It's a Great Day for Hockey

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This is not a post about hockey.  Not really.  This is a post about using tools and perhaps abusing tools to move past trauma.  I've both advocated it and been cautious about it in here before, depending upon where I was in my head at the time.  Both are right, I think.  With the important caveat that whatever one chooses as a tool shouldn't be abusive, either to one's self or to others.  Yet, for my part, I've rationalized that I've done what I had to do, used what I had to use to get through the years since mid-2009 when my daughter died, but sometimes I think what I really did  was set myself up for a potential big fall if those props were ever taken away.  And I nearly found out.

Hockey ended up being a big part of the process.  As I've explained before, the pace of the game, the back and forth on the ice, the almost constant flow became hypnotic.  You just can't think about anything else when you watch hockey - if you're really watching.  Over the last two years my love affair with it has grown to where if you asked me whether I'm a bigger Steeler or Penguins fan, I'd have to think about that, and I'm not sure I could give you an honest answer.  Like one's children, they are different, but you love them equally.  So, when the lockout happened, I was devastated.  At one point early on, I wrote a letter to Commissioner Bettman practically begging him not to forget the fans in the process.  I copied Donald Fehr, head of the NHL Player's Association, and the Penguins organization.  I'll give Fehr credit; he answered the letter.  And I could tell that he actually read it.  I appreciate that, but the lockout continued.  And the other avenues for hockey in America, college and junior league, weren't the same, in part just because access to watch them was limited, but also because the talent level is uneven and the speed of the game is so different that it seems choppy and sloppy to me.  International hockey is great, but again, it's a chore to get access to it.  No worries, I tell myself, I'll throw myself into football.  Well, as the Steelers' season tanked, so did my hopes.  As I drove home with Marissa from the last game of the season, it occurred to me that I was about to find out exactly how together I really was in my post-grief life because I was totally exposed now.

Then a miracle happened.  The lockout ended!  The league threw together a shortened season that, in a way, for those of us who stuck around, is pretty exciting.  Forty-eight games in 99 days, it will be more like a football season in that your team can drop a game here or there, but if you have a streak of bad games, you're in trouble.  It'll test the players and will be a battle of attrition most likely.  This could indeed be a lot of fun to see what happens.  And Pittsburghers, unlike other markets, have embraced it fully and are just happy to have the team back.  As evidenced by the scrimmage the team put on this past Wednesday.  They allowed the public in for free.  Not only was it completely packed, they opened the luxury boxes, and still ended up turning people away.  I was one of the people who couldn't get there in time, so I had to come home and watch it on TV.  As the two sides took the ice, I started to cry, surprising Greg and myself actually.  I was so disappointed I couldn't get in to watch them live.  I explained to Greg when he asked me why I was crying (translation:  "What the hell is wrong with you?") that I realized hockey is like my Prozac, and I just really wanted to be present to welcome the team back onto the ice.  I will get my chance officially on Wednesday for our home opener.  Today the team is in Philly against the hated Flyers.  Marissa is here and we'll all watch together.  I am contented.

Yet, the ultimate question lingers:  am I masking something and not actually dealing with it?  Will that come back to bite me someday because I've read, and do truly believe, ignoring one's grief does not make it go away?  In reading the five stages of grief, nowhere in there does it say that finding something to take your mind off of it is one of the normal processes.  I'm not sure.  Today I don't care.  Today I'm watching Sid the Kid and Geno take on the Flyers on national TV, looking for revenge from last year's playoff loss.  Today is a Great Day for Hockey and that's good enough for me.  

Wrapping up the Holidays

I am so ready for the holidays to be over!  They are, you say?  Try telling that to Pittsburgh.

You may recall how struck I was when I first moved here by how many of my neighbors still had their holiday decorations up.  Here I am two years later, having weathered the confusingly windy roads, the general culture shock, the challenges to learn how to buy beer and the multi-layered tax system, but that one still flummoxes me.  I actually get the outdoor decorations to an extent when it's snowy.  My Rudolph with the blinking red nose was nearly buried in white stuff the day after Christmas, and I can't really get a ladder up to take down some of the higher stuff without fear of falling on my butt, although with spring like temperatures following rain that literally washed away all but stubborn remnants of snow, I think that problem is all but solved.  But, even if you allow for that, it's the fact that a lot of people still have their tree up and are actually turning on their lights that kind of wows me still.  I was so sick of the holidays that I took my stuff down the Saturday after Christmas with gusto and determination, only to have my neighbor stop by to wish me Happy New Year and ask, sadly, why my tree was down already.  I think my cousin was on to something when she speculated that everyone is influenced by the Orthodox calendar, where Christmas was just this past Monday.  The Orthodox church still has a strong presence in the Rust Belt, so even though my whole neighborhood is Irish Catholic, I get it.  But, that's over, people.  Now, let's move on!

