Worrying

For as many things as I like to think that I got from my dad, whether by nature or by nurture, we had one core difference: I am a worrier and, simply put, he wasn’t.

I, like others with tendencies similar to mine, call it planning, organizing, taking care of the details.  I consider it a necessary part of life and, truth be told, I do it pretty often; his philosophy was that whether or not one worries is a personal choice.  He and I had many conversations about this topic over the years, including several during the weeks that he was sick, and he told me many times that from his perspective there were alternatives to worrying, like “just doing it,” or “going with the flow.”  He was a great list-maker, often leaving sticky notes and legal pad pages of reminders for himself around the house, on his desk at work, and even in his car.  That, he said, was a way to get worry off his mind.

That stuff doesn't work for me, though.  I don't feel like it's my choice to worry or not to worry, and making lists (as I do as often as my dad did) lessens the worry but doesn't turn it off. 

This is what a supreme worrier I am: I often read books while thinking about trying not to leave a mark on the book that will affect its condition.  I try my best not to get smudges or water marks or creases on the pages as I read.  My dad, in contrast, concentrated on thoroughly enjoying a book as he read through its pages.  What a joy I have found it to be to look back through the books he read and to see the marks he left behind, the crumpled pages, the sticky notes, the underlined and notated passages, and the dog-eared corners.  What pleasure it brings me to look at those things and to know that my eyes are where his once were and that he so completely basked in the moment when he was there, on that page in that book.  It’s like seeing the scrawled “I was here” written somewhere, and it makes me smile and warms my heart.  It also sometimes makes me think again about the benefits of worrying less, or, as my dad would say, choosing to do something besides worrying. 

Maybe that’s why the anxiety that Dad experienced during his illness, especially during the last two weeks of his life, still haunts me so much.  It was so uncharacteristic of him to be worried, and the rest of my family and I felt so powerless in our ability to quiet his fears and quell his distress.  More than anything during his last days on this earth, I wanted to take away that worry, which I knew would ease his pain. I think back to his last night in the hospital and to the next two nights after that when I took a turn sitting up with him as he struggled to sleep and as we worked to get control of the panic and the pain, and my heart hurts to remember the worry etched in his face.  Sometimes the medicine would help, but more often it was the presence of someone he trusted completely that seemed to help ease his mind.

I remember sitting beside his hospital bed in the semi-darkness of my parents’ den after he’d come home and listening to him worry aloud about things that he could not control.  I tried telling him not to worry, I tried to let him know that we only needed to focus on the really important things, and I tried to convince him that others of us would take care of the things that seemed to be on his mental to-do list, but that just seemed to agitate him more.  Finally, I waited for him to pause to take a breath, and I said, “It’s going to be okay, Dad; I hope you can choose not to worry so much,” and he turned toward the sound of my voice in the darkness as if those words were my arms going around him.  A minute later, the talking stopped and his breathing slowed into the rhythmic pattern of sleep.  I stood up to cover him with an extra blanket and then tucked in beside him, half on the couch and half on his bed, with my head on his shoulder, thinking that maybe I could absorb the burden of the rest of his worries during the remainder of the night.

Lessons

Life, for the most part, is full of the mundane, the predictable, the obvious, the day-in/day-out routine.  We get up each morning, get dressed, eat breakfast, go to work or school, run errands, take care of the kids, make dinner, clean up, and go to bed.  Repeat.  It is easy to become complacent, to take it for granted, and even to sometimes complain about the little things without realizing what a blessing things around us really are.

And then, in the blink of an eye, everything changes.  We are jolted out of our reverie, forced to refocus and to reevaluate pretty much everything.  And even as much as we might wish that things would go back to the way they were, things are changed.  We are changed.  And, for better or for worse, so is our perspective.

In a way, the holiday season was part of the repeating loop for me over the years.  Certainly the joy and the excitement were there, especially seeing the wonder and the happiness in the faces of the children in the family.  Looking back from this vantage point, though, I can see that I spent too much time worrying leading up to and during the holiday season each year.  I worried about when and how the Christmas decorations got put up, I worried about having the “perfect” gift for everyone on my list, I worried about what I would prepare for holiday get-togethers, I worried about getting a photo for the annual Christmas card and getting the cards addressed and mailed out in a timely manner, and I worried about making sure that my kids had an action-packed, memorable (at least what I thought was memorable at the time) holiday season.  A lot of the stress I felt during the season was admittedly self-inflicted.  And, as I see it now, a lot of it was unnecessary and unproductive. 

