been his, it makes it no less tragic how he has ended up.

As I drove past, I felt God whisper for me to pull in. And He might have said that I should go in the room, too. But I wrestled with that, and put it aside.

What if he’s in a grouchy mood, what if he’s just gotten his lunch, he stops eating if someone is there…..what if there is a mess all over and soiled clothes piled high in the hamper, like there has been before. The smell reached all the way down the hall. Sometimes he refuses to let the aides pick up his laundry.

I think of him how he looks now. So frail, so weak, a shadow of the man he was before.

I pulled into a space and my swirling thoughts quieted down like snow at the bottom of a snowglobe.

I bowed my head, and prayed for him right there in the parking lot. For his life, for the rest of his life, however much is left. For him to remember what he heard in church all his younger years, he and his sister, still vibrant and full of life at 88. She chose the better path, the path of faith, of life. Of Jesus.

I pray for a miracle before the end.

Then, like that while feather that floated from the sky in Forrest Gump, I realized that a miracle had happened, the anger I had before was gone. It had left like a wisp of smoke and I hadn’t realized it before then,  and I know just when it happened.

Be angry, and do not sin.
Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Selah
Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
And put your trust in the Lord
Psalm 4:4,5

Tomorrow, I will write more…..until then I join with the gratitude community and with the ones who are unwrapping his promises.

Okra reaching for the sky, how my story touched some hearts, and how I made some new friends, completed projects and a clean shop, friends across the miles who text, another chips and salsa timeout yesterday, freedom to gather together in worship one more Sunday, a new friend for my brother, my nieces Mom who takes Lauryn everywhere with her and doesn’t leave her behind, and facebook for keeping in touch. #933-943

Can we talk????

I heard a quote somewhere that said something like, “we view ourselves as our mothers see us“…….I probably mangled the quote, and I really can’t remember where I read it, but the meaning stuck with me. Could it actually be true? There is no stronger bond than that of the parent and child, or more complex. If that is true, then the bond between Moms and Daughters is even more complicated.

For every daughter who has a mom worthy of the glowing phrases found in a Hallmark card, I am sure there are 4 or 5 that don’t. I am very blessed and grateful that it has always been easy for me to celebrate Mom’s day. My mom has made it so. She was there emotionally and physically for me, always…..she still is, I am happy to say.

Some daughters spend their whole lives trying to “get over” their mother. And some spend all their lives trying to please a mother who will not be pleased; who remains as emotionally and physically available as a brick wall. My best friend comes to mind immediately. Sometimes, as she says, “I thank her for doing the best she could at the time, and for giving me life.” I don’t know that I could be as gracious as she is.

My Mom always hated Mother’s Day. Finding a card was always difficult. My Grandmother was emotionally distant and critical of her daughters and yet displayed open affection for her son. In her defense, she lost a precious little girl to a shooting accident when she was only four. I often wonder if she just couldn’t allow herself to show affection for my Mom and Aunts because of her guilt about Annie.

Some things she did do right. She created a warm atmosphere in their home in many ways. They always came home to meals and home baked pastries and a clean house. To her credit, she was very demonstrative in her love for me and my brother. I think mixed in with her love for me was pity, since I was born 3 months premature and was a small pale child. She was always trying to feed me.

Even great moms struggle with guilt……they think they haven’t done enough. They see the mistakes they made instead of all the things they did right. My Mom told me on the phone yesterday, “It’s hard for me to think of myself as a good Mom.” I was floored.

As daughters we tend to remember that one barb that stuck, that one hurtful thing our Mom said that she may not have even been aware of saying, nevertheless we remember it.

Mother’s Day for those of us without kids can be uncomfortable. An innocent question like, “What are you doing for Mother’s Day” and all of a sudden I feel like I am on the other end of the Spanish Inquisition about why I don’t have kids. Most of the time it’s all in my head. They just asked a question, after all.

Just because I haven’t had any doesn’t mean I haven’t mothered in some way shape or form. In fact, I feel very sure that within all women there resides a she-wolf  that would step in front of a truck to save even someone else’s child. Its just a part of who we are.

There’s a whole world of children out there who have benefited by someone who picked up where Mom left off. Someone who sacrificed without giving it a second thought. Auntie, Grandma, best friend, teacher……Imagine where some of those kids would be if no one had stepped up.

There was one moment in particular when I felt like I was briefly ushered in to the Mommy community. I was dropping my little niece Lauryn off at school when I noticed the booger hanging halfway out her cute little nose. Instantly I was mortified that she might be teased by her classmates, so I took my bare finger (cause that was all I had) and got it out for her. Then I understood that thing that comes alive in you as a parent. That thing that says, I will do whatever it takes to protect you.