My sense of routine really needs the holidays to be packed away and all my regular stuff back out and my space returned to normal.  But, more than that, this was just a wild holiday, and I'm ready to move on.  It wasn't all bad, of course.  We have the newest member of our family, Ripley, thanks to the holiday, but it was dramatic.  With all the distractions, I have yet to tell the story of the holidays and Greg's mother's visit.

First, so there is some context, I have to tell the story of my mother-in-law so you know her a bit.  To start, it is key to note that she is a lovely and generous woman.  She of course carries flaws like we all do:  some born out of the generation from which she comes (a passive racism for instance or her lack of understanding about Kelsey and Marissa's eating disorders and sometimes saying the most damaging things), and some are born out of the fact that none of us are Mother Teresa.  Heck, behind closed doors, Mother Teresa probably didn't even always live up to her own reputation.  And she does indeed do some of the things that people tend to do when they are older that make us cringe.  I was commiserating with a friend whose mother thinks she is whispering when she utters offensive things about people in public, but in fact people across the aisle can hear her.  My mother-in-law has joined those ranks, which my mother proudly belonged to before her.  I think for my part I'll try to remember just not to say anything in public, but, Marissa, watch out, my guess is I'll be exactly the same way.  But for all of that, I have been very lucky to have such a nurturing mother-in-law, particularly being so far away always from any family of my own.  Her visit, originally scheduled to be a little over two weeks stretching across the Thanksgiving holiday, ended up being a month because she fell the night before she was due to fly home and was fairly seriously injured.  I detailed the whole story actually in the football blog I write because I was so struck by how wonderful total strangers were to us, but then contrasted it with how nasty Pittsburgher's were being about the Steelers.  I won't beat the horse here again, but suffice it to say she was now stuck here with us, away from her own things, her cat, and - most importantly - her own doctors and easy access to medication.  And she needed care, she was hurt pretty badly and very simply could not do things for herself.  But I had to work; it was our busiest time.  I had worked until midnight the night before Thanksgiving just to even get the bare minimum deadlines met, and things weren't showing signs of slowing down.  Greg had to sleep some time, so to say it was an easy couple of weeks on any of us would be an absolute lie.  And of course there was the guilt we all wrestled with.   Her because she felt like she was a burden, Greg and me because she fell on "our watch".

She was with us therefore when news came that Greg's brother had fallen himself for the second time in a matter of months and had been rushed back to the hospital unconscious.  That was at the end of November.  He remains there still, having undergone two surgeries, one to remove some of the skull to alleviate swelling in the brain, and the follow-up just last week to put the skull piece back.  He'll have a long road to recovery, probably facing many months in a rehab facility, and it's still unclear whether he'll regain full motion on one side of his body and how deeply his mental facilities will be impacted.  His girlfriend reports he can now stay awake for longer periods of time, so the news is encouraging, but to say this will not be life altering for my brother-in-law is also probably an absolute lie.  And here Greg is stuck.  This is his baby brother we're talking about.  I knew from the very first that Greg was very protective and fond of him.  The way he would talk about his then teenage brother was very paternal.  This is killing Greg, and understandably so.  But if he leaves, he loses his job.  So, he's withdrawn into himself, and I've learned not to talk to him about it.  Between us, the situation barely exists.  I just made him angry every time I mentioned anything about it - whether it was because I couldn't find the right words or because there just aren't any, I'm not sure.  On the surface he's okay on a daily basis, but we've been together a long time so trust me when I say that on the inside he's anything but.  He needs to be there with his brother.  We need the income.  How to reconcile the two situations, well, we don't know the answer to that.  Obviously.  But it was definitely the ten ton elephant in the room all during Christmas.  Of course, putting away the garland and the lights doesn't take that away, but all the holiday regalia just seemed sort of obscene at times in light of the circumstances.

So, as I finally get up on a ladder today to take the last of the exterior holiday crap down and finally shove that last box up into the attic with very good riddance, I wonder how exactly is it that we overcome the bad times and remain intact:  as couples, as families, as individuals within our own selves?  We've certainly had a lot of practice at it, but I'm not sure I really know the formula still.  You just do it.  One day at a time.  In my case, it helps to have the normal surroundings back.  Therefore, it is with great satisfaction that I say so long to the holidays.  Do not let the door hit you on the way out!