 As I got out the Christmas decorations this year, I thought about years past when I did the same thing and I thought about when my dad was sick.  The hustle and bustle was still present that year - it was just focused on a different set of priorities.  My kids did most of the decorating at my house that year; I was out of town helping to care for my dad a good bit during that the time.  I did 100% of my Christmas shopping online, much of it late at night in between conversations with Dad.  Some of the gifts did not get wrapped, and a few even got left behind in the transport between my house and my parents’ house, where my extended family gathered on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, taking shifts being with Dad who was in the hospital in the ICU at that point. 

I will never forget how awful it was being in the hospital that Christmas.  The hospital cafeteria closed after lunch on Christmas Eve, and families of patients in the hospital had to fend for themselves for food for the next day and a half after that.  The roads were icy and travel was precarious, and everyone in my family was so, so sleep deprived and concerned about Dad and about each other.  None of us cared about opening gifts or celebrating; the only thing we really wanted to do was to spend time together and to do whatever we could to try to help Dad.

I thought about that a lot as I lifted each string of lights and each ornament out of the boxes again this year, and here’s what I realized:  As tough as things were that Christmas, not for one second did any of us lose sight of the value of being there together.  No one in the family ever said anything like this isn't fair or I'd rather be somewhere else or doing something else.  Together we struggled through my dad’s illness and death and together we have struggled through the grief since then, the day-to-day routines as well as the holidays that have come since then now colored in a very different way.  The lessons I learned from all that we went through that holiday season are things that I am certain will never leave me – things like how it’s more important to focus on the joy and togetherness of today than to worry about the details of tomorrow, especially when much of tomorrow is out of our control.  Like how it’s important to ask for help when help is needed and how stuff is just stuff.  Like how when one of us is sad or exhausted or discouraged or sick or hurt, we are strong as a whole.  And like how, even in the midst of the everyday, it's possible for perspective to reflect the riches that we are fortunate enough to hold in the moment.

Thoughts on The Boston Marathon

I grew up watching, reading, and listening to news about the Boston Marathon; as a runner and a fan of the competitive part of the sport for nearly 35 years, I've always loved following the stories from races for both the top contenders and the back-of-the-packers.  As a current back-of-the-packer myself, I know that every runner has a story, and, especially for big events like marathons, every finish impacts each participant in many different ways.  

The marathon is the apex of the sport for lots of runners, the quintessential goal, the quest of the most dedicated amongst us.  And the Boston Marathon, or "The Boston" or just "Boston," as it is typically called in the athletic world, is the pinnacle of all marathons.  It's the world's oldest ongoing marathon, with this being its 117th year, and it's probably the world's most well-known road-racing event.  Boston is always run on Patriots' Day, the third Monday in April, which, unlike the majority of other marathons in the U.S., means that it's always held on a Monday.  Because of the many hills along the course and the tendency for the temperatures to soar into the 80-degree range during the event, the race is considered to be one of the more challenging marathons in our country.  The Boston Marathon is the only marathon in the U.S. that has a qualifying time requirement for entry, based on the gender and age of each runner, with the general rules stating that a runner must have completed a "qualifying marathon" within an 18 month period prior to Boston.  As a result of the strict qualifying requirements and the difficulty factor, Boston Marathon runners are generally revered by all other runners, or at least by those of us who have been involved in the sport for awhile. 

A masterpiece about Dad's first Boston by my sister, Jennifer

Growing up, I remember hearing my dad talking about Boston as if it were the Holy Grail of running.  Even before he had run it the first time in 1979 at the age of 35, I remember him telling my sisters and me about the course, which runs through eight different towns and finishes on Copley Square in Boston.  In the months leading up to his Boston debut, I remember him worrying aloud about Heartbreak Hill, the most well-known challenge in the race, even after he'd run up and down the levee alongside the Mississippi River literally hundreds of times as part of the 100+ miles per week he ran for months before the race.  I remember my grandfather, my dad's dad, coming to stay with my sisters and me for a few days while my parents went to Boston that April, and I remember my mom calling us after the race to tell us how Dad had done (his finish time was 2:46:04).  I remember standing in the kitchen of our house with my sisters, cheering through the phone line for my dad and then chanting his finish place over and over, so many times that the number was forever lodged in my brain.  In fact, one day, during the time when my dad was sick, we were talking about the many races he had run over the years, and he was surprised when I told him that I still remembered what place he finished in at his first Boston:  1,196th, which put him in the top 15% of finishers that year.

