Middle of the Night Ponderings

 When I last left you, almost a month ago, I was happily sitting on the couch crocheting hot pads, watching fixer-upper TV and enjoying my Covid vacation. As often happens in life, just like that my life changed into something I never saw coming. One minute, living a life of self-centered leisure, and just that fast I am heading to the hospital to be with my mother who was sick.

After being moved from Cherry Hills to Cherry County Hospital and from there to Great Plains Regional in North Platte, she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, a devastating shock to everyone but her...think she already suspected! In the ensuing weeks since that diagnosis, we have brought her home and set up hospice care and settled into a routine of organizing caregivers and spending many nights with her. This was not something any of us had time to prepare for, we just had to jump in get our feet wet on a moment's notice!

Mom is doing as well as can be expected considering the extent to which the cancer had spread. She is mostly in good spirits, and our family is trying to make the most of the opportunities to spend time with her. 

All this craziness has kept us busy, but there are still many hours to reflect on things during those sleepless nights. And I find that the things I ponder in the dark and quiet nights are often the clearest thoughts I have. So here are a few of my midnight musings:

1. Losing your parents is hard! That could go without saying, but when you are actually experiencing this, you realize just how hard hard can be. We lost my dad over 5 years ago, and I realized this at that time, but I wasn't as close to Dad and I am to Mom, so this is much closer to the heart. Losing parents is natural, and it's much better for a child, especially a grown child, to lose their parents than for a parent to lose a child....or at least it would seem that way. Gladly I don't know this first hand. But now, as I reflect on losing parents, I realize my empathy for those losing parents has been severely lacking. So if you have lost a parent and I didn't seem overly sympathetic, please forgive me. I get it now...it's hard!

2. It's easy to have faith in God and heaven and eternity when it's a concept, but when you are standing at the precipice of death ready to step off into the unknown, it's a bit of a different matter. I have always said I am ready to die and meet Jesus....someday! In my mind this is some far off event,  which is not something we can be absolutely sure about...our next breath is not promised. When you are face to face with eternity, there might be a few doubts that crop up. It has been good for me to reassure Mom of her eternal destiny even though she's not sure she believes me. I am filing these notes away for future reference in case I ever have to face my own impending death...as opposed to suddenly dying with no warning. 

3. I am discovering that we have limited control over our lives. Mom still had plans and things she wanted to do as well as the means to do them, but God had other plans. I find this a bit discouraging since I am always trying to take charge of my own life only to find that I've gone off the rails again.

And once again I am finding my life has gone off the rails and rather than making plans and acting on them I am reacting to all that's happening. 

Our Keto diet is faltering. Many time I am just grabbing what's easy or comforting. Being an emotional eater, I find myself up to my elbows in a bowl of popcorn thinking this will make me happy, or eating Turbine Mart pizza in front of the TV to dull my senses. But we do what we can when we can do it and try to forgive ourselves for our sins. 

I am trying to keep a regular schedule of activities as much as possible. Being on the worship team at church offers me a creative outlet so I try to make room for that. I am still working two days a week at Hespe's. The routine is therapeutic and helps keep my week ordered a bit more. And I'm still cranking out hotpads. They helped while away a lot of hours sitting in the hospital and gives me something to do while I sit with Mom at nights wishing she was as sleepy as I am! I sleep when I can and try to allow time in the nights for wandering around, or like tonight blogging out my thoughts. 

I see according to the blog log, I have about 40-60 readers on these blogs. I just want you to know, whoever you are, that I appreciate you reading my blogs, but if no one read them, I would probably still write them. I think this is my best therapy and I appreciate the outlet for my thoughts and a way to organize those thoughts. So, now that I have laid out my thoughts...and eaten a week's worth of carbs in the form of crackers and cheese...I am ready to continue my night's rest. Hope you are sleeping well tonight.