So today I honor all Mothers in whatever capacity you serve. Because being a good Mom is the toughest job in the world and one of the most important assignments God will ever give you. You deserve more than just one day…..

“If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.” — Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Grace Blows Through Our Days

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

Not only that, He rose for us too……In light of those two facts, everything else in this life can be worked out. Some days are good mostly all the way through, but the average day holds a bit of everything mixed in. Just living in this world is a challenge. Yesterday was a hodgepodge but overall it was good. The usual worries cycled through my head on the way to work. I started to pray and stared off into the road ahead, my thoughts veer off as I hold study to the wheel.

The weather was beautiful and a bit cloudy, all the more beautiful since May and June are coming, and that’s when the heat starts.  In my heart are the usual faces I send up into the throne of Grace.

I think of my brother, who works for The City of Stockton, a whole city on the brink of bankruptcy. He is caught like so many loyal employees, in the middle. Unsure of his job, unsure of his retirement, having to decide whether to let go and move on, or stay onbeard a sinking ship. A dear friend texted me yesterday, going through many hardships with a son, so much hurt, so much hardship, I could feel the pain in the middle of all the words flashing across my phone…..And my dear friend battling daily her own health issues as well as her Mom’s Alzheimer’s…..

And no matter how someone says, “It’s not really them, it’s the drugs…..it’s the Alzheimer’s…..it’s the whatever” that’s doing it, you still feel the betrayal, the indifference like a knife in your heart. You still feel the fatigue of moving through quicksand each day.

And yet…..there are moments of joy, moments of grace wound throughout our days. We know we are more than conquerors, after all, it’s in the very lifeblood and DNA of our faith and it will not let us go. God gives us a supernatural hope that makes it possible to go on…..even be an encouragement to others.

There was an NPR article about the City of Stockton on the net yesterday and I felt a pang in my heart….so many good people who worked so hard to make a downtown, a marina, a beautiful park where people would want to come with their children, enjoy the weather, live life, and now it is all in jeopardy due to gross mis-management and politics and who knows what all else.

And when my brother got home to tuck into the meatloaf my Mom had made, she said he had a quizzical expression as he said, “Did you do something different to this?” Right away she knew what it was and burst out laughing. She remembered being sidetracked when she saw the syrup bottle on the counter right by the meatloaf. It was left out. And you know that when you have a special needs child around, you have to be on your toes. Lauryn had decided that the meatloaf needed a sauce…..a syrup sauce. In her mind it made perfect sense. Oh how I wish I could have been there watching her when she did it.

In the process, she gave her Daddy and Grandma, and me, when she told me about it last night, a good laugh.

And right then, we felt God’s good grace in what a little girl did.

Extraordinary Life……

“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.” Henri Nouwen
 
 
When the little slip of paper came around to volunteer at church, I happened to notice a little box right next to help out in the special needs class. It was as if that choice alone of all the other choices was outlined in bold, yet I know it wasn’t. I remembered my words, I said…..”every big church should have one.” Because of my niece Lauryn, I’m sensitive to it. I think it’s important that people with special needs have a place in church, a class all their own, an option like everyone else.

I felt the Lord give me one of His nudges. “If you support it so strongly, maybe you should help out.” I checked the box and prayed while my little slip was passed along with the others down the aisle. Because I knew I had to. Because I knew the Extraordinary Life class was something out of my comfort zone. I like safe, I like predictable. The truth is, sometimes the world feels out of my comfort zone.

Dear God forgive me, I didn’t even know what hand over hand drawing meant when I talked to Amy on the phone and she told me a bit about the class. As I saw shortly after I got there, it means you put your hand over theirs, coloring in what they cannot. What would it be like to have a child who can’t do the simplest things? Those things we all take for granted. I thought of Lauryn and how she can do just about anything physical and yet in her brain there are many words still fighting to get out.

As I put her little hand in mine and we colored in the outlined cross on the paper, it had to be purple, her favorite and also my niece’s favorite too……. I suddenly felt the impact of what that meant……hand over hand.

Just like God takes ours and does the impossible.
And another curious thing I felt? My own weakness as well as her own. I didn’t want to hurt her hand, and I didn’t know if how I was holding it was comfortable for her. I complimented her on her beautiful nails, which her Mom, (it turned out to be Amy, the same lady I talked to on the phone) painted a brilliant sparkly deep red with a hint of pink.

