Life makes me crazy - I do not know why. Outwardly, I have a great life, I guess. But, inwardly, many times I suffer. I am totmented with how to care for my sister - I never expected to have to be a care provider - thought I'd finally have a sister to goof with, but it is not going to work out that way. I thought my medication would erase all inner depressions, but guess that is not working out that way either. I have demands I want and demands I don't, but my inability to say no, to the ones I don't are depressing me. I love doing all I do with the church, and I love dearly the friends I have there, and on the computer. However, others impose upon my good nature, knowing that saying no is an issue with me. This woman on my cicrle has a mother 91. She has figured out that I am ggod with elderly. She asked me a while back if I would become a companion and aid to her mother and I said that I did not think so, as I had a full plate already. Over time she has been pressing me. She tells me her mother met me "just" once, but fell in love with me and will only have me. I said I need to think. The other day, she said, when are you going with me to learn what my mother needs? I said, "oh, I'm tired tonight and just can not think about it." Now, I am going to discuss things with her mother in the morning. Lord have mercy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She Daughter wants to go to Florida for 10 weeks and needs someone to take care of mom. No one cares about me...arg. I must be brain stupid, as at 9:30 tomorrow morning, if I don't get call into sub, I will be sitting down with this woman, whose name I don't even know, and planning out a care provider schedule. They leave October 15th. Would not be so bad, but my sister is coming to live the end of October, and I think I need a rest somewhere here, or maybe I am just lazy and making lame excuses. I don't know. Tonight I am going to my sister's house who needs me, as her husband is dying. My brain feels swamped, but then, maybe that is what life is about - certainly Jesus swamped his mind for the good of others...

Growing up, there was a certain atmosphere just for me, becoming my prison, eventaully becoming my survival. This is an excerpt of my life...

"You'll never see outside again. It should have been you in that casket," she yells through the door. "You'll live to regret the day you were born, just like I do you son-of-a-bitch!"

Punished to my room again. I'm getting used to the four, green walls, the window that faces the brick building two inches away, the bed without blankets or sheets, the dresser which has been gouged by my praying fingers and has no mirror, and the locked door. I am a prisioner and my mother is the warden of my prison.

I worry that I will die here someday and no one will ever know. My feelings of escape and finding someone to love me ebb away, like the ocean at low tide. I know I am only seven, but it seems as if I have lived forever in this room. Every crack in the walls and ceiling have been known to me. I like to dream that they are my friends, whom I have watched grow over the years. I like to believe they sympathize with me, and grow bigger and wider, hoping over time they will be large enough to help me escape.

"This must be what death feels like," I think to myself. No one to hold you, nothing to do, and nothing to see, except the four sides of my casket. Sometimes though, I envy the dead people who lie in satin beds with pretty clothes, and they never feel hungry. I lie down on the bed and try to be dead. -

Life can hit hard when it chooses. I have a sister who lives in Texas. We have seen each other 5 times in the past 30 years. We did not converse much either. I am not a phone person and our upbringing was not conducive to developing a close knit family structure. Yes, I was aware my sister had some mental health issues, but nothing that would hinder her having a semi-normal life. My sister’s son just went into the Navy and he was hoping his mother would move back to New England, so she could be closer to her siblings. When broached about her coming to live up north (she is presently living in Texas), I agreed she could come here to live for a while, until we could find her some decent low income housing - she is on disability, as she was infected with hepatitis C via a blood transfusion some 30 years ago, and her liver is in bad shape. I was also aware she was having seizures, but did not know they were spontaneous drop seizures. Well, I received a call Thursday night from a case worker assigned to help her with transportation to doctors and whatever needs she might have. The case worker informed me that my sister needed to move up here soon. I asked why?, as the room she will have is not yet presentable for habitation. I was told she was being thrown out because she does not have any money to pay bills, and that her cable and phone had been cut off and her electricity would be next. I asked what was going on and why she was having problems paying her bills. Well, here comes the punch to the gut - basically, I was told she was incapable of managing her money. I said, “WHAT!!!???” I was then informed of her financial nightmares. I then asked if she was capable of living on her own and was told no, that she actually could use a residential setting. My brain became scorched by the intensity of what I was being told. My sister not only had mental health issues, she is obviously VERY mentally ill. I am still trying to digest this information. No one ever told us this reality. I guess I was just too blind to see the many hospitalizations for what they were. Many people become hospitalized with mental health issues, but it does not mean they can not live on their own - but in this case, it does. I am not sure I am ready for this. My sister is 56 years old. My memories are of childhood, not of a mentally ill adult. How am I to take care of her? I have to find a case manager really quick. I have to make sure I can access a psychiatrist immediately to see her and hopefully a therapist, as this assessment needs to happen ASAP. I need to find a medical doctor to monitor her liver and medications. I..I..I. Scary word “I”. She is my older sister and it is going to be difficult to have to become a parent figure. I feel anger. I am angry, because part of her diagnosis is human induced - a mother who failed to love her children, she loved two and tremendously disliked one, and hated another. However, I figure the mother was sick too, so it leaves little room to be angry with her, so what does one do with the anger??? No, not looking for an answer... I hate below the belt punches.

