Horrible night

I am weary and tired in my heart, soul and mind.

More than that, I am heartsick.

My life is of no consequence.

I do not measure up.

All that I thought was for good is of naught. And I feel frustrated. I can only imagine how my Father in Heaven must feel when He sees the mess I have made of the portion of creation He granted to me for my care and keeping.

Ahead of anything, of any other consideration, of an single brilliant moment I may have experienced is the soul-crushing belief that I am wasting all that I am, all that I could be now and everything that I should become simply because I am unable to muster the fortitude to reach out and take the opportunities that are there.

But who determines my worth?

Even if the circumstances suddenly open up to me to 'change my life', I feel vastly under-developed to the task at hand. Would success in any other venue create a gateway to the happiness I am supposed to be feeling which I am evidently lacking in my life?

Last night was no fun.

Not one bit.

Driven to my knees in tears and begging God for relief and crying out the name of my Savior for deliverance from who I am and who I have become, I finally asked in my desperation for a priesthood blessing from my sleeping husband. Rick is the soul of generosity in the odd hours of the night between waking and sleeping. Never once has he refused my pleading for his help through the priesthood he bears. And even when it takes time to feel the fruition of the blessing pronounced upon me, I do eventually feel it. Then comes peace.

I have been in tears as I have tried in vain to add up the sum of my life and make of it something that is of use and that matters.

Sadly, like the "littlest angel", I find that my box of treasure is nothing but the worthless bits of life that only have meaning to me. The heavenly host must certainly be laughing.

I have nothing to offer my Savior and King.

Even sitting here now, the tears crowd out my vision and I feel as dross before the majesty of all that has been laid at His feet and I have nothing to offer Him.

Unless my broken heart counts.

I didn't come to this world to be junk. I know there was a reason I came. But right now I am struggling so very much with the weight of the world, of my world, pressing upon me and I feel helpless. And I admit, there are elements of my battered soul that feel very sad and hopeless.

I don't measure up.

I keep asking myself 'which yardstick am I applying'? Grasping at straws for an answer, I realize I have been trying on different measurements daily for the sum of my days in some pathetic dance of trying to be all things to all people and finding that I have been nothing to anyone.

These feelings of despair are nothing new to me in my life. I have been plagued with self doubt of the most severe kind for my entire life. Despite the public bravado that carries me through my days, I am a facade of the most sinister kind. I am only what I appear to be and behind the facade there isn't even the shadow of substance.

God, why on earth do I matter??

Then, in the wee hours of the morning, I knelt by my bed to pour out my heart and soul in the jumbled arrangement of my earthly treasures I call "my life" and lay them before the Lord. My tears are flowing and my heart, which is already battered and broken, cries out in the agony of soul that only the brokenhearted can truly understand.

I am nothing. God is everything. And the chasm between us feels so very wide tonight.

All I wanted was to matter... to my God, my Savior and to those I love.

Now I see that what I thought was a good thing doesn't measure up. I have sold away my holy birthright for some kind of substitute for life. I am crippled by the expectations of the world juxtaposed with the expectations of God and right now, in the darkness beside my bedside, I see that I am truly found wanting.

It is in these moments that I understand why the prophet Joseph would cry out to God asking him where the pavilion was that covered his hiding place. Because he, like me, experienced a kind of loneliness that cannot be explained... only experienced.

I woke my husband Rick. I asked for a priesthood blessing to carry me through the night and at a least drive away some of the terror that is upon me. I asked for help and a release of my suffering. Tears flowing like a river coursed down my face. It makes me feel so very helpless to have these moments and hours that leave me stripped of any semblance of self and use and to be flailed by the buffetings of Satan so very thoroughly.

The words of the blessing came quietly and surely. The hymns. Seek out the comfort of the hymns. Always it is the music of the hymns and the words of the hymns that saves me. Why can I not remember that on my own? Why?

As I finally lay down to follow the counsel I had been given, I kept praying and remembering the words to the hymn "Jesus Savior Pilot Me". Surely He, the Redeemer of us all, knows the terror of the night. He too endured the horrible pain that I have felt. He has carried it for me and walked with me.

Though the raw feeling of the night's experience is burned into my soul like a brand, I feel the healing Balm of Gilead administered by the Master Physician to soothe the wounded heart... MY wounded heart.

