Tag: Death

Navigating Life’s Energy-Draining Paths

I’m sure most, if not all of you reading this post have experienced what I’m experiencing right now: a feeling of hanging in limbo. As though you’re unsure of your next move and have difficulty planning your days.

There are a lot of reasons I can point to for my annoying, energy and motivation-sapping funk.

  • We’re planning a trip to see our grandbaby, and I’m antsy to go on a vacation to see her.
  • We’re doing home projects to get our house ready to sell (we think), and I’m weary of projects.
  • The weekly spring Bible study I taught recently ended, and I’m missing gathering with my beloved friends something fierce. (I’m also missing the rigors of studying and preparing to teach too.)
  • Post-COVID infection brain fog isn’t helping, either. It’s not occurring as often as it did, but when it hits, I patiently ride it out and try to re-focus. I’m usually, but not always, successful.

 

But what has probably dampened my world the most is the fact that my mother is likely nearing the end of her earthly journey.

 

We thought it would happen last year, in early December when she was diagnosed with COVID and went from a fairly energetic ninety-eight-year old to a ninety-nine-year old (she turned 99 during her bout with COVID and never knew she had a birthday) who was just a shell of the woman she had been.

Since she, as many older people did, got hit especially hard with neurological symptoms, including hallucinations and catatonic spaciness, her dementia worsened. And she went from being able to walk with her walker to being bed-ridden.

Of course, because I wasn’t allowed to visit her, I didn’t witness the transition. I only got the daily updates by phone from her caregiver. I was on  the road with my husband to meet and hold our first grandchild. The worry and mental strain from wondering if I’d ever see my mother alive again weighed heavily on  me. And threatened to vacuum all of the giddy joy out of holding my brand new granddaughter.

I had to remind myself that this was no surprise to God; that He was in control; and that there was really nothing I could do, except pray and hope.

At the end of this post, I’ll include the devotional I wrote about this event for Guideposts’ Strength and Grace daily devotions bi-monthly magazine. (I highly recommend this devotional for all the caregivers you know. The truths and encouragement you glean from the devotions are wonderful. It’s always amazing to me to what God teaches us through trials and heartaches.)

 

But getting back to my mom and how she’s doing now.

She’s really winding down, but I suspect we’re still on a roller coaster ride. Last week all of us—including her hospice nurse—thought she only had days to live. But when Chris and I arrived last Sunday for a visit, she was sitting up in the recliner, looking pretty alert. The day before, she chatted up a storm for a couple of hours, even though she was in bed.

Last Friday my afternoon activity was visiting the mortuary staff to make some decisions ahead of time, in case she takes her leave while I’m visiting my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

I can tell God is preparing my heart. I’m already shedding tears and coming to grips with the reality that I’ll be an “orphan,” without siblings to share long-ago memories.

That will be hard. And a little scary, I think.

I’ll have to chat with my aunt about that one. She’s also an only child and lost her parents years ago. At least she’ll be able to empathize and commiserate.

 

I’m sure all of these factors are contributing to my blah mental state and writer’s block. I’m trying to be patient with myself, recognize what’s swirling around me, lean into it, abiding in our gracious, loving Lord, and gaining perspective and strength from that abiding.

Which brings me to another reason

Post-Easter letdown.

The emotional, spiritual, and often physical investment of the forty days of Lent, Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and then the rousing celebrating on Easter Sunday can result in a kind of let-down feeling. As though it all happened, and now it’s over, and a feeling of “what now?” niggles your spirit.

But if we look at what happened after the Resurrection, which we started to explore on April 19 post, we can see all that was going on with Jesus and His disciples and really bask in the joy of our salvation and future hope.

And that’s where we’ll be heading next week. To walk with Jesus’ followers, eavesdrop on their conversations. Try to feel their hearts as they encounter the risen Lord and learn what comes next in their lives.

And to witness the compassion and love of Jesus for His friends.

So, until the next post, which is scheduled to publish at 1:00 AM May 10 (I’m returning to Monday releases), may your heart be full of godly perspective and hope as you walk curvy, hilly and rocky paths of life!

