I’m Sorry
[Ding] I’m here.
I grab my purse, tell Mom I’ll be back in about an hour, and run out the door. It’s ridiculous how excited I get when I have an opportunity to leave the house – to go grocery shopping no less. Not having a car makes me 100% dependent on others. The lack of independence gnaws at me. My whole life is one consecutive holding pattern with far too many days of confinement.
I open the truck door and hop in with a big smile reminiscent of a dog going on a car ride. The radio is blasting and I’m a bit surprised by this. My sister is checking her phone when I shout “Hi!” and she gives me a pitiful look. Her ear is clogged and painful. She turns down the volume and explains her predicament. Sadly, for some, it seems illness arrives on a monthly schedule these days like some other thing that men fear and women endure.
She wears her very thick and wavy brown hair down today and even though she isn’t feeling well she somehow manages to stay in good humor. As she punches the gas to merge onto the busy street we continue to enjoy the music that is now turned down to a more comfortable decibel. Our destination is only ten minutes away but I long for it to be hours away.
A few minutes in and an old familiar song starts playing.
Chicago, “Hard to Say I’m Sorry”. It immediately captures my attention and streams directly into my heart consciousness. I listen intently as everything around me fades away and before the first chorus starts I am in tears. Not those quiet contemplative longing-for-the-old-days sort of tears. A strong wave of emotion takes me out to sea and I bury my face in my hands leaning forward as if sick. Embarrassed now, I struggle to find my composure. It seriously hit me like a sand bag to the gut.
Like most people, I store a lot of unspoken thoughts and desires deep within myself. There are separate emotional fires that camp out and smolder until an errant spark unites with the right combustible material. In this case, the song was the spark that forced my feelings to burst into flames as my guilt over “leaving” my husband in order to care for my mother and keep a roof over my brother’s head came into focus. It is difficult to reconcile.
Even though I have rationalized my circumstances in order to remain functional and useful there is no way to rationalize just how much I miss him. There is no hug in the world that feels like his and no soul that understands me like he does. I miss being cherished. I miss being cared for… The song took on a whole new meaning for me and I swear I will make it up to him.
We arrive at the market and I know I am a tear-stained red-faced mess. My sister sits quietly beside me helplessly absorbing my tiny breakdown knowing there isn’t anything she can say or do to make it better. She gently asks me what made me cry and I blurt out “I’m just so sorry for putting Ken through this… I didn’t think I would be here this long”. As I say these words there is the sting of an uglier truth. The implication being that in order for me to go home my mother would have to go Home first… She tells me I have nothing to be sorry for and that she knows how hard it must be. It’s raining lightly outside as we walk toward the store and we shift our energy to the task at hand.
We make another brief stop before we pull into the driveway of the small house we both shared once upon a time.
As we sit in the driveway she tells me to wait. There is a song she wants me to hear. A new song that she had come across just recently. I sense it is important to her. She starts searching for it, asks Siri to find it, but it isn’t coming up. We were ready to forget about it for now but, finally, she locates it and hits play.
Oh I
I wish that I could say
I was the picture perfect sister
when you needed me
And we might
see it differently
But now we’re old enough to know
that we both made mistakesI’d go back and do it the same
Guess i’m good at taking the blame
Misunderstood underappreciatedJamie Fine “Bulletproof”
Again, we sit quietly and listen as the melancholic melody takes hold and the words tell their story. It’s a perfect messenger. A way to say the things you want to say but just can’t find the right way to say it. The tears fall again and she reaches for my hand and in that moment we forgive without saying a word. We all make our choices – right or wrong – based on what we believe at the time.
I strongly suspect that when we are about to do something of spiritual significance an unseen caustic force tries to shut it down. It causes glitches in the matrix of the mind and the mechanistic world. It delights in watching you give up and lose hope. The smaller it makes you feel the larger it grows as it feeds off your anger and confusion becoming a bloated unwelcome companion.