Jesus, Savior, pilot me
over life's tempestuous seas
Unknown waves before me roll
hiding rock and treacherous shoal
Chart and compass came from Thee
Jesus Savior, pilot me.

Though I know that these storms, too, shall pass, I also know that they can and do leave damage to my little ship of faith and hope. It requires the 'dry dock' of constancy in my pursuit of spiritual help and nourishment. Even at this moment, I have a CD of the hymns playing to keep shoving the Devil and his minions further from me. The hymns have become a very important part of my armor. They are the vital force that becomes the literal filler which can smooth over all cracks, seams and imperfections in my protection from the hurts and pains of the world.

So why do I forget this?

Mortality is a strange bag. We get trials tailor made for us as individuals. With those trials and temptations we are to endure are also great opportunities to reach out and seek to become one with the Father of us all. It's not a group project for our trials and burdens cannot be lumped into one great whole. During the night, I came to realize that those wounded and bruised and bleeding hands of the Savior literally have saved me from myself. As the blood dripped from Him, I can receive His healing drop by drop.

Sometimes, when I sit and look upon my own hands and think of those scars the Savior willingly bears in my behalf, it is overwhelming. I am flooded with a sense of His love for me that makes of the tawdry treasures of my life something glorious... for HE is in charge.

I know I am rambling. I haven't slept much.

But I do not ramble about this: Jesus Christ has saved me again. God the Father loves me and loves me enough to make sure that I don't have to endure this alone.

This friend of mine has a problem...

Generally speaking, when someone discusses an embarrassing problem in guarded tones and references it all to a mysterious "friend" who is too shy to come forward about it themselves, they are really talking about their own problem and trying to be tactful about fishing for the information they need to solve it, sort it out or just vent about it.

On rare occasions, people REALLY DO have a mysterious friend but it's so rare, it is a lot like mining for gold nuggets in your spaghetti supper. Anything is possible, just not likely.

So, when a friend comes to you with a problem that must be taken seriously, why did I laugh?

Because it was frankly hilarious.

I am sworn to secrecy about the actual problem because it would be indiscreet to discuss it publicly. That shall be left to the friend and the discretion they need. I'll just sit here and quietly snicker.

What happened isn't a "never before occurring event". Fact is, something similar happened to me years ago. And I know of at least one other person who for certain has shared this embarrassing circumstance.

The part about this all that is quasi-awkward is that there was just too much laughing. This isn't exactly something that should provoke laughter. Yet it did.

I still find myself smiling about it even now hours later.

Perhaps I should be ashamed of that. I'll think about that particular emotion later when I am done laughing.

Maybe.

As for the friend with the embarrassing problem. . . you know who you are and what your problem is.

Rest assured, your personal trial is safe with me.

I just hope you don't mind all the giggling.

Dementia is a many splendored thing

It is hard to look at the behaviors of my father and reconcile them with the man who raised me. They do not match. It is an oxymoron in the grossest sort of way. Between the petulant outburst reminiscent of the "terrible twos" and the verbal shouting matches that accompany even the most mundane of tasks, there are days that I could cheerfully pull the covers back over my head and simply die.

Dealing with these quality moments is draining. Saying that or typing it doesn't remove the understatement that it is.

From my earliest childhood, Daddy was "the man" - literally and figuratively. He seemingly walked on water. I saw him walk on roof-lines often enough to believe that he could indeed do anything. He could plow and plant and raise a garden on faith and prayers and love. He could tame horses and get dogs to do his bidding with little effort. He understood complex math and could explain embarrassing life circumstances.

Those qualities are slipping away from him.

Simple things like writing a check or getting the mail now puzzle him. We try to do the bills together, but that often turns into a session of me trying to calm him down while he swears. The words coming out of his mouth are not those of the Daddy I remember who often made me lick Palmolive soap for using curse words of any stripe.

Some days, he talks of adventures I know he NEVER had. He speaks of boxing with John L. Sullivan and Joe Louis. He talks about getting into fist fights and brawls with much larger men and coming out unscathed. There are times I think those kinds of conversations are a metaphor for his rational mind trying to fight of an opponent in the shape of his mental issues which he cannot come to grips with but against which he must grapple every single day. The frustration in his voice is palpable.

Today, he and his nephew (who is ALSO a Senior Citizen) decided to go to Huntsville without telling me. Holy cow, but that was not a fun discovery to make!!! 

