Connecting Dots

Just had a Hospital visit with a Cousin. 
Day after my birthday.

Received a call. 

Another Cousin passed.

Hand of time descends Generations.

We came together.

We moved apart.

Not all memories with both are positive.                                                                           We carry the burdens or set them down.                                       

I move on knowing we came from one source.

Sharing experiences now long set aside.                                                                   Seeing differences and recognizing similarities.

Happy for their times of celebration.                                                               Sadness for losses along life's journey.                     

Not all memories are cherished.                                                                                     Pick up an eraser and forgive.                                                                                           Pick up a pen and enlarge.                    

How long will my journey take? 

Will I start where I'm going forgetting where I've been?                

What, which, when, how -- will I be able?                                                                   Recognize. Develop ways to cope. 

Lives lived and living can vary and change.                     

How we measure, apply and use often are within our grasp.               

Times & places we did not see for what they were.                                                   Remembrances that can harm or hurt.

My life. Theirs. Ours. For what time we do not know.                                               The privilege I have and may lose is to determine my paths.

Trust, belief, caring, sharing times made to recall.

Will this also be lost as we age; is it always the only way?

Looking for answers to questions and finding riddles instead.

Memory holes replace clutter.

Why THIS journey and not another? 

How do we end when we made no choice to begin?

We were given time. Choices along the way. 

How much can we handle, manage and accept?

Do Not Blow Out Candles. 

Light them instead. 

Search for your tomorrow in each day that remains.

Become, grow and give to others. 

Be aware they watch & wait.

Your journey renews each day you are given.

Waste Not These Precious Times.

Money, Money, Money

To have and to hold, til death do us part . . .   

Planning and celebration followed by change and fears

I think therefore I am, only as long as I can 

My everyday life and living.

The road we walk, from here to there                                                                       

Winds, climbs, turns and drops

In control, at the helm, able to steer, able to halt. 

Decisions I make point to the direction I take.

Would it were so easy as years flying by

So many aims for pie in the sky.

We're told we can make it if we just try.                           

Decades added swiftly now.                                                                                                     

Time stands to fall around One and All.

I stopped expecting he would change

Like my Dad, he focuses on self.

Hurting those who gave and loved so long

Can't change a cat's stripes, the saying goes.

Ah, well, perhaps one of his five

Will someday see what's made them blind.

False, misleading, self centered lives

How sad the parent's focus, how sad their plans.

Can't change what he refuses to see. 

The harm they do isn't to "me".

It's self inflicted and self imposed

Some day he will lighten the load.

Until that time I see and I know . . . 

What waits ahead is pre-chosen

He can't serve two masters

Freedom did not change or end with me.

Sad he's not able to say:

"Let's stop this unneeded separation . . .

My behavior was wrong, I made many mistakes . . . 

I jumped to conclusions and put my "self" above all. . . 

That self centered focus is what causes a fall. . . 

Someday, my son, we'll meet again

You will be able to speak freely, will see far clearer

It could be sooner, if you so choose

We all have a very large amount to lose

Even farther as the road lengthens

As generations come and go.

It's your choice, as always, 

We do not sit and wait

Our lives filled with giving, not hate.

 Sad you've not seen the light 

The darkness called and you went.

Perhaps you'll wake up someday and see

You left the best behind when you hit the tree.

Get A Real Life!

Written Jan 23, 2017.

Husband, five, and Mom, three years, have passed. 

Seems like yesterday. 

I've moved forward -- my way.

My Husband. 

My Mother. 

Start to live again, I'm told. 

You "deserve" a life.

My life has been. . .Continues to be. . . Service to others.

Do we tell someone who's lost a loved one to Cancer to stop speaking out? 

How about saying to someone who has MS there's no longer need to walk for MS, talk about the "disease" or any other?

It's over now, get on with your own life.
You can't do anything different. 

What happened, happened.

I am

The voice of those overwhelmed

The hands of those trying to balance life

The voice of those who have passed, 

If I am silent, 

Their passing would be in vain 

Others could suffer the same mistreatment. 

Relationships and families tearing apart.

Tomorrow's capabilities through today's revelations.

If only I had known ...

If only someone would have... 

I raise my voice

Listen, Reach Out, Walk alongside

My Journey Continues

People seem to not want to talk about Dementia. 

They're willing to talk about Alzheimer's, the Association for the disease has made this one part of Dementia more "palatable" and more "acceptable" because the name doesn't detail as directly the fact the disease is MENTAL.

MENTAL CHALLENGES ARE STILL VERY FORBIDDEN AREAS OF DISCUSSION.

