Non-Traditiional Easter

A PREVALENT PERCEPTION



THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER
 
“We are closest to Christ when sharing the world’s misery. Think you Jesus came to remove our pains? Wherever did you get that notion? The Lord came, not to remove our suffering, but to show us the way through it to the glory beyond. We can overcome our travails. That is the promise of the cross.”
― Stephen R. Lawhead



ALL OR NOTHING

“Love is beautiful, but it is also terrible—terrible in its determination to allow nothing blemished or unworthy to remain in the beloved”…”He will never be content until he makes me what he is determined that I ought to be.” Pg. 179  From Hind's Feet on High Places


LOVE LIFTED ME

It is better to go stumbling, and weeping, and crawling like a worm along the way of love, than to give up and choose some other way.

Hannah Hurnard

 





 

The Night

The night has ceased to be a time of closure for me. Day and night cycle through the 24 hours meant to hold them and I recognize the passing but take little notice. Every thing I read says this one thing will be the death of me. It was going to be cigarettes. It was going to be drugs and alcohol and then a violent husband and now maybe my weight or the food I eat or the stresses of life. Lord knows, as far as I can tell I have been living with the threat of death over my head for years now yet here I sit writing this blog. I am intelligent enough to know that not sleeping in any defined, normal way does affect me. I just wonder, after all these years and miles and miles of living if it is going to be the end of me. I am weary of thinking about it and pondering the idea of why I don't sleep at night. I think I want to just accept it for now. I think I am in the mood to just let me be me and accept the consequences. It is about all I can do right at this moment. The nights when I do get good sleep make the point for sleeping well. But, for now, I am what I am and I know, from long experience with myself, that this too shall pass. I am 65 years old. I suppose if I die tomorrow it could be said that I died an early death. How do you figure out that kind of statement? Death does seem to have a great deal of leeway. I am overweight and I don't sleep well and there is a crap load of stress in my life. All of that is true. But I am well loved and God fills my spirit with joy and I love deeply. I love people and the sound of their voices and their stories about themselves. I love animals and I love being allowed the honor of being the care giver for my husband and I love life but I am not married to the idea of it. Does that sound weird? I don't think so or at least not for myself. I don't think it sounds weird at all. I am not suicidal. I want for people I love to find their way to loving and being loved. I got sober and clean 33 years ago and there has been very little time that I have actually been physically healthy. Is that the ruler by which I measure myself? I was not particularly healthy as a child. I had malaria in Africa and bacillary dysentery and I believe my immune system was compromised but I can't prove it and I can't see as it really matters at this point. I haven't smoked in forever. I don't drink or do drugs. I know there are so many choices I could be making that would be so much better for me and my health. The energy and the drive to make those choices does not exist in me right now and I am just going to accept that about myself for now. Lord knows, life changes on a dime. I am open to change but I do not plan to go chasing it down the street to catch up with it. And I know ya gotta be wondering what on earth has gotten into me and that this is proof that staying up at night is a problem. But I don't think it is proof of that at all. I think I just need to speak my truth and for some ridiculous compulsion choose to share it as if folks have nothing else to do but read my stuff. But maybe my stuff and my sharing it will resonate with someone and that matters. So, I don't know how much time I have on this earth and neither do any one of you. I do know this though, if any of you are left standing when I go, please make sure they play "Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay" at my service. I do love me some Otis Redding.

This Girl Ain't Playing!

 

OUCH!

$%^&*(*

I found this clip art in honor of my knee. My left knee hurts. It has been hurting for several weeks. I am finished with it hurting. It is not finished hurting. I am a child in an adult body. "Make it stop!" is what I want to scream at the doctor. They are so professional. They are clinical. I want hugs and a profuse outpouring of comforting phrases. I want a lollipop and a shot. No, I want two shots and a couple of pills. No, I want two shots, a couple of pills, eight ounces of good whiskey and a joint the size of a large cigar. Did I mention that my knee hurts? I hobble along like the 65 year old woman I am and I use the carts in the stores and I learned to use that darn cane and I am in pain. No way around it and I will tell anyone who will listen, as a matter of fact I do tell anyone who will listen, that my knee is only surpassed in pain by the kidney stone I had a few years ago. A kidney stone would make me forget this knee and I do not want that thought to go to God's ears. Shush! That was a between me and you thought.