Goodbye to a Lost Friend

Bozeman, MT - From Moose FM (FM 95.1)

I put it down to the snow, which finally arrived in Pittsburgh the day after Christmas, but home and growing up has been on my mind a lot lately.  By home I mean Bozeman and the surrounding area.  As much as I love Pittsburgh and never plan on leaving, I do sometimes wonder what I've taken away from us by not pulling the trigger and going back to Montana, as was always the plan.  I'm not naive enough to think I can recapture some lost youth or anything, but I do miss the mountains, the wildlife, the smell of the air, the sound of running rivers.  Maybe I miss it more now because there is no football or hockey - or even a Presidential race - to distract me.   It's the place, not the people per se that call to me on these winter days, because almost everyone I know from my youth had to leave the area to make a decent living.  We're scattered to the four corners of the world and we're the pre-Facebook generation, so I've reconnected with some of my classmates, but others remain out of touch and therefore largely out of mind.  But, naturally, when I think of home, I think of the people I knew there, so I had also been reminiscing lately about the kids I went to school with - many of us knew one another from the time we were in kindergarten until we splintered off in different directions for college - and how that both seemed like a lifetime ago and only a brief moment ago.

As part of that mental exercise, I was thinking back to the last time I spent any significant time around any of them, which was at my 20th high school reunion, and that got me thinking back to the memorial that the organizers had set up at the mixer we had.  They had posted photos and a little information about all the people from our graduating class who had died in the intervening years.  There were so many.  It went all around the room.  Some I knew about, but some hit me like a punch in the gut as I walked past the four walls, looking at faces of people I'd known as a child who were no more.  There was the lovely girl Lori, truly an awesome individual, who died tragically right before our graduation when she was struck by a car as she stood at the end of her own driveway.  There was my friend Todd whom I've written about before here, who died of AIDS.  And the kid who grew up right behind me as one of a whole houseful of boys who lived in a pink colored house (I always thought that was his mom's act of rebellion for having to live with so many men) who had died of an accidental gunshot wound.  There were several of those actually - it's Montana after all - so a lot of us grew up hunting.  There was, as I recall, some deaths related to skiing/snowmobiling too.  And the inevitable traffic fatalities.  Again, it's Montana.  The wildlife aren't the only ones who grew up a little wild.  So maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised, but I was - both surprised and saddened to see that there were so many of us already gone.  But, by and large, they were accidental deaths.  People plucked out of life in a blink of an eye, unexpectedly and tragically.  Dear Todd being one of the rare exceptions, although equally tragic.   Staring out at the snow in the backyard on New Year's Day, all of this was running through my mind randomly.  Maybe it was just the snow dressing up Western PA to look like my hometown, maybe it was because I had time for random thoughts during a rare quiet time, but maybe something deep within me knew something was about to happen....

I was purposefully away from the computer all day on New Year's, finally logging in before bed and checking Facebook.  I had a message waiting from one of the dear high school friends whom I have stayed connected with bringing me the news that one of our classmates, Helen, had cancer and had been moved to hospice care.  I hadn't thought of Helen in years, but we were in journalism together, which became a little clique onto itself since we all spent so much time together.  The group of us were a motley collection:  nerds like me who envisioned themselves as future writers mixed in with the popular crowd - the head cheerleader was the Yearbook Editor.  But we all managed to mesh and get along.  If you segregate the kids you liked in high school into three circles - your inner sanctum of closest friends in the smallest circle, people who are friends, but not besties in the secondary circle, and people you know casually and like well enough to talk to in the hall or at a party in the larger outer circle - Helen fell into that second circle.  I considered her a friend.  She was more popular than me generally (who wasn't?); one of the rare people who can easily move within all the social circles without being shunned by any one of them.  Much like Todd could actually.  She was always nice to me.  For that alone, she earned my affection.  Yet, I hadn't thought of her more than passively in years.  I had no idea what had become of her or what her life was like.  Apparently it had not been an easy one.  Our mutual friend, who is actually on a family vacation and trying to find all of this out and report back to me while he's supposed to be spending family time, was able to learn that Helen was treated for "breast cancer about 8 years ago and the chemo/radiation harmed her kidney (I am surmising she only had one) and she has been on dialysis for years... "  He got hold of an address the next day, messaged me with it, and just as I was thinking about what I wanted to say to her after all this time, he sent me another to say that she had passed late on New Year's Day.  Whatever I would have said, it is too late.

