The older I get, the more suffering and
pain I’ve experienced; and the more of both I stand witness to. From my wife’s
(and many, many of our friends and coworkers) battle against breast cancer; to
my dad’s (and the parents of many of our friends and coworkers) process as he
fades away as this complex disease breaks the connections between more and more
memories, I have become not only frustrated with suffering, pain, and having to
watch both, I have been witness to the suffering and pain among the students I
serve as a school counselor. I have become angry and sometimes paralyzed. This
is my attempt to lift myself from the occasional stifling grief that darkens my
days…
So…at the moment, my
brother-in-law is sitting about a meter and a half behind me. He’s living with
us at the moment after several bouts with atrial fibrillation and other issues.
He is very weak,
walks with a cane or a walker, has atrial fibrillation and sometimes has
incontinence. Not being a stranger to ANY of those in the list (except the afib,
for which he isn’t a candidate for valve transplant (my mother wasn’t, either
after valve damage she got from some childhood disease in the 1930s or 40s). He
also sometimes hears voices and thinks he’s fine to go back home because he can
take care of himself just fine.
My dad is very
weak, walks with a cane and refuses to use a walker, has Alzheimer’s and frequently
has incontinence. Not being a stranger to ANY of those on the list (except the
Alzheimer’s, for which there is no cure and no one really has any idea why some
people get it and some people don’t). He also has extremely lucid dreams, which
he calls to ask me if I can bail out some guys he knows who are in jail
somewhere; or to tell me that my mother is talking to him in his room; or to
ask me for the third time in 20 minutes if he has a car (he hasn’t had a car
for 3 years, when I forcibly removed it from him when he and my mom moved into
assisted living. Prior to that, he had pretty much lost his sense of direction
and frequently got lost – and denied it vehemently.
At work, I had an
unexpected turn of events in that my boss asked me to do something different
than what had been planned. He shifted my position to another of the people I
worked with and asked me to do something entirely different – for which I had
little training and no desire to do. But because I was busy with the students I
was helping to graduate from high school, I agreed without any thought or
question. And now something new is coming up – I am going back into the
classroom after a 6 year hiatus. While I have no doubt that I can do it, and I
was even contemplating it myself, and EVEN valiantly volunteered to do it…when
they said, “Great. You’ll start on Wednesday!” I was stunned – and frankly a
little scared.
While my wife’s
breast cancer has shown no sign whatsoever of recurring, horror stories I ran
into in the past keep surfacing and terrifying me. I wonder if, when she has a
twinge, it’s not “a sign”.
And I’m aging –
before my very eyes, quite literally. And my wife retired last week – and many
of the other people I socialize with are retired or retiring soon…and I can’t for
another four years. I ache most of the time and I struggle to keep my weight
down to a number for which I’m just plain obese rather than morbidly obese.
My writing isn’t
going much of anywhere, and it’s 9 degrees F outside and the middle of winter,
so I can’t go out and ride my bike.
There are all
kinds of coping methods for stress. The negative ones include: overindulging in
caffeine, smoking, drinking, spending, eating, becoming antisocial, avoiding
going outside, paranoid fear, anger, overwork, oversleeping, promiscuity, and starvation.
Positive ways seem
to be abundant and are typically the mirror image of the negative ones above.
I’m fairly certain
none of those would do much to alleviate my stress, though I WILL tell you I eat
too much.
Lately, I’ve
started to go outside of myself to deal with stress, and while I’m not very
good at it yet, I’m growing into it. It all stems from the following Bible verses:
1 Peter 5:7 “…casting all your anxiety on Him, because He
cares for you.”
Matthew 11:28 “Come
to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
Isaiah 41:13 “For
I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, ‘Fear not, I
will help you’”
Isaiah 46:4 “Even
to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made,
and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”
For me, right now,
these are God speaking to my stressed out body, mind, and heart.
*Whew!*
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