There are around half a million spectators and usually between 20,000 and 25,000 runners at every Boston Marathon.  The Centennial Boston Marathon, held in 1996, which was my dad's second time to run it, set a record for the most entrants, at around 38,000 runners.  

I remember Dad talking excitedly after he'd gotten back from the race the first time about going to the Bill Rogers Running Store and meeting Bill Rodgers, who had won the marathon for the third time that year, setting a course record in the process.  Dad commented that he especially admired the guy, "Boston Billy" as he was called, because of his modesty and his friendliness, which, ironically, were also two of Dad's strongest qualities.  The women's division was won that year by Joan Benoit, then 21 years old, who, with a time of 2:35, bettered the previously set record for women's finish time by 8 minutes. 

Joan, or "Joanie" as she was called, won Boston again in 1983, this time finishing in 2:22, breaking the women's world record by two minutes, and then she followed up by taking the gold medal in the Olympic marathon in L.A. in 1984, the year the women's marathon was established as an Olympic event.  She, incidentally, still holds the record for the American woman with the fastest finish in both the Olympic marathon and in the Chicago Marathon.  Yesterday, Joan ran Boston again to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her most recent Boston win, as did the men's winner from '83, Greg Meyer, who was in fact the last American to have won the race.  Joan, now age 55, was quoted as saying before the race that she planned to "go out fast," aiming to finish within 30 minutes of her winning time from 30 years ago, a goal that my dad would have absolutely loved hearing about - and one that she achieved with a finish time of 2:50.

To Joanie, from my dad and me: you're still a total badass!

Countless people - even those who have never even cared at all about the Boston Marathon before yesterday - watched the replays and read the recounts of the tragedy that unfolded after the bombings, the vast majority of people whom, I would venture to guess, realized that they could not even imagine the chaos and the terror than ensued on the race course and around the city, nor could they really comprehend the emotions  about the losses suffered by the runners and spectators of so many things: life, safety, trust, faith, and even reward for such dedication and effort on the part of the thousands of runners who trained extensively for the race over the course of the last six months or more.  

"To be a consistent winner means preparing not just one day, one month, or even one year - but for a lifetime." ~Bill Rodgers, 1979

"To be a consistent winner means preparing not just one day, one month,

or even one year - but for a lifetime." ~Bill Rodgers, 1979

My brother Lee has qualified for Boston twice and has run it once; he shares in the family's fascination with the marathon's history and with each year's competitive field.  No one in my family was at the Boston Marathon this year; however, on some level, we can imagine the turmoil experienced by those who were there yesterday because of tragic events that have affected us at other races in years past, which is a different story in its own right.  Like everyone else, my family feels so sad for everyone affected by the bombing; there is no understanding the evil that drives such madness.  The term Heartbreak Hill has a whole new meaning for all of the runners there yesterday and for those of us whose hearts go out to those injured and otherwise affected by the malevolence of those responsible.

In memory of Martin Richard 

Happy National Siblings Day

Happy National Siblings Day, especially to my sisters, without whom I would not be the person I am today.  

Cheers!

I don't think there's anyone else in the world who can ever know a person like his or her siblings do; there is a shared history from events woven through the fabric of our lives, full of memories, tears, adventures, laughter, trust, support, and love, a tapestry of snapshots from the past and the present that results into a truly unique bond.

During the time that our dad was sick and since his death, I have felt like my sisters were the only ones on the planet who felt even close to the same way I do. We had different types of relationships with him and we are different people, but we love each other as fiercely as we loved him. 

We've taken turns falling apart and worrying about the others, but we have always operated as a unit.  I know that when nobody else can understand what I am feeling or why I am doing whatever it is  I am doing - crying, ranting, hurting - they will.  

I also know without a doubt that without both of them, I would not have made it through any of what happened as we have struggled to make it through the most difficult time in our lives, at least not in the same way that I did. 

They regularly support me, entertain me, give me things to look forward to, and keep me grounded, and I am thankful every single day to have them in my life.

Happiness and Perspective

I heard a line from the AMC TV show "Mad Men" quoted the other day on the radio.  The commentators were discussing the topic of materialism and how they feel it has affected our children's generation as a whole.  On the TV show, which is about an advertising agency in NYC, the agency's Creative Director Don Draper is disturbed by his observations of the actions of people whom he feels were motivated by their greed for money and success.  Don starts to reconsider his own definition of happiness and in the process comes up with the line from the episode that was being quoted on the radio:  

"What is happiness? It's a moment before you need more happiness."

lippsisters.com

That quote got me started thinking about the way so many of us set up happiness to be something that isn't really obtainable - or at least that isn't sustainable.  Maybe that's what makes some people feel like rats running on a wheel, as if they are "caught up in the Rat Race," always chasing after one more thing instead of taking the time to appreciate what is already in their possession or what has already been achieved.  

