Tag Archives: caregiving

Keep Going

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A wonderful little book entitled Really Important Stuff My Dog Has Taught Me, by Cynthia L. Copeland, was among the last gifts I had given to my partner before her passing. The book is full of great photography featuring dogs, along with stories and bits of wisdom.

In reading through the book on Christmas Day, I came to this piece of instruction for life: “Keep going until you find your way home.” The story with the adage is about Mason, a terrier who found his way home despite two broken legs after a tornado hit his family’s home and carried him away.

Maybe getting carried off by a tornado isn’t so much different from finding yourself in grief or sudden loss. Like Mason, I am trying to find my way home. I mentioned to my spiritual director recently that one experience I’m having in dealing with the loss of my partner is I don’t know quite where I belong now. She pointed out that after many years of being a caregiver, I may be unsure who I am now that I no longer have the person I’d been caring for.

So my efforts to deal with grief are about trying to find my way home. I think Mason’s guidance is worth following: just keep going. And have faith that the right paths will open to lead where I need to go.

       

New Year—Reason to Reflect

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We’ve just brought the New Year in, but this year I did not take part in any of the usual festivities. For example, we usually dance with the dogs at midnight, write in journals, watch fireworks, and otherwise take special note of the passing of one year into another. Not this year.

This year we were, instead, caught in the life-and-death reality of my partner’s illnesses.The crisis came on suddenly around five in the morning on December 31, continued all through the day, all through the night, and all through New Year’s Day to approximately eight in the evening, when she was finally again stabilized. In the night, I had been setting the alarm for every two and a half hours to get up to see how she was doing. (I should add that she adamantly refused to go to an ER.)

So where was the “everyday spirituality” practice here? It was in my continuous praying, of course. It was in my constant belief that the divine Spirit is always with us, seeing us through whatever trial we face. The health crisis was not my idea of how to welcome in a new year, but maybe it was ideal for causing us to stop and reflect on what it means to come into a new year.