Doing Well Enough to Post Words....

I've been getting emails about the fact that I haven't posted much on my blog lately. My last post was a few days ago when I posted some of my favorite fall pictures. A very "safe" blog post, to say the least.

Then this morning I got an email from my sister. I hope she doesn't mind that I share what she wrote because it was that email that made me decide to write again. She wrote:

I love the photos you posted on your blog. I was going to comment but thought it best not to be public with it.
Here is what I was going to say:
I LOVE the photos and look forward to the time when you are doing well enough to post words. Not because I need to read them but because I think you need to say them.
You are in my thoughts every day. I am so happy to know you as more than my younger sister.
........let's both have a good cry now......
Cretta

Let there be no doubt that I did have a good cry after I read that.

The reason Cretta thought "it best not to be public with it" was because *I* have been fighting being public with "it". "It" is the situation that our family is dealing with regarding my parents. I know that there are people back home that read my blog (although I don't necessarily know them personally) and then talk with my parents. Some even print out my blog posts to give to them so they can keep up with us. :) I have not written about all that has been happening since September or my feelings about it because I didn't want my thoughts and feelings (and occasional misplaced humor) to find its way back to my parents and they be hurt or feel worse about the situation they are in and we are in. So that is the reason I have chosen not written about it.

But, Cretta's email this morning made me realize that, yes, I do need to write even if only to preserve my sanity...or what is left of it. We have joked that I could do a private blog just for family members so I can write what I need to write but adding more work to maintain two blogs just didn't feel like the answer.

So what is the answer?

I know what the answer isn't... but I am still not completely sure what the answer is.

Perhaps there is a happy medium somewhere to be found where I am not feeling squelched and censored on my own blog.

I suppose that I need to enlist the help of those who might read my blog and who also know my parents. I need them to use their judgement in what is shared with them from my blog as nothing that I write on here is meant to hurt them.

Where to begin.....making a very long story short, as of this past September both my mother and father are in a nursing home -- in the same facility and in the same room. Since then things have been very hard and very complicated. Not much has turned out to be what it first appeared to be.

It has been hard on my parents to be confined to a nursing home to live out the rest of their days but it has also been hard on each one of us as their children to have to make decisions that are almost always contrary to what they want. But the decisions made have all been in their best interest and with the best of intent even though they don't always agree with the judgement calls that have had to be made.

A few weeks ago Tim and I went back to New York to help get things sold that were left in their home. We were only in town for 3 days and it was a lot of work but things got done. I got to see my sister and my brother and my sister-in-law for a short time and had some much needed laughs together in the midst of doing hard things and cleaning out your parents house is hard thing.

I am the youngest of five kids so that means that out of all the kids that *I* lived in the house we were cleaning out the longest. I don't know if that is what makes it all feel so hard. The last night we were in New York Tim called me outside and said to bring my camera. He wanted me to be able to take some last pictures before the sun went down on my childhood home. With camera in hand I walked around the property and took pictures one last time.

It does feel heartbreaking to see the place that my parents have lived in for 40 years winding down. Because of financial obligations from choices they made years ago the property will not remain in the family but will instead go through bankruptcy and will be sold. In my head I know it all needs to be done and I can detach and not "feel" the pain of seeing it all going away. But when my heart begins to "feel" there is no detaching and that is when it hurts most of all.

We have all been frustrated to see how many material things that my parents (okay, my mother!) is trying to hang on to and cram into their room that has become their new "home". I am usually the first one to complain about it. But it is literally all they have left. I guess I forget that sometimes.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and it will feel different knowing that my parents are not at their old home but are in their new home -- a place they don't like and don't feel happy in. It's been a long running tradition that on Thanksgiving I call my dad to ask him how to make gravy. He's knows I'll call every year and ask how it is done again. My first thought was "not this year" but as I thought more I decided that maybe I should call to ask and let him feel needed as he has before. Truth be told, I know how to make gravy. He's told me how from the time I began cooking Thanksgiving dinner on my own. Yes, for a few years I needed to ask but the rest of the years I called because it made him feel happy to tell me how to make it one more time. I think I will call again tomorrow to let him tell me for another Thanksgiving.

So, while I don't feel like I am doing well enough to post words, I have done it. Thanks for the gentle prodding, Cretta. You're a great big sister. :)

*This is Cretta while we were in New York! :D