I Cringe A Little

It's at the point where I cringe a little each time the phone rings and it's The Place calling about something having to do with Mom....and we just have to figure it out as we go along because there is no reliable handbook available to guide us through. Everything happens for a reason and our love for her and for each other holds us in good stead. We don't have all the answers. We don't really have any answers. I reach into my emotional tool box for some helpful equipment and find bits and pieces of confusion mixed in with a stray remnant of pain. All the things that make up a life...all the things that are this journey...all the things left unsaid, undone are banging around together trying to put themselves into some semblance of Useful. And there's this delay in my reactions, in my responses, because I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. I don't have the Comfort. I figure it's because I've never been here before. I've never had a Mother in a nursing home. I've never had a Mother with dementia in a steady decline on the way to the end of her physical life. When I look at her, she's not really there. She's like an intermittently working switch with infinitesimal snippets of connections that don't ever quite connect. The thoughts never last long enough to reach her verbal abilities to express herself. Even her frustration doesn't last long enough to connect to any meaningful expression of discord.


In some ways, we are all walking around holding our breath. In some ways, we are all walking around grieving the loss of her as if she is already dead. In some ways, our lives are on hold as we wait for the inevitable. To what end, though? She doesn't even know we're waiting. And when The Place calls...again...(it's almost becoming a daily occurrence), I think, what now? And what the fuck am I supposed to do about it? Then I realize...NOTHING! I'm supposed to DO NOTHING.  I rummage around inside my Emotional Tool Box to find Acceptance. It is Acceptance that I am looking for. There it is. It doesn't weigh very much. It starts out feeling a bit cool and foreign but quickly warms up as I turn it over and over in my hands. In my touch, it is malleable, pliant, smooth. It slowly begins to comfort me and its warmth seems to permeate my tattered, fragile, saddened heart. An exhalation leaves my body taking with it a severed tangle of angst and worry. The next inhalation brings with it Gratitude. Relief joins ever present Love. Love abides in abundance within every vestige of my Soul. Love is the Filter through which all of these experiences pass. I am Refined. I am Expanded. I am Enriched. I am Enabled to be more Open and Free from within my Source.The Energy swirls, uplifts, invigorates me then flows into the Light that is my Life, refracts into brilliant vibrations of multitudinous colors radiating Power. A cacophony of Resonance explodes into a million whispers of reassurance that all is well. All is as it is meant to be. Acceptance, back, once again, to rest in the arms of Love that is from Within.


Everything happens for a reason. And I know I will cringe a little less next time The Place calls. It is a better day.