To say he scared me witless is almost an absolute truth. His patience level has diminished to the point that when he gets fixated on an idea, he must do it if it hair-lips hell and half of China. It simply cannot wait. Whatever IT is, he feels a compulsion to do it and do it now.

Our excursion to the State Farm office today was a painful case in point. 

When Daddy returned from Huntsville, he gave me a cheery phone call asking me to come take him a few places. Okey dokey. I'll do what I can. 

Daddy means well most of the time, but his recollection of what you can and can't do has been significantly altered by the progression of his disease. He well remembers the day when his name alone carried weight in this town and allowed him to do a lot of things denied to others. His name carried status and position earned through toil and effort and gained by trust and honor.

Those days are gone. A man's name doesn't mean much to people who never knew you in your prime. People have moved into our little town until it is no longer little. While not a New York style metropolis, it is no longer the place where everyone knows your name. Your family name doesn't carry weight anymore unless it is a business or unless you have something political or philanthropic attached to it.

Daddy's stated mission today was to compel an insurance agent to write a very specific health insurance policy for our soon to be married son and his lovely fiance. Despite all of my rational approach to this conundrum, the carefully reasoned excuses for why this was not the right time and my frequently repeated offerings of going to do other things, Daddy had his mind made up that he was going to enforce his will upon the insurance company by sheer weight of who he was.

It didn't happen. I knew it wouldn't. What he was demanding is no longer even an option to the insurance companies of today. They were in vogue 50 years ago, but times have changed sufficiently that a lot of insurance companies no longer even insure for health, but instead only cover property of all kinds. 

When the agent patiently explained that hardly anyone in the business covered what he was asking for, Daddy left there looking much smaller and weaker. It was as if for that one moment he, in a rational portion of his mind, realized that it was no longer "his day in the sun". It was a sad sight to see.

My day in this morass of confusion is coming, of this I am sure. Studies and readings of medical journals have made me pretty aware of reality and I am currently fully cognizant of the fact that over 70% of people over the age of 70 develop issues with memory and cognition. 

I'm certain that when my turn comes, I'll be sitting somewhere in Shady Pines Nursing Home drooling down my wrapper, talking in nonsensical terms about a life far removed from reality and insisting that I know what is best... even when I don't. 

I don't take that knowledge lightly nor do I like the sound of the shape of things to come.

Some days, the reality of what is happening to the Daddy I know and love is almost more than I can bear. But then I try to keep it in perspective by reminding myself that this is not, nor has it ever been, about me. 

It's Daddy who is going through this and despite any efforts I may make in his behalf, I am nothing more than a sideline observer who is fairly helpless to do anything to change the outcome.

There are days that I truly envy those elderly who are in full possession of their faculties until the candle of their life is snuffed out during an afternoon nap or right after supper comes. It is the pleasant sort of goodbye we all hope to receive.

But it is not always the reality we are to face. Some watch their loved ones slip away bit by bit, dying a little more each day as if sunset is an unwitting accomplice to the grim reaper who waits for us all. 

With each fresh sunrise, we receive someone not completely whole and who is being unmercifully whittled away bit by bit until the last fading ember of their life purpose fades to black. I don't like that notion, but we don't get a choice on how we go when our turn comes.

Emotional exhaustion on these days is a heavy factor. It is as if the happiness and joy of what used to be is completely gone. And I hate having to quietly explain to the people who have been the innocent targets of Daddy's verbal onslaught that he is NOT in his right mind and beg them to not take offense. The bad days are starting to show up quite frequently now. I hate that. I truly do. 

We were taught to understand that "hate" wasn't a nice word. But in this case, it applies. To hate something means that you wish it gone, banished, dead... 

I feel that way about dementia. I wish that it was gone, banished and dead from our lexicon so that families didn't have to say goodbye inch by inch until that last goodbye before the resurrection. It would be wonderful to live "to the age of a tree" and then just quietly be received up into the arms of God without furor and fanfare.


Sadly, I don't see a check box anywhere around here for that option. So it is what it is. There are some days it's a whole lot less than it appears to be, too.

Daddy is resting in "his trundle chair" now - not quite sure where he lost control, but resting anyway since there isn't anything he can do about it. 

While I have been asked repeatedly why I take him on these outings, I try to explain that if I fail to take him, Daddy can and does make other plans to do whatever the hell he wants to as long as he can. Sometimes it's just easier to take him and make it an "apology tour" for anyone in the line of fire for his spleen venting on that given day.