The following poem is one I wrote as a result of the death of my son. When my son died, I blamed myself - why wouldn't I, his mother. Mothers don't let their children die, do they? In my head, I had committed the unforgiveable sin, that which is an evil beyond the boundaries of hell. I know now that I could have done nothing - he died at 13 of a massive heart attack on a school bus. I could not have known, but it ripped my mind beyond being able to deal with logic - it was my fault and that was that. Time has a way of healing and logic regrows. It has been 14 years and lots and lots of therapy and prayers. This poem now reminds me of what it must be like for survivors of Hurricane Katrina, whose children did not make it and they are facing hearing the words "your child is dead." How many will blame themselves, many who could never have know the results of loss of this hurricane. No matter how hard people try, sometimes dying is not in our hands, but...still we initially blame ourselves.

An Unforgivable Sin

She kisses the fading temple
of his too young head,
her heart torn open,
her liquid falling face
as her child's prognosis is read.

Pain deprives her of reality
and she consults a mirror for proof
of her continued existence.
Isolated in sorrow, she cradles
herself like a spider clings to its web.

Passing time, the world moves
outside the mirror of her life -
traffic flowing as usual, day
and night pass to another day.

Her life hushed by the unforgivable sin,
she hears every syllable of the rain. @1998

I sometimes wonder to what limits I want to push what I say here. Seems like I should not care, but I always care, even about the nonsense things of life. I was taught to worry about everything - survival depended on it. With this in mind, I think I will divulge bits and pieces of yesterdays of my life.


Oh mother what must I do
to survive a relationship with you -
one who hurt without memories
living happily on her journey,
while one cringes in fear
struggling to hold back the years.

Though pieces I may show, nothing negates the strides I have made in my life. Many times I have tried to lay down and die, but a few speical people in my life have taken notice and been there, holding me, until I could hang on for myself. My life is truly their story, for without them, my life would have ceased a lifetime ago.

Sorrowing for a Friend

How sad it is to know a friend, dear in heart, who is so sad. Her life is tipped upside down with a partner who can not seem to get a job and just is not making her happy. I feel such pain for her - how wrong the world is that such a good person is so sad, has to hurt so in her heart. I like to make things better for the people I love, but I know not how and it frustrates me so. I know what it is like to try so hard to make life work - but sometimes it just is not meant to be and one must find ones way back to the sunshine. I hope my friend finds the sun again - she deserves the sun.

Tonight is a dreamy time for me. This feeling seems so out of place. Perhaps it is really fatigue - if so, it is a pleasant place to be.

Tonight I did a home visit with another church member. We went to visit an elderly gentleman from our congregation. I sort of went thinking maybe this visit would help him, but instead, I came away helped. He told us his story, shared his life's joys (his wife) and his sorrows (her death eight years ago). When he spoke of her, his eyes lit up - eyes I have never met before. This wonderful man was becoming more than some elderly individual "I could help." He became a person, with a story, a life (a beautiful life), whose heart was broken when the love of his life went to join God. I left this visit with tears in my heart. However, not the tears of pity, not sorrowing for this gentleman, rather, tears of life, of the stories we each hold, which make us unique, which make us real. My heart has been richened, a gift given to me. I will never look at this individual the same, as now I will smile for his life, as life which made him special.

Yes, it is a dreamy night. How rich I am - husband, children, grandchildren, awesome friends, and now a new friend, one who in one hour taught me strength and a love which surpasses all time. Good night.

The kingdom of God is like a wonderful garden. Full of flowers of every color and every kind. Each flower on its own is special and beautiful. But one flower in a garden of many is not dimished. Instead, its own beauty adds to the greater beauty of the garden....fed and nourished by the creator, that little flower becomes stronger and more beautiful. When the flower is gone...it is greatly missed!

So many things to think about in life - the war, the gulf coast disaster, business of my own life, being part of friendships, and my relationship with Christ. Whew! When I think of the war, I think of my son and other mother's children. I guess I feel fear, more than think. A woman down the street, her son, who just turned 21, leaves for Iraq the end of the month. Her fear reflects like sweat, casting itself all around her. My heart goes out to her. My son was in dessert storm, so, I know.

Then the gulf coast disaster. I can not even claim to know what the people directly affected are feeling. To lose everything and then not even knowing if their children are okay or their mothers, fathers, friends, etc...a lonely emptiness those not affect could ever understand. I want to help and do what I can, but seems so little...a helplessness I dispise.

My own life - a good life, full of riches money can not buy - friends. I have my garden and overall, my family is healthy. I really have little cares, which brings much guilt, when I put that in prospective of so many in the world. How does the heart find comfort from such inner unrest. I am blessed, yet know not the inner rest.

During these times, when the live's of many are boiled down to hoping for a bite to eat, I wonder about the stresses in my own life - do they have any worth in comparison? Of course, my first nature is to think - NO! How could they possibly have any value when measured with the type of human suffering found around the world, as well as in our own backyard (the gulf states). But if I think that way, do I devalue my own life...doesn't everything in our lives matter to God, regadless of how big or small? If God loves us each equally, then my sorrows are no lesser in His eyes. The question comes to me, because I have a friend most likely to die of cancer before the year is out. I also suffer bouts of depression on and off, as a result of two major losses in my life - my son and a terrific friend who taught me the true value of selflessness and the joy of giving to others. I have been belittling myself for my feelings, as when I look at what has happened due to Hurrican Katrina, I feel I have no right to my own pettiness. But then, don't I put down what God has given me - feelings and my own pathways through life? I think there is room for both in my life - to love and feel, and help others, as well as not denying that which composes the total of who I am. Perhaps there is a richess in sorrow, that I can know my own self and sorrows, yet still have emotional compassion and actions to help others. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." God did not say, "love thy neighbor forsaking thyself." Yes, I guess there is room in all times for all our feelings, and that God makes room for all. Peace to you all.