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.”

 
Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a health and fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally and spiritually and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

Taking a Postmortemistic View of Life

Have you ever looked at your life postmortemistically?

 

Don’t try looking the word up in a dictionary, because it doesn’t really exist. A Google search will tell you postmortemistically doesn’t match any documents they have in their search engine. But it’s a great word The New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast invented and used in her priceless memoir Can’t we talk about something more PLEASANT?

The back cover describes the book as: “Roz Chast and her parents were practitioners of denial: if you don’t ever think about death, it will never happen. [It’s] the story of an only child watching her parents age well into their nineties and die. In this account, … Chast combines drawings with family photos and documents, chronicling that ‘long good-bye.’”

The story is heartwarming, heart-wrenching, realistic, candid, and laugh-out-loud funny. I loved it, and her.

 

I can relate to Chast: I’m an only child of older parents, sandwiched between still raising children and working while watching a parent slowly die; and now, nine years later, watch another parent still battle—in spite near total blindness, loneliness, depression, and ravaged hearing—to hang onto life at 96, and probably beyond.

As all of this is occurring, and you’re aging too, you start thinking postmortemistically, even if you didn’t know to call it that.

 

 Postmortemistically—a perfect word to describe what goes through your head when you’re cleaning out your parents’ “stuff” or getting rid of their “stuff” after they die.

Chast calls it a “transformative process.” And, indeed, it is. It’s a depressing, destabilizing, and physically and emotionally exhausting process.

She says, “Once you go through that process, you can never look at YOUR stuff in the same way.”

 

 Like—

You acknowledge, even if you’re not a hoarder, that you’re probably a typical consumer who’s accumulated your fair share of stuff. Stuff that, at some point, will probably have to be given away, thrown away, or sold at one of those edifying “Estate Sales” where other people decide your stuff is worth making their stuff.

 

 

And the big life dilemma and question—

 

One day, your kids will have to go through all of your stuff. What will they find worthy of keeping, as a wonderful memory of you and your life?

And that prompts you to wonder whether or not you should start shedding your stuff before your children have to endlessly paw through it to see if there’s anything they might want to make theirs. You know, as heirlooms.

It’s something for all of us to think about no matter what stage of life we’re in. And being a postmortemistic thinker means a dramatic paradigm shift for many of us that requires some brain re-training and habit breaking. Like not heading to the mall every time a favorite department store or boutique has notified you by email of a sale. Just so you can save some money.

 

I started thinking this way about a year ago, as another one of my birthdays (and my mom’s) rolled around, and the end of my life definitely looked a lot closer to me than the beginning. When a lot of my “stuff” started looking more like junk, dust bunny collectors and storage space-gobblers than cherished treasures. And then I started thinking:

I don’t want my kids to have to dig through all of this stuff and try to make sense of it or decide what to do with it. Or, worse yet, argue over who gets it! (Both of them told me they wanted my sports car after I’m gone, right after I got it ten years ago!)

Now I’m regarding all of my belongings and purchases with a postmortemistic mindset. Not morbidly, just thoughtfully. What’s giving me joy and edification right now, definitely will in the future (when my memory is in the toilet), and what’s just taking up space or ordering my life more than it should?

Thinking that way isn’t morbid, although the word has a morbid ring to it.

It’s actually rather refreshing. And freeing.

I hope you’ll give it a go!

 

Next week, I’ll tell you how my postmortemistic paradigm shift is going.

In the meantime, please share how you’ve handled getting rid of or keeping your deceased parents’ stuff. Is it on display, or stored in a box in the attic, with the hopes that one day you’ll have it all neatly displayed in some gorgeous album (or display case) you painstakingly assembled and explained, for everyone to look at?

And if you’re at that point in your life right now, or know someone who is, I highly recommend getting a copy of Roz Chast’s book. At the very least, you’ll be permeated with happiness and relief that you’re not alone, that there are others whose minds, and lives, go through the same contortions yours does during the agonizing goodbye journey.

 

Until next week,

Happy Reading (and thinking postmortemistically)!

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

 

Photos courtesy of Google Images