Something I've learned over the last couple of years is that happiness is a feeling that is often easy to attain in the moment but difficult to maintain over time.  Happy moments can be both big and small; happiness can come when its arrival has been anticipated, or it can come by unexpectedly, as a welcome surprise.  For most people, happiness is transient; it ebbs and flows depending on so many other factors.  The way one feels going into a situation or even at the start of the day does not necessarily determine the way one feels at the end; in the same way that you can start off on a run feeling great and end up limping home, you can wake up happy and end the day feeling miserable.  Happiness is unpredictable and oftentimes completely out of our control, which is exactly what makes it a defective goal.  In many cases, it's nothing more than perspective.  

It also strikes me that happiness isn't something that translates into goodness; a bank robber or even a serial killer can feel happy with what they have done.  A life can be full of happy moments but be lacking in meaning and impact, yet another reason that in my opinion happiness isn't a suitable goal.

Another lesson that I have gotten from life over the past couple of years is that during those times when happiness is in my grasp, when I am fortunate enough to be in the midst of joy, pleasure, or contentment, I need to breathe it in, to savor it and to remember it, because life is nothing if not uncertain, and we need all the reserves we can get.  

Happiness

Sometimes happiness is really just as simple as making a choice to appreciate and be grateful for what one has, instead of thinking about would have/could have/should have been, instead of worrying, instead of comparing what one has to what someone else has, and instead of wishing for something more or something different.  To me, it seems that happiness comes much more from perspective than from reality.

"Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances." ~Anonymous

One of the things that has brought me the most meaning in my life has been motherhood.  It has also brought me considerable happiness, even though not every moment of every day is filled with sunshine and singing.  In the words of an extended family member of mine, "Mothering is the hardest and the best thing that you will ever do."  I'm sure this extends to fathering, too.  Parenting is difficult, but it's an investment, a legacy that will continue far longer than the days we have left on this earth.


When I think back on some of the biggest moments of my life - graduations, weddings, vacations, things like that - so much of what happened then is a blur, and I don't think that the only thing that plays a factor in that is my increasing age and decreasing capacity for remembering things.  I wonder if I was present enough in those moments; I wonder if I took the time during those events to breathe in the happiness and the joy that I was experiencing.  If I did, maybe I should have done even more of that, enough to make more of what I felt in those moments carry over to my memory. If I didn't, I am regretful that I might have been thinking more about things that I perceived as being not just right, or about things that were bothering me or stressing me out in the moment, or about what came before or what was to come afterwards.  In either case, one thing I have learned is that sometimes all I can do is try to learn from the past - and try to do better in the future.

I thought about happiness and memories and perspective a lot during my sister Nancy's labor and delivery a couple of weeks ago.  "Remember this," I said to her several times during those hours before and just after she became a mother: "Remember this; be sure to remember this."  I hope she remembers it all -  and I know I will, because it was nothing short of wondrous.   As the newest member of our family was born, everyone in the room knew what happiness was: it's being together with the people you love, it's the warmth that comes from working together for a common goal, it's the promise of good.

"Remember this."//

As Lao Tzu said, "Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you."

Not Knowing, Part 1

One of the things that my dad worried about the most when he was sick and even before then was his mom, who had been living alone in a small town in southern Alabama until the age of 87, when she suffered a stroke.

Kind of like my dad, she lost her independence in the blink of an eye, never to regain it, even though we had hopes that she would, at least to some extent.  Kind of like my dad, she was in very good shape physically and mentally, until her illness struck.  But unlike my dad, in addition to her physical skills, her cognitive abilities also were severely affected as a result of the stroke, and she did not have anyone in her area to take the kind of care of her that was required after that or the resources to have it provided in her home.  And so, as her hospital stay after the stroke was coming to an end, a skilled nursing facility was strongly recommended by the medical staff, and my parents decided to move her to one that was close to their house, one state over from hers.  

The downside was that the move disoriented her more and that, since it wasn't feasible for her friends from her hometown to visit her several hours from her hometown, she ended up being pretty isolated there, at least from people who had been involved in her life as it was before she got sick.  The upside was that my parents were able to check in on her several times a week and to make sure she was getting good care, and the rest of us were able to see her too whenever we were in town.  After the initial landslide loss of function, her memory and her physical status continued to deteriorate, a little at a time.  Eventually she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease and she wasn't even consistent in recognizing those of us she had known for all of our lives, but she always recognized her son, my dad.  