Tomorrow I find out what the MRI shows and we will make a plan. I DON'T WANT A PLAN!! I want the pain to go away. No! I will not try to think about pretty things or go to my happy place and I refuse to utter platitudes nor will I take back the desire for whiskey and dope. Of course I will not drink or smoke a joint but I am not going to lie and say the thought doesn't have a certain comfort to it. I am not that mature. I am not that evolved. I cannot say, in the face of ongoing pain, day after day, "Oh, me? No! I do not think about using substances that may cause me to lose my umpteen years of sobriety." I am not that girl! I am this girl. If it were not for the grace of God and the fear of another bunch of years of destroying my life looming before me you can bet your sweet bippy I would avail myself of those substances. Yes and Yes! But I won't, of course, act on the thought. I may share the thought with people who will not look at me as if I have lost all of my hard won sobriety even if I did not use a drug or a drink. Honestly, all I can think at this moment is, " A pox on your smugness!" And guess what! This is me without a single substance in me. No aspirin or puny little pain pill, NOTHING!

So, I'm just sayin', MY FREAKING KNEE HURTS!

It is unpopular today to express personal moments with such abandonment. Certainly not if it smells even a little bit like you belong on the right or the left. Well, guess freaking what again! My hurting, pain in my every day life knee is on the left side and the knee that is on the right side is feeling real good so draw your own conclusions.

Call this a vent! Call this a little, tiny bit of my insanity showing around the edges! I personally don't give an owl's hoot what you call it or me. Make my knee stop hurting and you will be my new best friend!

The Diversity of Perspective

My husband has a form of dementia. I am his full-time caregiver. I want to be his caregiver. It is not easy for either of us and it has been and will be a long journey. 

Recently I chose to join a few chat rooms at different sites. One is specific to his type of dementia. One is specifically for caregivers and one is the Mayo Clinic chat for caregivers and/or carees.

There are so many people facing incredible challenges as they care for family members. There are people caring for more than one family member in the same household. There are elderly people caring for their elderly spouse and adult children caring for elderly parents. There are carees who are easy to care for and there are those who are unbelievably difficult and dangerous to themselves and others.

Many caretaker chats are great places to get and share ideas of the practical nature. The help is invaluable.

There are also chats that become a safe place for people to vent, break down, ask questions on how to survive the tough job ahead and just generally come apart. 

One of the sites has a trained caregiver consultant in each chat. Tonight I learned from her an unbelievably freeing approach to how I feel about myself and about why I am caregiving and why I need to take care of myself. Not all caregivers see things from the same perspective. All caregivers present with the same frustrations, sorrows, exhaustion, and, concerns. 

Some believe in the use of medication to help control emotional symptoms. Others believe it is a cop out and argue for the whole health approach. Others wrestle with when it is important to make the right decision about long term care in a facility for their loved one. Still others just want to know when it can happen and yesterday is too late. No matter what I question about myself and our own situation there are a variety of options supported and championed by other caregivers. I find this diversity to be a safe place. I am not rejected for wondering when it will all be over and I can have a life again. I am not rejected if I want to place my loved one in a facility now or if I plan to wait. People ask questions and help each other to think through their own situations.

I know cyberspace can be a tool for much harm and evil but it can also be a tool for community and communal sharing with people thousands of miles away that I will never meet but share the same challenges and heartbreaks and successes and victories. 

I probably have at least 20 friends across this country that I have never met in person and probably never will meet in person and yet they know me inside and out and I know them. I met some of them when I was working from home and I have met others through the caregiver chat rooms. This is the new world we live in today. Connecting with others is becoming more fluid and diverse. 