Unfortunately, I have been at war with this despicable beast trying to cut off its supply.
This week it scored a victory. I got out of bed angry, for a number of reasons, and coldly went about the business of taking care of Mom. My detached and brisk manner distressed her and as the day wore on she decided to go to bed earlier than usual.
Later, as I sat in the office at my computer, I heard her get out of bed and start coming down the hall. She was restless and I had a feeling something was up. I looked down at her feet and saw that they were slightly swollen. Once she was seated on the couch I heard the sound I never want to hear – crackling in her chest. This is not good. Fluid is building up (the signs of congestive heart failure).
I know she needs a diuretic but I want to discuss this with my sister first. The last time this happened we took her to the ER. We talk on the phone and we agree on a course of action. It was a long night. Mom was up several times using the toilet as the medication did its work. Neither one of us got much sleep. As I stood watch I decided to take the large icon of the Risen Christ that hangs on the wall in my bedroom and place it in her room.
The icon is a replica of a 16th century altarpiece panel painted by Matthias Grunewald and was commissioned by the Monastery of St. Anthony in Isenheim, Germany. There was a hospital wing off the monastery and “the altarpiece was meant to support the patients in their suffering and to remind the hospital staff that “in serving the least of these” they serve Christ”.
The following morning the edema had improved.
The crackling sound had cleared. Lord, I was so relieved but I knew it wasn’t over. I then went to work on treating her feet. I made a warm Epsom salt foot bath and added lemon and cypress (natural diuretics) essential oils followed by the massaging of her feet and lower legs to improve circulation. Another solid therapy is the use of castor oil packs to clear the lungs. It is very soothing and effective.
In hindsight, a couple of days prior, I had a gut feeling something was up. She had developed a little cough, was struggling a bit with phlegm, and seemed perhaps a bit more tired. It’s difficult to ascertain if there is a brewing problem in a person when their baseline is always fragile. I kept asking her if she felt okay to which she said it’s just post-nasal drip. I had no reason to think it was anything other than that but it bothered me.
It took about five days of treatment and care to get in the clear but I learned a lot from the experience. Part of the treatment included prayer and faith. When I asked her if she’d like me to remove the icon from her room she responded without hesitation to leave it there. And so, it will stay in her room, watching over her and providing comfort.
I have covered a few different topics this time around – guilt, forgiveness, and illness.
Each experience sits in the same wheelhouse and we throw them around like a hot potato until one by one we deal with the core problem. Everything is spiritual or said another way, everything that is, for everything that happens in life, there is behind it a spiritual aspect. As above so below – as within so without.
In my current circumstances, I find myself torn between principles and promises – to my husband and to my mother. My husband has assured me that he will see this through and that alone gives me strength to continue. The thought of leaving my mother is simply too much – too hard for me to bear. I would rather struggle until the day comes when she releases me from my promise.
In parting, I’d like to emphasize that words are powerful things. Be mindful of what you say, what you think, what you promise, and what you ask for. As my mother lay in her hospital bed, nearly two years ago now, I told her that if I could carry part of her struggles I would do it… and so it is. Quite literally, I now struggle with heart/circulatory issues. I do what I can to self treat and I have made slow progress but have yet to resolve it completely.
The saga continues next week and I plan to write about a much lighter topic… As always, thanks for reading 🙂
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Erin Marie… The absolute love of my heart, the pure and exact reflection of the heart that beats in my chest… Honey, you have absolutely NOTHING to be sorry for regarding “me”… and the only thing, according to your desire and not anything of my desire, you can do to “make it up to me” is simply survive your commitment, come back to me whole, and never leave me again 😉 And please, PLEASE, never allow your heart, though I know it struggles, to ever “break” – over me, over Mom, over life. You are too precious – to me, to God – to not make it through this whole – the beautiful, young, energetic, healing soul you are…
Any man that is married to a woman like you has found the Pearl of Great Price….