Do not mourn for me.  This is not my loss, but I am sad.  I ache for Helen.  I ache for her family.  No one should have to suffer as she surely must have, but certainly not her.  She was, as I told my friend, Good People.  And there are the feelings that I used to see so often in my mother's face when a contemporary died:  a little fear mixed in with the sadness when one contemplates that we've now moved into the time of our lives when the people we grew up with are dying of things other than tragic accidents.  But mostly I tell this tale because it has occurred to me in the last couple of days that the people who are your friends when you are young and dumb are perhaps the purest of friends.  They accept you even when you are so arrogant as to think you have it all figured out and are in fact too dumb to know that you don't have a damn thing figured out.  They accept that weird awkward person that you are at that age, and that's something to treasure.  My largest regret is I never got to tell her personally I thought she was Good People.  Don't make that same mistake.  Hold in your heart and memories the people who accept you for all your faults and pimples and, if you can, tell them that you do.  You just never know if you'll ever have another chance.

Rest in Peace, my long lost friend, Helen Rose Gutkoski Evans.

Ripley's Believe it or Not

Keeping up with even one blog has been a challenge lately, let alone two because we have a new member of the household.  I got a puppy for Christmas.  Actually, I got her a little before Christmas, but she was the big holiday gift.  It's been more than a decade since I've had a puppy in the house, and I haven't cared for one this young since 1995.  One forgets how time intensive they are.  Like mobile infants with sharp teeth and no diapers.  It's exhausting.  Worth it, but exhausting.

She fulfills an almost half century desire to own a true, purebred rough collie.  I've been hooked on the breed ever since I first saw Lassie Come Home, followed by being a faithful Sunday afternoon viewer of Lassie and then reading all the Albert Payson Terhune books about his collies, primarily Lad.  I loved the look of them with their delicate long faces, bent over ears and sleek coats, their native intelligence, and the nobility with which they carry themselves. And, truthfully, I fell in love with Terhune's depiction of his country estate, and I associate collies with a lifestyle I find attractive.  Ironically, for all the dogs I have had, except for a brief period back in the 80's, I've never actually owned a collie.  I've come sort of close.  We had Lando, a border collie, for many years, and Luke is part collie, but since I couldn't resist rescuing anything and everything, there was never a chance to pick and choose a purebred dog.  We shouldn't have done it now.  Four large dogs in a suburban yard is enough, but Luke is 15 and Ashley is in poor health, and I've steeled myself for a while that they are both close to the end of their days.

But it's more than that, it's the realization that Cheyenne is now 11.  She is my bedrock.  Without her, I could not have made it through the last decade.  She came into our lives before we really understood that we were all beginning a slide down a very long rabbit hole, but she's been by my side through it all.  She loves me completely.  I feel the same about her.  She's been supportive in ways humans really can't because she has no other interest.  To say she lives for me might be laying it on a little thick, but I am her main vocation.  She's by my side when I'm sad or sick.  She's shared the happy times and accepted the bad ones.  The only thing she can't handle is when I cry.  It upsets her too much, and she'll  leave the room briefly.  She was a good companion to my mother as well.  She was tirelessly patient whenever I took her to the nursing home during Mother's last months and we would be stopped multiple times as we made our way down the hall to her room so that other patients could pet her and talk to her.  She looks and acts young to me, and I plan on her living a very long time, but others have commented on her age - they can see the years on her.  She can no longer jump on the bed.  There are other signs that she's past her prime.  There are so many wonderful things about dogs, but there is the hard truth that they shine brightly but briefly.  I've been accepting about that with the other dogs:  I've recognized that it's just the way it is, and to enjoy their company while I've had it.  I've mourned the pets I've lost, but I've moved along.  But when I would contemplate losing Cheyenne, I just couldn't imagine it.  So, after I first got to Pittsburgh, I registered with a pet search engine that looked for listings at shelters within a 100 miles for collies available for adoption.  I thought maybe if I got the dog of my dreams and had him or her together with Cheyenne for a few years it would blunt the pain I would eventually have to feel.

