I keep trying to embrace the idea of death, but I can’t imagine Anthony gone.
So I’m beginning to understand this kind of grief via the blogs of friends who grieve for loved ones.
It might be my turn next but I’m not sure…. Death-defying?
My best friend – Anthony.
The other day I was terribly upset to read a post by a blogger friend that indicated she’d been hurt by someone’s comment. Since I had made a comment on her previous post, in which I’d suggested something, I was sure that I was the culprit.
So I commented again to apologize only to be reasssured that it wasn’t me. The relief was enormous but the experience taught me an important lesson and this is it:
NEVER GIVE ADVICE UNLESS SOMEONE ASKS YOU TO!
My mother has now been in hospital for 12 days since falling off her bicycle and fracturing her pelvis in two places and her wrist in three places. She will be in hospital for at least another week – maybe more.
I want to go back to the moment my mother got onto her bicycle and I want to yell NO! After all, she’s 78, and had only just recovered from a hip fracture from a fall just before Christmas.
But I can’t go back and stop her from getting onto that bicycle. Instead she and I are going forward, step by step, to recovery. It has been 12 days of pain for my mother, stress for me, and hatred for that bicycle.
Good news: My mother no longer minds being blogged about and says thank you to those who wished her well. I echo this.
Bad news: Tomorrow I am going to stop arguing with my mother’s bicycle and simply smash it up!
I seem to be developing an unintentional talent for slapstick comedy especially when it is a wheel-chair taxi situation.
This afternoon, Anthony came home for a few hours and it was great until he became ‘wobbly’ (that’s our word for when the Parkinson’s disease gets the better of him).
Anyway, the taxi arrived to take Ants back to the nursing lodge and there was a flurry of activity as Ming and I got him into the wheelchair, and the taxi driver and an apprentice got him into the taxi, and I tried to find my elusive wallet.
Once all of that was okay, and I’d said goodby to Ants, I thanked the driver, shook his hand and closed his door so he could drive off.
He was such a kind person so I thought he was yelling at me (over the sound of the taxi engine) that I was such a kind person too, but he just kept yelling.
I had slammed the door on his foot!
If you care for a loved one who has an illness, your good thoughts might sometimes be criss-crossed with bad thoughts like the following:
– I’m so sick of you and this situation!
– You aren’t who you were and I loathe the way you are now.
– Thanks for ruining my life!
– Please stop needing me!
– Thanks for giving me the guilts!
– Why can’t you just die instead of suffering like this?
– I hate loving you.
I told Anthony that sometimes I felt like this and he hugged me close and let me cry.
jmgoyder 