Grandmom's first Christmas in the nursing home

Dad and I discussed many times over the years how tough it was to see Grandmom be so changed, so dependent.  She had always been a bold woman who strived to do things for herself and to do her part in making the world a better place.  All her life, she had lived on a fixed income; she did not have fancy things or take fancy trips, but she was grateful and generous and happy all the same.  Before she got sick, at the beginning of every year, she wrote out a detailed budget for herself for the upcoming year and mailed it to my dad.  The few times I happened to see what she'd written, I was flabbergasted at how specific it was and at my grandmother's frugality, and I was amazed that despite the limits of her finances she still committed to tithing to her church year after year.  She was not what one would call a Southern belle; rather, she was much more of an activist and a liberal-thinker for her time who valued individual rights and freedom for all.  

QUITE THE DAREDEVIL IN YEARS PAST:  With her younger brother Freddie, in Daytona Beach, FL ...

... and riding the bull at Gilley's

When Grandmom first got to the nursing home, she needed supervision around the clock and help with some things, but there were some things about her personality that were still the same.  She had always been a competitive person, and we saw shades of that come out in things she did there too; once when we visited her she told us she was the fastest person on a walker in the whole place.  Another time she proudly informed us that she had won the Bingo game there the day before, and she showed us a ladybug broach that she'd won for proof.  She was always so grateful for visitors, even as she became unclear on exactly who we all were, and she especially lit up whenever she saw my dad.

About a month before Dad was diagnosed with cancer, he and my mom sat down with Grandmom's doctor to discuss her steadily declining condition.  She had become completely dependent on others for everything, including feeding herself, and had been having some trouble with swallowing that seemed to indicate that she had had one or more mini-strokes that were hastening her decline.  Because of the swallowing difficulties, she was at risk for pneumonia and she was also having bouts of depression and anxiety, even though she did not seem to be aware of where she was or what was going on around her most of the time.  The physician recommended that my dad, who held Grandmom's medical power of attorney, enroll his mother in hospice care, which meant that she would continue to be cared for in the nursing home but that she would also be monitored by medical staff from a hospice agency who were specifically trained in end-of-life comfort care.  Wanting the best possible care for his mom, Dad signed the papers with a heavy heart; he'd committed to providing for and to looking after his mom years ago and felt in his heart that this was the best choice for her, as did we.

Worrying about her, her prognosis, and her comfort continued to weigh heavily on my dad in the days ahead; in fact, the last text message I ever got from him, which was just before he was diagnosed, was about his concerns for her.  He said he felt that she was declining so quickly that he didn't think she would survive even one month longer.  He said that he was worried about how "the girls" (meaning my children and my nieces, all of whom had visited Grandmom in the nursing home recently but had not seen her in her present condition) were taking the news of her decline; the whole situation was both difficult and sad for everyone involved.  Dad continued to visit his mom whenever he could, as did my mom; thinking about her was a part of their normal routine. 

Dad last visited him mom in the nursing home the day before he was rushed to the hospital and the mass in his head was discovered.  Suddenly, his own health was unstable and his life was at risk, weirdly and shockingly in some ways even more so than his 90 year-old mother.

In his typical way, though, he continued to worry about his responsibilities (his mom being one of the things topping his list) throughout the course of his illness, despite the fact that he was very sick himself.  During his first hospitalization and his stay at the rehab hospital, my sisters and I stood in for Dad, with at least one of us checking in on Grandmom every few days.  It was something we were glad to do; it felt like helping to take care of her was also helping to take care of him.

The first time we went to see her was the day after Dad's surgery.  My sister Jennifer and I went, while Mom and Nancy stayed at the hospital with Dad.  We were still reeling from having just been given the devastating diagnosis less than 24 hours before, and walking into Grandmom's room in the nursing home with a smile on our faces as if nothing was wrong was tough, to say the least. I couldn't shake the anguish that came from thinking about how much had changed in the six days it had been since Dad had last been there to visit his mom, but I felt in my heart that the news that Dad was so sick that he was unable to visit her would be more than Grandmom could (or should have to) handle at that point.  Neither of us is much of an actress, but, for Grandmom's sake and for Dad's, thankfully Jennifer and I pulled it off, and I was glad we were able to spare her the pain and fear that had taken root in the hearts of the rest of us who did know the truth.