Greg has put his foot down all along, insisting that there would be no more dogs for now, but for some reason he decided to try and get one for me this year, so he secretly began trolling local shelters looking for collies.  In the meantime, I would get alerts whenever any dog with "collie" as part of their make-up would be available nearby.  The planets seemed to have aligned earlier in the month when a trio of purebred collie puppies were available through a small rescue group in Ohio.  And so enter Ripley (name for Ellen Ripley of the Alien movies).  Cheyenne is not her biggest fan.  None of the older dogs are really happy about it, although they accept it.  After all, at one point all of them were the newbie, and they all know this is a multiple dog household.  Ripley however, is fascinated with Cheyenne.  I think she senses this is the Alpha dog, and wants to be around her.  Cheyenne is not particularly patient with her, but accepts her begrudgingly, I think, as long as she's secure in her knowledge that we are still tightly bonded.

The moral to this story is that no one loves you like your dog.  No one understands you like your dog does either.  They don't nag, they don't talk back (usually), and they love you no matter what you look like.  They don't care what your politics are or whether you're a genius or not, or if you're wealthy or not.  They don't judge you.   I have great friends, but none are greater than my dogs.  And now I've got the dog of my dreams and Cheyenne's by my side.  Pretty sweet.

Contemplating the End of the World

Haven't seen you in quite a while

I was down the hold just passing time

Last time we met was a low-lit room

We were as close together as a bride and groom

We ate the food, we drank the wine

Everybody having a good time

Except you

You were talking about the end of the world

- Until  the End of  the World, U2

The end of the world is supposed to happen today.  The weather certainly is acting like it's trying to blow us all away.  The gusts whipping through the trees and pulling at my little Rudolph out in the yard are stronger than anything we saw here when Sandy brushed up against us.  But, as of right now, the human race is holding steady.  Meaning that there are people who, as I write this, are dying or being born, loving one another or hating one another, going to work or avoiding going to work (I would be among the latter).  It's just a Friday.  Yet, can any of us really say it hasn't crossed our minds:  what if the Mayans were right?  I can just picture all those Survivalists bracing for it.  Of course, I guess they are kind of constantly bracing for it, so today isn't all that new.  The rest of us probably don't spend a whole of lot time thinking about the End of Days, but can you honestly say it didn't at least cross your mind as this date approached?  I used to wonder what I would do if I survived a catastrophic event, usually as I was curled up comfortably reading The Stand, my favorite book.  I figured I would head for Montana, high up into the mountains, try to find a cozy little cabin with my dogs, learn to hunt and fish, and get along just fine - like there was nothing to it, of course.  But, what crossed my mind recently when Sandy took large parts of the northeast briefly backwards 100 years, is that we're pretty soft as a society.  Even those of us who have hard lives where we struggle to make ends meet.  We're not really the kind of people who could easily survive if all the modern conveniences were taken away from us.  When I first started watching Revolution, I thought that the view of the world fifteen years on was pretty bleak, but the more I think about it - particularly as my own power flickered on and off as Sandy introduced itself - the more I realized that's probably exactly right and the only problem I have with the show, which I am completely addicted to, is that the people look awfully pretty for living for fifteen years without washing machines, hair stylists, teeth whiteners and even decent razors.  But, the fact that they still look pretty isn't really the point, the point is that life would be extraordinarily hard.  Disease, famine, large scale violence, all of those things probably would happen.  So, I have to confess that my chances of surviving to make it to Montana are pretty slim, so I spent more brain cells wondering how I would spend my last day on earth.  As it turns out, had yesterday been truly the last day of civilization, I spent it working and cleaning up puppy pee and poop.  Not exactly epic, so I guess I'm glad we've all got another shot at it.  But, what would you do, who would you spend it with and what would you say to them?  There are likely a contingent who would march into their boss, spouse, or someone else and tell them off, but probably most of us - the vast, vast majority of us - would draw our loved ones close to us and tell them how much we love them and why.  We probably ought to live every day like it was the end of the world.

A Moment of Silence

The post I had planned dealt with a bouncy puppy and a poor, injured mother-in-law who unfortunately  probably wished she bounced a little more.  I was hoping to pull of a piece that told the "tale with a tail" with a little bit of humor because, after all, who can fail to smile when dealing with stories of puppies - particularly when you're not the one cleaning up the accidents or trying to hide your shoes.  However, all of that will wait because, for once maybe, words just fail me.

I don't know to this second much about the Connecticut elementary school shooting except that 26 are dead, 20 of them children.  But I know that yesterday morning, there were 20 kids anxiously awaiting their holiday break, wondering what Santa would bring them that will never find out the answer to that question.  There are countless other lives now hopelessly shattered as a result.  So, I am not sure this is the time for stories about puppies.  That will wait for another day.  Today it's time to remember in silence that innocence lost.

