Started last blog only to be interrupted - not uncommon of course, so now it will seem as though I am birthing multitudinous blogs (okay so 2 may not exactly be "multitudinous" generally speaking but anything commenced & completed in one week in my life, let alone one day, seems amazingly copious!).
Emotions are spiking and jackknifing here: we received a nursing home bed offer at the local facility for Jeff's mom and though Jeff's family thought they were all one "one page", situations seem to dictate emotional change, torment, and guilt. Are we making the right decision? Are we really considering what is best for Diane, and not simply for our own easy-ness?
Jean Harker writes in Help Me Coping with the Nursing Home Decision: "Frequently people being placed in a nursing home look at it as a one-stop place before dying. This feeling has nothing to do with the quality of care that the nursing home offers, but is just their way of thinking. Such thoughts are very understandable, because few people ever return to a "normal" life after being admitted to a nursing home facility. It represents a one-way street which no one really wants to travel, but people seldom have any choice. Lots of these individuals and their families and friends have little or no help during this very rough time in their life's journey. Their losses and grief seem overwhelming to them. They have nowhere to go for comfort, and quite often no one who will listen to their grief story." http://www.alharris.com/harker/helpme.htm
It is when I read this that it registered: it often feels we are alone. Sure, people are continually entering such facilities and family and friends are perpetually encountering the same situation as we currently are. We aren't so different. And yet somehow we are alone and yes, somehow, no one seems to be "listening to our grief story".
My grief story is mine alone, and is not nearly as looming as that of Jeff, his sisters, and their great aunt. I can not understand, as much as I would like to, my sisters-in-law as they lose pieces of the mother who comforted them, listened, offered advice, secretly filled her pockets with small change to take them them for ice cream after dog walks, and raised them in a strong Christian home despite the many horrors she endured. I see a new Diane every day and I can appreciate the woman she is today, this hour, this moment mainly because I don't have that long term connection and knowledge of whom she was. I am at the easy end of the stick.
Our 4 1/2 year old son and I both cry as I explain to him why Mama has to move to a new home. "Why?" he wants to know. "She's fun. I'll miss her. Will someone give her the pills she needs? Will we see her again?" Jeff cried as he told his mom and I think she was crying too. Everyone has been crying. So many tears shed. But it reminds me of the lyrics "and every tear I've cried, you hold in your hand" in Casting Crown's Praise You In This Storm. It is more than comforting to know that despite it and through it God is here, always with us, no matter what. He knows our grief story. He shares in the pain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUWbmtbzDno
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