Dementia sucks lemons.

Wedded Bliss or An Unreasonable Facsimile

Marriage is a blessing and a wonderful thing in life. It is a tremendous undertaking and can bring joy and happiness.


However, wedding preparation can bring terror.


The plan was simple. My friend Billi Jo was coming Friday to help Kari. They are both accomplished seamstresses and can work wonders with all that lovely and expensive fabric to craft an elegant and beautiful gown that reflected the personality and beauty of Tianna. It was going to be a fait accompli – they bring together their considerable skills and I stand ready at the ironing board to press seams. I am a very skilled ironer… very, very skilled.


Plans changed in ways that NO ONE could have expected.


A tornado literally wrecked my younger sister Xan’s home on Friday during some pretty horrible storms in our area. Billi Jo was originally set to arrive on Friday, then on Saturday but then their son's Cub Scout Pinewood Derby needed to be moved so they arrived on Sunday after church about the time we decided to go out and help at Xan’s broken home to box up their life that could be salvaged from the ravages of the storm. Weather sucks lemons here during tornado season. More especially so in an area that is already wounded and weary from the damage that pounded it only a few months ago. But it really sucks bitter lemons for my sister's family because their house is toast... wet, soggy, mildewing and molding toast. It will be months and months before they can return home. That breaks my heart in ways that words cannot cover. So their suffering makes what follows pale in comparison and I do not intend to create some kind of line between the two to make them equal in any measure. They are not nor will they ever be equal. They have lost their house. I just lost my composure. I don't mean any disrespect to them by writing what follows.


When Monday morning rolled around, Xan’s family was gathered in at Daddy’s place and trying to come to grips with the gypsy-like existence that would be theirs for a while. From his home to their home to his again, their day-to-day has been disrupted in ways that trump any wedding plans and bridal angst.


But, as they say in the biz, the show must go on and time was a wastin’ and we were burning daylight. We had a dress to create and precious little time to do it in… Spring Break is only ONE WEEK LONG!! I’m hearing the music to “Final Countdown” playing in my head…


Monday, Monday… can’t trust that day… or our own pitiful minds. I think we worked on the dress for 14 hours… not kidding here. 14 hours. Sacrifices must be made. Sanity must be tested. Satin must be cut by better hands than mine…


But it was not to be… scissors were thrust into my trembling hands and the pronouncement of doom settled in. They, the two experienced, skilled, gifted, brilliant and wonderful seamstresses in the form of Kari and Billi Jo had apparently lost their minds sometime between Friday after the tornado and Monday morning.


They decided that I needed to cut the material. REALLY!?!?!?! ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME??????


I can HEAR my heart beating now and see my life flash before my eyes as everyone in the entire universe knows that the only thing I have managed to sew in DECADES is three pair of PAJAMA pants!! That is NOTHING like cutting up SATIN for a bride’s gown!!


Flannel is flannel. It’s not “precious” like wedding fabric. Wedding fabric is expensive and precious and not to be trifled with by unskilled labor and trembling hands. I begged, I pleaded and I flat out cried… I can’t be trusted to not make a mess of this!!!


My soon to be daughter will NEVER forgive me if I mess this up!


HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!


At this point, I was hyperventilating and crying and unable to be rational. The other three women in the room sew. They have skill. I can build a campfire and that generally isn’t considered useful when crafting a wedding gown for a bride.


I haven’t heard of very many curtain calls for gals who can cook Dutch oven food, set up tarps for a campsite area or who are conversant with fishing tackle when it comes to sewing a dress. They aren’t complementary skills. At least I don't consider them to be complementary. Yet the delusional women at the church on Monday somehow equated all those camping and survival skills with the ability to cut out wedding material without screwing up.


Did someone pass out drugs and I missed the baggie? That must certainly be the explanation for why they were smilingly pressing ultra-sharp scissors into MY unskilled and trembling hands demanding that I sink the blades deep into the gleaming bridal fabrics!!!


For the record, when your heart is beating so loudly that you can hear it outside of your own body, that isn’t a good thing. It’s a scary thing. It means something isn’t right.


Trusting that I would either sell my plasma or mortgage my house and sell my jewelry to replace the material I was sure I was about to destroy, I did what they said to do.


