Put On Your Big Girl Panties

Out of desperation last night I called a friend. It was sort of like that show where you get lifelines and one of them is to phone a friend. I needed a lifeline, since things with my Aunt Nina are spiraling out of control. I had talked to Mark, I had talked to my Aunts good friend and I had talked to my cousin, but what I really needed was a reality check and I got it. My friend's advice, "It's time to put on your big girl panties and take control of this situation."

Mark and I have been so busy trying to make sure we do not take away my Aunt's self confidence and feeling of independence that we have backed ourselves into a corner. It is time to push back. Aunt Nina continues to refuse to eat and she also continues to lie in bed and scream in pain when people touch her even though x-rays have shown nothing. She is not drinking fluids and she is not answering her phone. She has everyone alarmed and I have had it in my mind that it is her life and her choice and that I could do nothing about it, but I have come to the place that say's NO MORE!

Today, I head out (in the snow, if you can believe it, where did the snow come from?) to see my Aunt and have her taken to the hospital. I want her checked out and I want them to give her the attention she needs to die (if she insists on it) with dignity. This lying in bed in the dark refusing food and water and laying in your own waste is disgusting and infuriating. Today is the day the independence ends and the care giving begins. Thanks to my friend's words, I am pulling on my big girls panties and taking charge.

Here is the part that is hardest for me. My Mom died May 22^nd 2009 and my Dad died May 3^rd 2010 and now my Aunt wants to die in 2011 and I am struggling with the fact that I will lose another loved one for the third year in a row. I know I have to set that aside and focus on getting her some help, but that piece of this sent me into a tail spin last night. Moving on, I have to stay strong, grab my important papers for her and hit the road. I am also waiting for a call from her attorney who I contacted yesterday. I am hoping he can help me navigate through my rights and responsibilities for My Great Aunt. I have said my prayer and done my yoga and pulled up my big girl panties…I am ready.

 

What Goes Around…

The subject of Karma has come up a bit lately. Karma is the belief that humans acting of their own free will, create their own destiny. Basically, what goes around comes around or you reap what you sow, there is no way to blame anyone else or anything else for your life if you believe in Karma. All of your life choices bring you back full circle each and every day.

This of course is my personal belief system and I have tried to instill it in my children. I know I have mentioned in the past, but I believe that anything that comes up in your life that you do not deal with continues to return to your life until you work through it. Each time it returns I believe it comes back differently with the same lesson until you walk through it and complete the lesson. I know this sounds crazy, but I am pretty sure you have already figured out that I walk a little on the crazy side.

With all that said, I should also add that I have watched Karma work for good in some people's lives and I have watched it swirl around and return to teach a lesson again and again each time getting more difficult and painful. I guess my main point is that we choose to be happy or we choose to be miserable. We also choose how we will be with others. If we decide that we are the most important person and everything we do is only for us, Karma will attempt to teach us to open our hearts.

I am very happy to report that in the case of my issues with my Mom and Dad that Karma has worked to my benefit. I chose at the time to ride that wave, I turned the other cheek and showed grace where I could. I stayed focus, I cried and dealt with my wounded heart and in return my life has become fuller and more blessed with family relationships that had soured and hearts that have turned that had at one time questioned. We are not at the end of our journey within our family. Many things are still out there that need to be dealt with and slowly they are. The merry-go-round called life is amazing, the ride is thrilling and if you play your cards right, it comes around.

Assisting Suicide

Well, as if I have not had enough stress over the last few months, word comes that my Aunt Nina has decided not to eat or get out of bed. Seriously, I am at my wits end. Considering that my wits end is very short these days, it was not too far a jump. After talking with Aunt Nina's aide/companion Anna (God bless her) and Mark, I have decided to take a hard line. I know she is 93 and I also know (since she has told me) that she wants to die. The part that Auntie seems to have a hard time with is that she is not God and she does not get to decide when the time is right.

I know I sound harsh and perhaps unfeeling, but here is the thing. She is living in an assisted living community, if you decide to lie in bed and not eat, then it becomes an assisted dying community. The last time someone tried that they ended up in jail, so I am pretty sure that where she lives is not called Kevorkian village and they will not appreciate assisting her in suicide. I have told Anna and Mark that if this does not stop by Monday, I will be moving Aunt Nina back to the nursing home and that is where she will stay. This whole thing is ridiculous. I am not feeling sorry for her at all.

Before you start thinking I am a heartless beast, you should understand that in spite of the fact that my Aunt can be one step over crazy sometimes, she is family and I love her. I have been there for her when her husband Uncle Ted died and Mark and I both have been unfailing companions since her only child Dana passed away. Nina has no idea the challenges this situation has added to our lives, and we would never ever tell her. She needed us and we were there. My only hope has always been that if I needed someone later in my life that someone would be there for me as well.

