TODAY'S ANGELS

IT'S BEEN an emotionally needy day, one full of weeping (mine) and understanding and counseling (theirs) and I must say I'm ending the day feeling better than I did this morning. Unending teardrops lie so near to the surface that it takes just a thought and they spring forth to my eyes and once started, it's nearly impossible to stop them. Other people don't go around wailing and I feel ashamed at the copious deluge that pours forth at the slightest provocation. I have so little control over it that it's hard to go out in public.

Thursday mornings are when the doctor pays a visit to the Manor. After he saw the waiting patients, he and the nurse came up and paid us what used to be referred to as a house call. He's very religious which is not to be sneered at in a medical man and English is not his original language although he's quite fluent in it. In an effort to be comforting, he quoted from Ecclesiastes 3:1 "A time to be born and a time to die" which wasn't exactly a consolation given the circumstances, but I rose to the occasion enough to giggle as I told him I thought he needed to master the pronunciation of that Biblical book before he could be taken seriously. He laughed, too. It was the first time in my life that I've requested some sort of medicine that would keep me from sniveling my way through every day. As he wrote on his prescription pad, he cautioned me to take the medication only as needed because it tends to "crowd" the brain. True enough, there's an awful lot in my head these days, so it made some sort of sense and then Mr. Bob figured out that what the good doctor had meant was that it would "cloud" the brain. We laughed again because either interpretation was good reason to use it wisely.









Noontime arrived and I made it through dinnertime with dry eyes, joining in the mealtime conversation, but soon clouded up when talking with a very wise, sensitive resident who is a good listener. We moved from the dining room to the lounge where my sorrow gathered momentum. Soon we were joined by the executive director and then led to his office where the door could be closed for some privacy. On and on I sobbed and was assured that with the amount of challenges we're weathering, it wasn't unusual to be grieving........anger, sadness, fear....all very much to be expected.

By the time we returned to our room, some measure of serenity had been restored, at least temporarily. There'll be more to come as we travel this bumpy road without knowing where it's leading. I just wish I could become more self-contained in my emotions and not subject people in my life to everything I'm feeling.


"It's so curious:  one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief.  But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses."            
                                                                  Colette