We, Tianna and I, carefully (and in my case TEARFULLY) pinned the pattern pieces on the material in very specific alignments. Some had to be “cut on the fold”. I learned that meant the fabric had to be folded, not the pattern piece. Some had to be aligned with the grain of the fabric and I learned that had nothing to do with bread or cereal. There was selvage and bias and edging and all kinds of new vocabulary that had nothing to do with camping. And my head was reeling.


The scissors were in my hand, a gigantic lump was in my throat and the most fervent prayer I’m sure that has ever been uttered over a piece of yard goods was in my heart and mind as both a plea and a mantra… “DON’T LET ME MESS THIS UP, LORD! PLEASE DON’T LET ME MESS THIS UP!”


For those who sew confidently and without hesitation, this seems ridiculous. They laugh as if I have been made privy to some special inner circle that is a joy to behold.


For those who do not sew, I am certain you share my dread and terror. This is about to be an action that isn’t just removing me from my comfort zone… this is removing me from the entire comfort planet!


I desperately desire to do the right things the right way with this horribly frightening task and not waste fabric or leave the bride-to-be with dribbly little fabric shreds to be run up by loving hands at home so that she looks like she is wearing nothing more than a satiny feed sack.


My trembling hands had to be stilled by a sheer force of will and mighty prayer. I took the first tender, tentative cut into the fabric. It might have been an inch long. I was on my knees crawling along beside the fabric trying not to touch it, or bump it, or alter the trajectory of the snipping of the scissors in any way that would make them veer from the dark black razor thin line that separated deftness from disaster by the slimmest margin. If you mess up, you can’t shout “take backs” and hit the redo button on the gaming console.


While I don’t know that a sewing game would bring in money to the developers, a 3-D experience might help gun-shy novices like me to either develop more confidence or cement the fact that not everyone was sent to the earth to have the same experiences in life. Either way, it would be less terrifying than looking at the scissors “snick snick snicking” their way through the shiny and matte finished fabric.


Did you know when you are terrified, sound and sensation is amplified? Did you also know you can will your pores to suck back up the beads of sweat that threaten to dampen and stain bridal silk… yeah, me neither, but it happened.


When finally the first piece was cut out, I discovered that I was not fast enough and using the wrong scissors. I had inadvertently picked up the pair with “short blades” and I needed to use the larger ones. Holy cow! I thought those were pruning shears! I was assured that the freshly sharpened implements of death and destruction… uh, I mean fabric shears… were the very tool I needed to “work my way through the fabric quicker”.


Not only do they expect me to cut along the lines, but they want speed too???


WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE WOMEN?!?! You either get accurate or fast. Not both.


Again, I hear the experienced seamstresses of the world laughing their heads off at my distress. I’ll try to be more charitable when you show up to my campfire starving to death after a long day on the pioneer trail…
Trying to keep perspective about this exercise in humility and prayer, I kept reminding myself that there was greater tragedy in the world than my being handing sewing shears. Funny thing was that I was having a great deal of trouble coming up with more than Xan's tornado damaged home… that sort of wiped out pretty much everything else.



I persevered.


Finally, the fourteen hour day was over! I wasn’t dead!! The fabric was thankfully not ruined! I could live another day secure in the knowledge that I hadn’t destroyed the chance of eternal happiness for Tianna and Thomas!


When I came home to share my angst, Rick was NOT sympathetic. Not one smidgen. Instead, he took the side of the tormentors and even hinted and talked outright about how “wonderful” it was for me to have this “ great experience”.


Yeah, and panic attacks are a legitimate form of exercise…


I wasn’t having any luck finding anyone who understood my terror and beginning to feel rather put upon that no one was grasping the severity of my feelings of having survived the crucible. Either everyone in the world secretly sews brilliantly from the moment they leave the womb, or there is some target which is visible only to others that tells the world that I deserve these opportunities of forced humility and prayer because I am so evil and wicked the rest of the time.


For the record, I have prayed more this last week over this dress and in particular the fabric pieces I touched than I have prayed over any other clothing related issue including my OWN wedding dress that Kari fashioned 27+ years ago.


The dress is beautiful! It is more than beautiful… it is astounding.  Billi Jo and Kari did in a week what is a feat beyond understanding.  They made a wedding gown that will knock Thomas’ socks off. Tianna will be a beautiful bride.


And the good news is that I can relax for the time being… no one needs anything cut out or sewed up this next week. Thank heavens!


I don’t think I like that cardio program. I’m not entirely sure that panic attacks are all that good for my heart.