At 93 Aunt Nina is not going to change, but I have to find a way to help her now and keep her dignity in tacked. My only option will be to move her back to the nursing home so that they can monitor her and make sure that if she is determined to die that it is a comfortable passing. She will not like it and I will be on her very long list of people that have made her mad, but I really do not care anymore. She has a do not resuscitate order in place, so my guess is, it is her plan to take herself down so low that we legally cannot bring her back. How sad is that?

Watching the people at the community Aunt Nina lives in, I see people who choose to participate in the activity's there and make the most of each day. My Aunt chooses to sit in her room and sit in the lobby and not do anything but complain. Not surprising that she eats alone and has no relationships with anyone there. My Aunt has taken on the task of defying God's plan for her and something tells me this is a really bad decision. I hope that in the next few days we can get this situation under control. My sympathy is waning and my patience is leaving with it.

Evil

Have you ever felt evil? I am not talking about you being evil, but the aura of evil, the feeling that something or someone is dark and scary? This happened to me yesterday and I cannot shake the feeling. I was out running a few errands and I stepped out of my car to make a quick run into our local newspaper. As I closed my car door I could see a man out of my peripheral vision, and honestly, I could smell him too because he was smoking and he carried this tobacco cloud with him. He was walking out of a nearby dry cleaner and I caught a quick glimpse of him, but before I saw him, I sensed him.

Everything in me felt a sense of alarm. This man who I do not know frightened me. I found myself walking faster so that I could get into the newspaper office and get away from him. When I came back out of the office, the man was sitting as a passenger in the car next to mine with his window down, still puffing away on his cigarette. Once again, my internal alarm went off. I started to feel shaky and concerned. I even went so far as to turn in the opposite direction of where I was going and continued to zigzag up and down side streets until I arrived home. Once home I went around checking every door to be sure it was locked. I was shaken to the core.

I do not know who this man was, but I do know that he was evil. I have found myself thinking that I walked near the devil yesterday. I have even thought that if I had made eye contact with this man it would have allowed him a chance at my soul. I was truly frightened by him. This feeling has struck me to the core and made me afraid and nervous. I also find it interesting that just yesterday I woke up with negative energy shooting out of me and later that morning I was face to face with a sense of evil. Perhaps it was a fluke. It could possibly have been an over active imagination, but in my heart of hearts I am absolutely certain that if I had let myself go long enough yesterday I could have let this evil take over my life.

Now please do not read this and think I am becoming a whack job. I am still the same kind of crazy I have always been. I know what I felt, and I also know that whoever or whatever it was that was present in my day yesterday was carrying evil by the buckets full. I still cannot shake the feeling today. Instead of a brush with greatness, I had a brush with evil and I can honestly say, I would be very happy if that never happens again!

Negative Energy

Negative Energy: noun; any form of energy that is in some way detrimental (esp. spiritual). dictionary.com

It is in the air swirling around nipping at my ankles and making my heart race. This feeling of urgency with anxiety mixed in. I wake feeling it and I lay awake at night trying to fall asleep to get away from it, but the negative energy does not leave me. This morning it was pouring out of me as I shared it with Avery and then Mark, nothing off the charts, just a snippy chastising, about something minimal. They never saw it coming, but I knew it was when I woke and the energy began its swirling dance through my body. Mark and Avery were victims to my venom. In slight defense, Avery had some of it coming, but the pace and time of the attack, were wrong but I just could not stop the force of the feeling.

Where is this coming from? Every year I feel this feeling, it brings me to my emotional knees. I am not sure if it is spring or if it is just how I am in spring, but I am worn thin from this feeling of hurry. I want to find away to channel this energy; harness it if you will, into a positive force. I need to make this energy work for me and not against me, but how? This energy is spiritually and physically draining. I look at everything before me as a chore, even the things that I love to do are work for me right now. As things come up I find myself pushing myself to get through them.

It is spring, the sun is out more, the air is warming and people everywhere I go seem to be smiling and walking more lightly, yet I am dragging my feet as if I have on lead boots. Who are you and what have you done with Ragen? Agh, I have just returned from the high school parent meeting and I feel as if I have run a marathon. I am certain that if I could shut my brain off for a little while and rest I would feel a little better, but looming out there is the call I just received from Aunt Nina's aide, Anna saying that she has not been out of bed since my visit with her Monday, so now I will add that worry to the energy.

I believe my best course of action right now is to allow myself a short nap. Even this beautiful sun is not keeping me on track today, so I think it is best to let my body run my mind and give into the need for rest. Perhaps when I wake everything will seem a little less negative.