I know the question could be asked about how I know these people are being real. I can't prove it in a court of law but I also cannot imagine why anyone would come into a care giving chat room and fake a painful story of caring for their mom who is ungrateful and difficult and ask how she can learn to manage that situation with her in a more positive way. Besides, if she was blowing smoke, the response she got from the trained counselor helped me immensely.

Like I said...diversity in perspective. Take what I need and leave the rest. My field of the experiences and insights of others has grown exponentially. I am grateful.

At Home

Tuesday night and a storm passed through earlier. The trees are dripping water onto the top of my aluminum condominium. Listening and then writing about the dripping on the roof brought back the memory of my grandfather going outside on Christmas Eve and making noises on the tin roof over the room where we, the children, were sleeping. Of course we were not asleep and, until we were older, we did believe the reindeer had made the noise my grandfather made and, as we got older, we never told him we knew. 

Sounds on a tin roof have brought me excitement, as in thinking the reindeer were on the roof, and they have brought me terror as I, in my vivid imagination, heard trees scratching against the roof and imagined them to be all manner of terrible and heinous creatures. As a child I was frightened in the dark and frightened when standing at the edge of a forest by myself. I imagined each sound to be the last I would hear or each shadow to be an evil character. Thinking back now I realize that my imagination often assigned the exaggerations of a vaudevillian actor playing the part of a villain in an old black and white movie. Those bad guys performed roles with the gusto of the stage. Their eyes were wide and their movements quick and furtive. The shadows hid them well until an unsuspecting and helpless maiden came along and the villain would jump in front of her, eyes wide, mustache twirled with a maniacal grin on his face. Who knew I would assign those attributes to the tall, lazy sunflowers in my grandmother's back yard. They were taller than I and the wind pushed them down towards me at times. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were after me. My grandmother never knew why I balked when she asked me to hang clothes on the line. She thought I was stubborn and lazy. I knew the tall, monster flowers were waiting for me.

 I would earn the label of "crazy" by my father as the years passed and I woke up screaming or began screaming on the way to the bathroom. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror of my bedroom sent me into a terror. The moonlight was streaming through the porch windows. I was wearing a long nightgown and had long hair. As I crept toward the door of the room I turned and caught a glimpse of a woman, bathed in moonlight, wearing a long gown with her long hair falling over her shoulders. She was creeping along and looking at me. I lost it. My father lost it. Writing it now I want to laugh at the description. At the time it was real to me and I let out a frightened howl. When I heard my father's feet hit the floor I knew I was in trouble. After I got back in my bed I heard my father telling my mother that something was wrong with me and I might need counseling. This was incredible as my father did not have faith in counselors, therapists or in confessing. I am certain his comment was birthed out of the adrenaline rush he maintained as he returned to bed.
 

Happy Harry the Hippy Man

Happy Harry the hippy man made a hasty decision to extend his stay at the Hula Hotel for the Faint of Heart. He felt the fear of old age and the ache of his bones as he moved across the worn carpet of the cheapest room he could get at the Hula Hotel. His hair hung damp and limp from the humidity of a mid-day heat. He drew a  secret smug delight in leaving his hair long and often pulled back into a ponytail. Happy Harry the hippy man yearned for hair thick enough to braid and wondered why someone such as himself was destined to thinning hair as he grew older. This explained, though he might not relate it to his thinning hair, the tongue stud and a tattoo of a praying mantis dressed in a zoot suit with a top hat perched at a tilt on his head and a saxophone swung around his neck. As if that were not enough the front of the body of the praying mantis faced one way while his head, turned one hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction, setting the stage for his diabolical grin. Small notes of music floated up from the saxophone. The tattoo was exquisite in detail. The praying mantis had a deep, rich green body He wore an outrageously purple satin zoot suit over a rich buttery, sunset yellow silk shirt, a blood red top hat and black, custom-made leather shoes sporting spats and a high gleam shine. The golden color of his saxophone appeared to catch an unseen light source producing the unsettling illusion of movement. The music notes floating up from the saxophone were sharply defined and etched in black. The entire ensemble set the stage for the crowning victory of the face of the praying mantis. Sat precariously at the top of his fragile body and turned in the opposite direction of the front of his body the artist had chosen to first draw and then color in the maestro's eyes in the deepest emerald green. Half closed by an exaggerated fold of the eyelid a glint sparkled from one eye The artist captured the glint as an exquisite minuscule diamond.The praying mantis had thin lips drawn back in a smile so perverse that friends of Happy Harry were shocked and confused. What possessed a man like Happy Harry the Hippy Man, they conjectured over dinner and a few drinks, to wander so far afield in his choice of tattoos. Inevitably, one of them would remind the others that Happy Harry had always drifted a tad left of the center line. Everyone would nod and take a sip of their drinks.

