Posts Tagged: illness

Take A Deep Breath

January 29th, 2017
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Breathe Deeply

 

Dear Resilient Friends:

I have been away for awhile but have not forgotten about you.  2017 started off in a difficult direction for my family.  Both of our parents have been ill, requiring hospitalization and additional involvement from me and my five siblings.  We are striving every day to do our best to give loving care and attention to both parents, splitting our time between the hospital and our parents house often amidst a swirl of new medical terms and medicines while we carry on with our jobs and other personal responsibilities.

We are trying to ease their pain … Read More

Not To Worry

March 13th, 2014
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Why is it that I think that worrying about something will affect the circumstances of the thing I’m  worrying about? It’s as though the more I worry about it, the more I think I can push the situation to go the way I want. My siblings and I talk a lot about worrying and why we worry.  Like A LOT.  As in a couple of times a week. It’s a good thing I come from a family of six children so we can rotate our calls to each other and no one ends up being burnt out from the constant… Read More

Changing It Up

November 4th, 2013
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It is never too late to make changes in your life. You can be 22, 42, 62 or even 92 and suddenly decide it’s time for a change.  But you have to want it.  You can’t do it just because others want you to.  You need to make changes and take care of yourself for yourself. I was thinking about this because a wonderful friend of mine was discharged from the hospital this past Saturday after having her gall bladder removed on Friday.  It all happened very quickly and it was scary for a short time because we weren’t sure… Read More

Tweeting A Mother’s Life

August 12th, 2013
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Over 340 million tweets are sent and read each day. In the midst of all those competing thoughts, messages and trending topics, Scott Simon posted a large number of tweets late last month that broke through the rush of chatter and caught the attention of  a large part of Twitter’s world wide audience. Simon, National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Saturday host, was sitting beside his mother’s hospital bed and relaying intimate, tender and immediate thoughts about his precious time with his mother in the last days of her life.   I can’t imagine having the clarity of mind to tweet… Read More

Fathers & Sons

June 15th, 2013
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Today I’m going to visit my Dad and celebrate Father’s Day a day early. My son won’t be joining me because he is out of town visiting his girlfriend.  Even if my son were here in town, I would still be emotionally torn on Father’s Day.My Dad is still alive and our family is lucky and blessed to have him. But my son’s father, who was also my husband, died nine years ago and the celebration of Father’s Day makes me feel guilty and conflicted. Guilty because my father is alive and his isn’t.  Conflicted because I want to make… Read More

Offering Hope

October 1st, 2012
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My family currently has a number of medical situations happening and this past weekend was spent checking in with various people to see what I could do to help the caregivers.  Each situation is stressful for different reasons and the caregivers are doing fantastic jobs but they can’t do it all by themselves. I think I’ve mentioned this in previous posts but I think it’s important to say it again:  listening is a gift. When others come to us with their pain or their joy, I think it is a time for us to show them respect by quietly sitting,… Read More

Working Through Emotional Pain

September 19th, 2012
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Sunrise off the coast of Ireland At one time, I thought that if you ignored something unpleasant it would go away or solve itself on it’s own. And sometimes that actually does happen: people move away, they change jobs or people decide to transfer their children to another school. But for the big emotional stuff — grieving, divorce, abuse, illness — I find you have to face it and slowly work through the painful issues to get to the other side of it and eventually heal your inner self.  I have found that if you ignore the emotional pain from… Read More