Saturday, January 19, 2013

courage

""May your weekend be filled with courage. May you choose to honestly confront the competing voices in your head, and may you decide today to listen only to the true ones. Go ahead a take time off from your self-doubt for the weekend. May the break be so freeing that you decide to make it permanent."

It's embarrassing at age 55, being unable to please boss' boss and expecting a sub-par review.

Never mind that boss' boss does not communicate.

Husband posits that I should pursue teaching - I'm passionate about it, good at it, and teaching energizes me. Hey, students are starting to recommend me!

Competing voices. Boss' boss voice - "You are a failure. You cannot please me."

Voice of Truth - "I created you, fearfully and wonderfully. I filled you with skills and talents. I am pleased with you."

It all comes down to the "T" word - Who am I going to trust?

Thursday, January 17, 2013

his.hands


These are the hands that held me, newborn.

These are the hands that steadied me until I was riding the bike on my own.

These are the hands that tucked me safely into bed at night.

These are the hands I held this morning.



Tuesday, January 15, 2013

the.mens.room

The man in the wheelchair - the man in the tan corduroy ball cap wearing the too-large cranberry jacket, that's my dad. I see him down the hallway at the VA outpatient clinic, sitting across from my mom.

He's smaller than me now, this man that always stood tall in character and personality. Some days I wish we could go back to a simpler time, when I was his little girl and he was my daddy. Now we walk in role reversal - I am the caregiver, he is the one cared for. It's the least I can do. But. Sometimes. It is damn hard.

Like today when I went to pick them up for the appointment and found him, pants around his ankles, sitting on the chair buttoning his shirt with awkward hands. We were supposed to be walking out the door that moment. Mom and I orchestrated a finely-tuned dance where I got the car and she kept him focused on getting dressed and then I took over, threading his belt and combing his hair, getting his cap and coat on.

Ah. What happened to my dad, the dapper man? It takes us all to make him dapper.

We got to our appointment, nearly on time, and were waiting for the doctor to call us in.

And then it happened.

I have to go to the bathroom, he said.

A complex set of emotions pummeled me. Empathy wrestled with frustration, impatience with responsibility. What to do?

I did what he probably would have done had the tables been turned.

I pushed his wheelchair into the men's room, got him established in the handicapped stall, and went back into the hall to wait.

And wait.

Checking in. No, he wasn't ready for me to retrieve him.

The doctor's LPN came to call us in.

I explained. She said she'd come back.

A young man offered to help.

I checked again. Not ready. You can't hurry this, he said, or words to that effect.

I had a stranger, a kind African American man, check. Not ready.

LPN came again. Five minutes, she said.

Traffic in the men's room increased, along with my blood pressure.

A man nearer my age said not to worry, to come in anyway.

Dad was ready. I have to wash my hands, he said. I pulled the wheelchair out of the stall and pushed pushed Dad to the sink, then turned the faucets on. Washing his hands consisted of holding his right hand under the water. I put soap on my hands and offered it to him. No.

And the man near my age said how it sucks to get old, and I said what my dad always said, "Consider the alternative." And then the man said how our parents took care of us, so I responded that now we get to do this. And I meant it.

It's hard sometimes to count the joy.

The joy in this day is that I am strong and I am able to help.

The joy in this day is that I can help write this chapter, perhaps the last, in my dad's life.

And that I can write this chapter with all the love in my heart as an expression of gratitude for all the times he took care of me.




Tuesday, January 8, 2013

dreams

I usually don't remember my dreams, but this recent dream has stayed vividly.

It's been a stressful time, nearly beyond endurance. And I dreamed that I slept on my side (I know, dreaming that I was sleeping?!), cupping a silver, star-shaped paperweight in my hands.

The metal was warm and well, weighty.

It looked kind of like this:


As I held it, I felt strangely assured that God was present and I was loved.

I didn't know how this bad-to-worse situation would resolve, but felt peace.

I've been holding to the phrase from Psalm 26:3, "...for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love".

I counted this joy, this sense of God's physical presence. And that I had, finally, good sleep.