And then there was Kathleen,  who had quite possibly the most beautiful pair of blue eyes I had ever seen, framed with wonderfully long dark lashes. In them, I saw the whole sky of Heaven. I have a feeling she sees more than the rest of us combined. She was 33 and all of 70 pounds soaking wet, also wheelchair bound. She smiled at me and I smiled at her. At that moment, I saw the Lord looking back. In her hands she clutched onto two balls, one in each hand. It was clear that she didn’t want to let go of them.

She loves the song Jesus Loves Me…..they say her face lights up when she hears it.

As I looked at her little fists so tightly wrapped around what made her feel better, I thought of all the things I kept closed around my fists too, for fear of letting go.  I understood how she felt. In some ways we are not so different after all. 

These parents, these kids. These are the ones who teach the lessons. The ones the world so often calls the least of these. One thing I am sure of, Jesus loves them this I know, and I also know they are somehow closer to Him than I am.

Even so, I know He loves me too.

Photo credit: Google images

We all need healing

“Our own experience with loneliness, depression, and fear can become a gift for others, especially when we have received good care. As long as our wounds are open and bleeding, we scare others away. But after someone has carefully tended to our wounds, they no longer frighten us or others.

When we experience the healing presence of another person, we can discover our own gifts of healing. Then our wounds allow us to enter into a deep solidarity with our wounded brothers and sisters.”

Henri Nouwen, the Wounded Healer

We all need healing from something, that is the truth. This life makes its marks. And we are all at different mile markers in our healing journey. Here’s the miracle part. That at just the point when we think we can no longer hold on, someone a little further down the path, or one who is presently not in need of healing speaks hope.

Someone listens……..Someone says they understand, and you know they really do.

One of the ladies in my Mom’s Bible study, when they finished going around the table with all their prayer concerns, (and they were many) said, “the word for the day is Nevertheless.”

I like that…….Nevertheless……we have Jesus. Nevertheless…….we are more than conquerors……Nevertheless…….we exult in hope and joy unspeakable and full of glory……Nevertheless……He gives us peace that passes understanding.

The One who heals us, knows how it feels to be in need of healing Himself.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

Celebrating firsts, letting go of lasts….

Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk
One paints the beginning
of a certain end.
The other, the end of a
sure beginning.
Passing Time by Maya Angelou
When you have a child, it is important to celebrate the “firsts.” They are such milestones and so very important. They carve themselves in your heart and memory forever. And then there are the lasts…..the last time they will let you hug them…..in public, or at all! The last time they blow you a kiss or return your wave as enthusiastically as you give it. The last time you read them a story and feel them lean against you as if they will always need you this much. 
Sometimes they slip by unnoticed, but not because they aren’t just as monumental as the others.
My wonderfully stalwart and soft-hearted best friend has realized there are other types of losses and last things when your parents have Dementia and Alzheimer’s. She has had a whole year of “lasts” with her Mom and her Dad.
There was the last drive in the car, the last trip in the Motor home, the last time to pay a bill or run to the store. She has been with them through it all.
Yesterday was still another. Last time to take your Mom to the movies. First, she got lost. She said she didn’t have to “go” but changed her mind and went into a stall. Since she has the habit of wandering off, Elaine circled the theatre area, and then the parking lot. A lady said, “She went that way…..” Then, out loud during the movie her Mom kept saying, “This movie is weird.”
And she ate one kernel of popcorn at a time and then picked her teeth….and you don’t want to know what she did with what she found in her teeth. Imagine what a small child would do if they didn’t know any better. Alzheimer’s is ugly. And mean spirited. It has no mercy.
It was another last of many lasts. And the strain of it all makes her wonder if she is living her lasts as well……how do you grieve what never was in the first place? Part of the sorrow is knowing how it could have been And will you know the right time to say, “when?” Can you trust someone else to give you permission to lay it down?
And all the relatives wonder why she keeps trying. Why she can’t just put her in a home somewhere. Why she can’t let go. Everyone else has cut them loose. After all, their parents never really invested in their lives, or the lives of their Grand kids. You don’t grieve what was never there, after all. You just live your life as if they don’t exist.
And the time and memories are like water rushing under a bridge…..sometimes, regrettably, not nearly fast enough. And that time is getting closer every day.
And sometimes the saddest thing we can learn from others is how not to live a life…….
And when the end does come, she will have known she did all she could with the help of her Savior who knows and sees all. She is doing what she must do, right now, one day, one moment at a time, and trusting Him to let her heart know when it is time to let go.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written,The days fashioned for me,when as yet there were none of them……….Psalm 139:16