Happy Harry believed himself to be the last of a dying breed. He carried himself with an air of barely concealed disdain, except in the presence of the occasional hedonists to cross his path. His ego forgot his superiority in the presence of people he believed crossed the lines of decency without a hint of guilt. Though such characters rarely crossed his path Happy Harry was incapable of responding in anything other than an embarrassing and most unattractive form of hero worship. This trait also puzzled anyone who knew Happy Harry on a daily basis. The old, hip, slightly haughty man they knew disappeared into a fawning, sniveling pawn in the hands of these strangers. He catered to their every whim until the day they left. Afterwards Happy Harry confined himself to his room until he could emerge with what he believed was an air of mystery and secrets. The kindness of his friends saved him from well deserved snickers and snide comments. He was a most frustrating man and yet engaging in the way that oddity often presents itself. In truth no one who knew him would have him any other way. So they shared drinks with him until the mystique wore off, the haughty swagger returned and, some would swear, the praying mantis winked an intensely wicked wink.

How May I Help You?

 How may I help you? 

I hear this question often these days. Well meaning people with good hearts and willing hands ask me this question. I don't know what to say in response. We are loners in our home. The idea of anyone coming in and helping creates a discontent in me. Not that our place is clean and ordered. It is our place. With rare exception we have always chosen to go out rather than have anyone in and the dementia has not changed that about us. 

How may I help you?

This question requires me to think. I shrug it off and run as fast as I can peeping over my shoulder to see if I am being followed by the "how can I help you" people.

 A lovely group of men came and installed an awesome ramp for us. No cost. A friend of mine saw the need, organized the people and they arrived and proceeded to build the ramp and built it professionally as well. We peeked out the blinds and followed their progress. Conversations of our gratitude inevitably led back to their gratitude for being able to help . So I stood and Robert stood a little and we watched and felt cared for and loved and cherished. With the minimum of fanfare they left one day. On to their next project is what I am thinking. 
How did they help me? Obviously the ramp and paying the cost of it was a huge help but how did they help me individually. 

They helped me accept help. They brought everything including the plan, the wood, nails, schedule, water, food and their own conversation. They helped me by beautifying the front of our home and by fixing the steps at the back of our place. They helped me to understand that someone saw us and got it. They got it and they knew where our journey is headed and they understood the road ahead. They helped me to feel less lonely, less alarmed at all the things that need doing. They bore our burden. 

How may I help you? 

Share my burden. Know me. Know my need. 
Understand the journey or ask me to talk about it. Then love me and suggest a frivolous snack. 

Did I mention that yummy snacks play a huge role in helping? They do. I don't know why. They are comforting and child-like and help me experience a child-like pleasure.

How may you help me?

Let me help you. Ask me to do something that will help you. It sounds odd but helping someone else is the greatest way to get outside of suffering and into relieving suffering. Keep it simple but not condescendingly so. 

How may you help me?

Pray. Pray. Pray.

How may you help me?

Love your life. Live your life. Remind me that this too shall pass. Bear my burden and I will bear yours. Inside of that is a truth I do not understand. It is true. It works. But I do not understand it.