After we told Grandmom goodbye in her room, we went to the nursing station down the hall to talk to the nurse who was taking care of her that day.  My mom had been doing Grandmom's laundry, collecting her dirty clothes weekly and then washing them and returning the clothes to her; however, given what we were faced with dealing with at that point, we decided to tell the staff that we wanted to have the laundry done at the facility until further notice.  "I'm Nellie's granddaughter," I said, "and I need to let you know that my dad is very sick and so neither he nor my mom will be able to visit her for awhile.  In fact, I need to give you my contact information and ask that you call me in case of emergency or if Grandmom needs anything."

Behind the desk, the nurse and several nursing assistants all stopped what they were doing and looked at me like I was speaking in tongues.  One of the CNA's leaned in and said, "Are you talking about that really nice bald-headed man that visits Miss Nellie all the time?"

"Yes, that's my dad," I told her.

"He's not sick," she asserted. "He was just up here to see her a few days ago, and he was smiling and joking around like he always does. He's the picture of good health!"

I could tell by the looks on the faces of everyone who was listening that they thought I was mistaken.  I understood their thought process; it was the same one that was going through my head repeatedly, fueling my shock and disbelief as well.  I gave them a brief run-down on what had happened: "He got sick while he was out running last Saturday and was taken to the hospital, where they found out he had a mass in his head.  Yesterday, he had surgery, and we found out that he has brain cancer."  There.  I said it, out loud, for the first time.  I felt sick to my stomach, until the voice in my head told me that it wasn't true, it couldn't be true.  

But it was.  In what would become a pattern from that moment forward, as soon as I delivered the awful news about my dad, I was put into a position of having to try to comfort the recipients of the news.  The second after the words left my mouth, I felt guilty about having had to deliver such a blow.  I've since learned that there is a term for something like this called  'vicarious traumatization,' which happens when a trauma specialist spends day after day being exposed to another's trauma.  But it was necessary that they knew, and the news was out.  "We do not want my grandmother to be told about my dad; please make a note in the chart and be sure everyone knows."  I stood there watching them try to keep their composure, until the nurse whom I had originally addressed stepped from around the desk and hugged me.  When she backed up, she had tears in her eyes, and she said, "I'm so sorry.  Please tell him and your mom that we will take extra good care of Miss Nellie."  I swallowed my own tears, thanked her, handed her a piece of paper with my contact information and instructions about having the laundry done for Grandmom on it, and backed away, before I lost it.  

Thinking back, I wonder if what I thought was true actually was:  did I insist that Grandmom not be told because it was better for her, or for us?  Was it too much for her to handle having to hear the news, or for me to have to tell her?  Was it taking the easy way out in avoiding having to deal with her emotions?  Was it protecting her or us?  I think it was for her sake, and for Dad's, but like a lot of things that went on during that time, I can't be sure.  Whether or not it was right to decide not to tell her that day and in the weeks that followed is something that I have questioned many times since then.  Regardless, though, with Grandmom's care squared away, Jennifer and I left the nursing home and headed back to the hospital.

In a life-is-weirder-than-fiction moment, later that day we discovered that Robbie, one of the nurses that was on Grandmom's hospice service, also worked at the hospital where Dad was.  She heard about Dad from the nurses at the nursing home and came to see Dad in the ICU.  (Maybe she was verifying the accuracy of what I'd said for the rest of the staff at Grandmom's facility.)  It seemed to confuse Dad at first when he saw her there, which I actually thought was a good sign, because it was kind of puzzling to have someone involved in Grandmom's care show up on the scene at the hospital where Dad was.  Robbie asked some questions about what had happened and about what was going on with Dad, and then she told us that she would check in on Grandmom more often than usual and would report back to my parents.  We were grateful to have the help; it eased our minds, especially Dad's, to know that Grandmom would be getting some extra attention and interaction.  

It's funny how what seems tragic can change in a single moment.  As things were, after the news of hospice care having become necessary for Grandmom, my family was grieving.  It seemed terrible to have had to watch her decline as she became more physically challenged and more disoriented.  And now, in the blink of an eye, the tragedy had changed, or maybe it had just widened; our perspective and possibly even our forbearance had been altered by Dad's sudden illness.  I think we just thought that was the one-two punch that we just had to get through, that if we could rally and shore up, things would get better.  We had to think that way; it was the only thing keeping us from falling apart.

To Be Continued ... Not Knowing, Part 2