My mother did hospice work in her younger years. She would still be doing it now if it wasn't for the fact it was so physically demanding. To care for someone's every need in the most dire time of their lives is a true calling. To be able to sit next to someone and watch them slowing slip away is more than most of us could bare. All the while helping extended families with the transition. I honor my mother for her gift.
There are caretakers who didn't ask for that job, nor do they get paid for it. Instead they selflessly took it upon themselves to be that angel in waiting for the person they love so deeply. My mother got help, she would work in shifts. That is not always the case for those thrown into a situation where there was not much of a choice.
My dear friend was one of the caretakers. She made the tough decision to leave here family here in Portland to spend the last six months with her dying father. She was everything for him. His nurse, his cook. Personal housekeeper, chauffeur. His confidant and friend. It was an all consuming 24/7 job. With very few breaks from the never ending demands that come with someone that is very ill. She thought of nothing else but making sure his last days were the best that they could be.
I was talking to God the other morning about her, how hard it must be to come back to the normal routine of things. I felt him say, its like learning to walk all over again. That made me ponder.
To watch a toddler learn to walk and titter and sway and promptly fall on their well diapered tush. They do it one step at a time.
My friend is learning to walk again one step at a time. She is walking once again as a mother with all the crazy scheduling that means when you have two very active girls. She is learning once again how walk as a wife since she is no longer the 24/7 caretaker she was just a few short weeks ago. She is walking into friendships once again not forgotten ones just ones that are picking up where they left off.
How hard it must be to take one step at a time back into life here without daddy.
I honor my dear friend for her courage and grace. She once again is a true inspiration to me as she is learning to walk again.
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3 comments:
I have to say I read this last night but couldn't comment. I didn't know what to say. I just sat here with tears lining my face. They weren't bad tears, but tears of understanding, tears of feeling a form of acceptance. I felt and do feel gratefulness for having the blessing of your friendship and I felt too that as much as God was talking to you he was also talking to me through you. I still don't know what to say...but I guess I sort of just did.
You were talking to God about me the other morning?.....and then it made such an impression on you that you journaled about it?
I love you so very much my friend.
'Like a toddler learning to walk one step at a time' How amazing that God would use that analogy with me doing daycare now.
Dear Jules, this might not be a literary masterpiece, but there was an urgency in writing it.It is very much was from God. He knows and he cares.
kelly, You write soooo well! you and mom make me smile :D thank you
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