Small World

Laurel Falls

You know how people tell you it is a small world? It seems I forget until it smacks me in the face sometimes. Recently I have had two small world moments that I would like to share. One was here at home and the other was hundreds of miles away in the Smokey Mountains.

 A few weeks ago I was having my hair done and I was seated next to a woman who was talking about traveling and security at the airport. As she spoke I found myself becoming a bit of a nosey neighbor and listening to her conversation with her stylist, at one point I interjected a comment about something she had said. Apparently that was our bonding moment, because we than spent half an hour talking about everything under the sun. My new friend commented at one point that you have to be careful because you never know who knows who, or who you are talking to. At one point during the conversation, she mentioned her last name and it hit me that it was the same as my brother-in-law. I decided to see if she knew him. "Excuse me, are you related to Randy?" she replied "Is he married to Cathy?" "Yes he is!" I said. "Well, I am his Aunt, Randy's Dad and my husband are brothers! You see you really do never know who you might be talking to!" She added enthusiastically. We continued chatting a few more minutes and I walked away with the feeling that the moment was meant to happen, but wondered why.

 Last week as Mark and I traveled through the Smokey Mountains we took a trail up to Laurel Falls. I had chosen this trail because my cousin's name is Laurel and I wanted to get a picture of it to send to her. As we walked up this very long steep trail I kept complaining about the length of the trail and announcing quite often that I was certain that it was actually longer than the map had stated. Mark has a habit of trying to deflect these situations with humor, so when he said "Look, its Steve Andrew's" I immediately said 'NO ITS NOT!" and took a loving swing at him. Steve Andrews is the head pastor at our church and the odds of him coming down the trail we were heading up were pretty slim. Mark repeated the comment again "No really, there is Steve Andrew's". Still I focused on the three and a half foot wide path and the steep incline and snarped "IT IS NOT" as I looked up and came face to face with Steve Andrew's and his wife Paula. Mark shook his hand and Steve spoke with us for a couple of minutes and shared that they were there celebrating their 30^th anniversary. He told us to "Enjoy the falls" and went on his way. I ended up laughing all the rest of the way up the mountain to Laurel Falls.

 I find myself mulling over these random meetings now wondering what I should be taking away from them. Here are some thoughts.

1. Watch what you say and who you say it about
2. You can find a friend in the most unlikely place
3. Be friendly, it makes someone's day
4. Sometimes Mark is not joking, learn to take him seriously
   
    
5. 30 years of marriage is amazing and good to hear when you are on a retreat with your husband
   
    
6. Mountains are steep, marriage is hard, but you can get over the hard stuff and enjoy the falls!
   
    

Last but not least, Walt Disney was right, it is a small world after all!!

Back to Crazy

As the thunderstorm passed through early this morning, I thought to myself that I would drive my girls the 200 feet to the bus stop so that they would not be drenched from the pouring rain. You see this morning was our first day back to our "normal" schedule after our school districts spring break. I thought it would be a nice thing to do and it would involve less time than driving Aly and Avery all the way to school. So I climbed into the car wearing my workout shorts and flip flops and grabbed the puppy princess Roxanne for the quick drive to the corner. Aly was right behind me feeling like missing the bus was a huge possibility, I of course the voice of reason assured her there was plenty of time. As Aly and I sat waiting in the idling car in the garage, Avery finished brushing her teeth and pulling her stuff together, we saw the bus whip by our house as if it was snubbing us. That's when I knew we were back to crazy.

You see, there is no normal here. I hope to myself all the time that normal is right around the corner for us and like the bus; normal snubs us and whips right by! I honestly believe that we are so use to doing everything at a screaming pace. When I use the word screaming I mean that literally and figuratively. Most days there is screaming, things like "Hurry up!" or "Do you have your lunch" or "I know you have my sweater, where is it? This is all followed by running, running to the door, to the bus, or to the car. And so, crazy is back and running here once again.

I had myself convinced that after Spring break things here would function at a slower pace. I had a sense of calm planted in my mind, a serene centered place where we would all sit in the Yoga lotus position and breathe deeply, slowly standing and quietly exiting to the various locations we belonged for the day. All of us relaxed and centered, calm and prepared. As I ran passed Avery to put on pants and grab my purse this morning I calmly told her that perhaps a more quickly paced morning regime was in order, I than ran back to the car and drove my girls to school. As we drove, we sang along to the radio and harmonized with each other and that's when it hit me. This is our normal. The hurry up and the last minute sprint all culminate into what makes our family tick. We are a crazy mix of organized kayos; that sometimes works and sometimes does not, but in the end brings us back to crazy, our crazy. Ah…it is good to have everyone back!