Self care. I know that sounds extravagent, it does to me, but in the past two months I have been pounded by grief and loss. Just yesterday I got another phone call that a dear friend is losing her battle with illness. It has been a deeply distressing time; I’m almost afraid to answer my phone.
But, I have Bible study this morning, then an appointment with my therapist and after that I’m getting my nails done. I have to live. I can not be consumed by the multiple griefs I am aware of.

Take care of yourselves friends, an empty vessel can not pour out.

Hope for the future.

It’s what drives me to get up each morning to face the day. It’s been a very difficult year with lots of personal loss. As I write this my 39 yr old neice languishes in a transplant ward, waiting for a liver transplant. She is a beloved wife and mother of three, it’s a very difficult situation. And yet we encourage her, daily, to continue the fight and hope for the future. Without hope, we have no drive.

Blessings to each of you today.

Most every time! My curiosity has lead to growth, always. Even if the results of my curiosity are not what I would like, I have grown as a person.

When I was in eighth grade, I was home alone, doing the family’s laundry (as usual) when I came across a bundle of letters in my father’s dresser drawer. There were about 20 or so letters, all addressed to him, but what attracted my attention, besides the beautifully handwritten script, was the addressee. The letters were from my Mother! I was never allowed to ask about her and I had no memories of her, so…I sat down and read them. Every. Last. One.
The letters were confusing, they referred to people and places with which I was not familiar but…in one letter she referred to her pregnancy. I looked at the post stamp on the letter. It was written the summer of 1963. My Mother was talking about me! She was pregnant with me as she wrote these very letters I held in my hand! I was stunned…I’d never been so close to her. I continued reading, greedily now, wanting so desperately to know her. Well, by the time I’d finished the stack, I leaned back stunned. My father, the man who I’d called, Daddy, for the past 14 years, was NOT my biological father. Suddenly, so many things began to make sense. Why I was NOT the favored, the simmering resentments toward me, the MANY times I was sent away… I wasn’t HIS!! Relief and exhaustion flooded my body. It wasn’t ME…I wasn’t the problem…It was that HE WAS NOT MY FATHER. No wonder I was treated like I was disposable and the terrible daughter, the one who hated him and cussed him out on a regular basis and beat me mercilessly…SHE WAS NOT MY SISTER. I can not explain the release this information gave me. I wrapped the letters up and put them back and waited. My “dad” got home hours later. I sat on the couch and just watched him, with new eyes. Finally, he asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

“I know,” I said and watched him as the realization dawned. “I know.”

Oh my… this question brings up memories…
Years ago my younger son had to go in the hospital for a minor condition. There was a five year old boy in the room across the hall from him. I noticed this boy would push his IV pole all around the floor we were on, playing with the nurses who had warned him not to enter the rooms of other patients. One night, he had a horrific “meltdown” in his room. Nurses hurried in and out before the head nurse said, “Just leave him alone and let him work it out,” The boy raged for an hour before the room grew quiet and a nurse was able to go in and put him to bed. I asked about him, discreetly, and was told he’d been in the hospital for weeks, he had an infection in his heart muscle and had to recieve intravenous anti-biotics for a month. I asked why I’d never seen anyone visit him and the nurse averted her eyes and said, “No one does”. My heart broke for the little boy. I had not left my son’s side for the two days he was in the hospital, I couldn’t imagine leaving him alone for WEEKS in the hospital. My son was discharged and we went home but I couldn’t get that little boy out of my mind. The first night home, I went back to the hospital. When I stepped off the elevator I could hear him… he was in the midst of another meltdown. A group of nurses huddled in the hall outside his door. I went in. The little boy was raging. I sat on the edge of his bed and waited. I didn’t talk I just sat and prayed for his poor broken heart and waited. After a time, he noticed me and gradually he quieted, as he always did after one of his outbursts. I greeted him and asked if I could read him a story. He didn’t consent but didn’t say no, so I opened a book from the waiting room that I’d grabbed on my way in and began quietly reading. Gradually he inched closer to me, listening to the story. I kept my eyes on the book and kept reading quietly. Eventually he was leaning on my knee, peering at the illustrations. Nurses poked their heads in the door and left.
This began a nightly ritual. For two weeks, every night at bedtime, I drove to the hospital and read that little boy a story. After two days he would climb in my lap and I would cuddle him while we had story time, after which I would tuck him in and we would pray and thank Jesus for loving us.
One night, I went back and he was gone. The harried nurse in the hall said he’d completed his course of anti-biotics and been discharged. The authorities had been notified that his parents never visited him and he had been put in foster care. I went out to my car in the parking lot, and cried.
I prayed for him for a long time afterward. I don’t even remember his name anymore but I’d like to think, for a couple weeks, my love made a difference.

My husband and I moved away from our children and grandchildren, 1100 miles south to Central Florida. We did it for my husband’s physical health and to get away from the dreary Michigan weather. (Michigan averages just 67 days of sunshine a year) My mental health has improved dramatically since we’ve moved, despite 2020.

The courage part came from being willing to start again in our older years, to move away from our dear friends and familiar places and most grievously move away from our grandchildren and their parents. It has been challenging but SO gratifying. We have weekly Beach Days when we go to the shore and just relax on the sand and listen to the surf and sea birds, the sun shines practically EVERY day here!! New friends, and new experiences have kept us busy. This was definitely the right decision.

I reluctantly met my mother when I was 25. Her addiction and mental health issues landed me in foster care when I was about three months old (no one remembers exactly). My growing up years were a hell on earth that I barely survived. By the time she “found” me I was a grown woman with two toddlers of my own and I had little interest in further burdening myself with yet another complicated relationship. I tried for 2 yrs to carve out a place in my life for Mother. Years of drug use and extreme psychiatric treatments had left her paranoid, demanding and out of touch with reality. I finally cut off all contact with her, out of concern for my own mental well-being. When I learned years later that she had passed, I grieved. I grieved for the relationship that we never had and for the loss of her presence in the world. I wanted to somehow commemorate her life. I pondered and prayed and came up with an idea. I would donate to a micro-loan organization in her memory and gift another struggling mother in this world an opportunity to better herself and her family. It has been a extremly gratifying experience! I helped a young mother in Africa purchase a solar lantern as my first gift. Once she pays back the small loan, I gift it to another woman, and it goes on and on.