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Selfless/Selfish

Circa 2010

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, as I walked Chappy and Cheyenne around the block in the predawn cold, I could hear a car driving up behind us.  Chappy, for some inexplicable reason, loves to pull out as far as the leash will let him to the center of the road.  Hence, I've gotten attuned to listening for engine noises and judging distance, car size and speed of travel so I can pull us all toward the side of the road, particularly now that it's pitch black still in the six o'clock hour.  But this one was traveling the wrong direction - toward the interior of the neighborhood, not toward the main road where the daily commuters are beginning to go - and at a pretty good clip.  I pulled us over to the side as best I could and watched as a Toyota Four Runner sped up the road past us and pulled into the driveway of a home where I happened to know an elderly couple lives.  I know it because I've seen them a few times out on their screened in porch during more temperate days - he relying heavily on a walker and she, able to walk on her own, but not quite doing it in an upright position.  But, I would have surmised it just by looking at their house, which looks like about a half dozen other houses in the neighborhood.  Like it's always been well tended until the last few years, but is beginning to look threadbare now.  The yard is still mowed, but the beds aren't weeded, the paint is beginning to peel, and there are not any holiday decorations constantly rotating on the stoop like there is for all their neighbors.  They all tell the tale that someone is lending a hand to keep things going, but can't do it with the love and detail that the rest of us care for our homes.  The house across from it is so well lit, I'm pretty sure you can see it from space, so I could see the driver clearly as she got out of the car.  She looked to be within shouting distance of my age, popping out of the vehicle as soon as it was in park to begin walking up to the front door with a stride that I know well.  The one where the walker leans far forward of his or her feet with a stern, determined stare toward the eventual destination, as though one's body is trying to will the feet to go faster, yet they do not break out into a run because that would imply panic, and staying calm is paramount.  Or maybe calm isn't the right word:  in control would be the greater goal.  She walked that way up to the front door and let herself in without knocking.  As Chappy stopped to do his business, I thought to myself that I knew with a high degree of certainty the scenario that was playing out inside.  One or the other of the couple had in all likelihood fallen and there would be no way the other one could lift their fallen mate, so they made an early morning call for help to the nearest offspring.  She had to drop whatever she was doing - getting kids ready for school, dressing for work, probably both - and come over to help.  I felt for her:  a sense of deja vu coming over me.  How many times had I made that exact same walk in the exact same posture to my mother's?  How many dinners had I left in the middle of?  It's all just part of the gig.  They took care of you, now you take care of them.  But, it doesn't make it easy.

But, as I watched the little early morning drama from my vantage point across the street, I thought of the daughter and her role, not really what it must be like to be the parents, even though on some level I know I'm speeding toward that same point on the horizon like a bullet.  Even when I was caring for my mother that final year, while I tried to consider her dignity along with her health when making decisions, I'm not sure I had the level of empathy that really allowed me to put myself in her place and wonder what it must be like to be that person who can't care for their beloved home like they want to, or to be able to pick themselves up off the floor if they trip.  What must it be like to know that the ever-creeping fragility that steals over your body is taking the very life away from you bit by bit, day by day?  That soon you'll have to test the faith you've always lived your life by in a very real way.  Is there really an afterlife?  You've always thought so, but when staring it square in the face, can you be so sure?  Did you live a good enough life to go toward the light?  All the things someone like that older couple must think about, in addition to the normal worries of living on a fixed income, trying to sustain some sense of independence and wondering when the next episode of NCIS is on.  No, really, I think I was too focused on just trying to do the "job" of caring for my mother to really be able to see her fully and consistently as a human being.  I did - in flashes.  But, consistently?  I'm not sure I can lay claim to that.  So, enter my mother-in-law.  She came for a two week visit over three weeks ago now.  She's still here with us because she took a nasty fall the night before she was due to fly back home.  In the immediate days that followed, she was in no shape to travel.  She's getting there, but it's slow going.  Now in her upper 70's, the body doesn't heal in the same way it would at my age even.  So, as we care for her as she recuperates, I've been re-thinking about that early morning scenario and trying to imagine it from another perspective.   I've had some mixed success.  It is hard to step outside one's own worldview and remember to be wholly sensitive to someone who is at a stage in life you can only imagine, having not yet experienced it personally.

Selfless is hard.  Selfish is easy.  Most of us totter in between.  More on this next time...