My husband also had mental processing challenges due to the administration of several drugs.  

DEMENTIA LIKE BEHAVIOURS AREN'T LIMITED TO AN AGE.

Down's Syndrome. Multiple Sclerosis. Concussion. Brain Damage due to accident or birth related affect lives, Medications

Mental Health is often thought of as either being a grave illness, a birth defect or an accident of life. 

Mental Health management to most medical practitioners means use of drugs to alter or control.

I seek to find other ways to see, understand and find ways to caregive for and with loved ones.

Visiting our friend in Mom's previous "home", her Long Term Care, I overheard a woman who was leaving the facility talking about her husband.

She said how "good" he was when she arrived. 

Then, she said, he ate and his "behaviour" became difficult. 

She said "THEY" were going to have to do something.

Give him something to change the way he was.

DRUGS. GIVE HIM MORE DRUGS. 

Alter his behaviour to reflect what "she" felt comfortable with. 

He was expressing feeling, need or concern. 

It was not in a way "she" found acceptable. 

A wife like many medical professionals. 

Seeing what's on the surface not looking for the cause.
The husband could have a reaction to meds he's being given.
The husband could have unfulfilled needs.

He might have had a bladder or bowel release and was uncomfortable but his declining mind could only interpret it through anger, hostility or negative action.

TODAY'S COMMON REACTION TO CHILDREN AND THE ELDERLY IS to drug them. It's not new, practiced for decades.

Make them docile. End the behaviour through the simple swallowing of a compound that may be an underlying cause of the behaviour.

Delaying, not resolving, never recognizing it's not control the person is displaying, it's the inability to affect possibly physically and/or mentally.

How many drugs have we found once thought to cure or solve a problem cause severe reactions, complications  worse than the problem, or even DEATH.

Remember Thalidomide?  Look it up. Use the Internet to learn from respected, non partisan sources to grow knowledge and find ways to support positive actions.

We don't consider "aging" to move from being an infant through to an adult, but it is.

We don't consider "aging" as a negative and something to want to turn away from or fear until we start to listen to the voices chanting the mantra of AGEISM.

Listen carefully to what is said around you, to the voices crying out and the whispers that surround -- see the change, the rotation, the movement from those who "have been" to those who "are becoming".

Watch and listen closely. 

Open your eyes, your mind and your heart.
Look beneath, beyond and read between the lines. 

We do not age as one.

We age as a society.

We grow older with one another -- if we are wise, that is.

Women Of Great Strengths

Strong Women  

Every day I see them. 

Do you see them?

The Caregivers, Workers, Leaders, Women With Purpose

Some stand out while others move mountains unnoticed.

Gladys Burrill ran a Marathon, at Age 92

Burrill earned the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest female to complete a marathon. 

At age 92, she finished the race, which took place in Honolulu

in nine hours, 53 minutes 16 seconds.

 

Diana Nyad Swam from Cuba to Florida at age of 64

In 2013, on her fifth attempt at age 64, Diana Nyad 

was the first person confirmed to swim from Cuba to Florida without the aid of a shark cage. 

The journey was 110 miles long and took her 53 hours straight.*

 

My Mother’s Mother birthed 11 children with all six boys serving their Country during WWII and grandsons volunteering for Korea and Vietnam. 

She chopped down a tree in her yard with a trunk that was 8 to 10 inches wide at the age of 87 because none of her six sons could find time. 

My Mom, walked miles for school and for Church. 

She was a caregiver for her siblings and did work at home until joining her older sister at the age of 13 doing housework for those "more fortunate in life" to send money home for the "younger ones" and then taking in the youngest girl and giving her a High School education.

In her early forties, to prepare to leave an abusive husband, my father, she studied Chemistry and Human Anatomy to pass tests to become a Beautician, now called a "Stylist'.

In her mid fifties, she fell and broke her wrist, had to close her beloved business and joined our family with one son, a few months old; our family would grow to another son and daughter.

From the time she was 65 into her 90’s, we encouraged her and she traveled the world, walked the Great Wall of China, was in Germany a week before the Wall Came Down, in Tien Mien Square two weeks before the demonstrations. 

In her mid 80's, she took our pre-teen daughter on a Nile River Cruise visiting the Pyramids and walking significant distances to share her love of other cultures and places. 

We started a Multi-Gen family lasting over forty years.

 

Genetics, the right food and keeping active physically and mentally along with the financial means and interest can take us far beyond what we think we can do.

If they can, I can, You Can -- with a little physical and mental "luck of the genetic draw", focus and determination.

 

*https://www.careline.co.uk/success-top-10-late-bloomers/