Well, it is not an easy day. I figure this is perhaps a turning point day of some sort due to how difficult it is to get through it. Emotions are having an effect, no doubt due to getting up and locating a birthday card for the eldest grandchild. Life brings us to various places that mean distance and loss of relationship.
In the life of this consecrated Catholic hermit, I suppose it was events of the distant past but at pivotal times in the lives of young children who had to go through life with a pained and up-and-down disabled parent. Plus, we can factor in personality differences and the lack of two-parent family. All that was actually for the best given that we cannot force or beg people to remain faithful or to be honest and to work at love through sickness and health, for better or worse.
But there are also choices made when children are grown and out on their own, and when they live in various parts of the country. One idea I had after the last hermitage in which I had to turn the place around, sell due to finances and hardship in living conditions, was to try to split my time between two areas of the country and to be available to grandchildren--watch their sporting events, converse with them, let them know this grandparent a little bit, even if quite physically limited.
However, the pain situation and the spine did not at all cooperate with that idea. Travel is not easy, especially driving. Trying to have two places to live works for physically able people, and it would not actually be out of the mode of a hermit, for charity and hospitality are highly valued. The silence of solitude in prayer and praise of God and others would still fill 95% of this hermit's existence. Watching some sporting events and spending snippets of time with pre-teens and early teens does not allow for lengthy visits--for children in that age range are active and desiring to be with their friends.
God simply has not allowed for my idea of trying to be closer, and that includes not even talking on the phone other than a rare occasion like a few minutes on a birthday or at Christmas. Even with a grandchild in the vicinity here, there is not much interface. But there is some, and the quality of those brief time periods only God can ascertain.
I located the birthday card I'd purchased prior to surgery. Mercy, I could not recall if I'd gotten one or not; all I could remember was that I looked and looked trying to find just the right one with the right message. But it was thankfully on a shelf I could reach; and I've written my own message within and included a check. I've tried to get information or to talk on the phone, to get ideas as to what the new-teen would like but to no avail.
The card will be late! I had rougher pain days the past two, and between pain, pain fatigue, and pain medications, keeping track of dates and to-do's weaves in and out of the mind. Plus, I'm still not sure how it was I managed being driven to the surgeon's office nearly two weeks ago. By the grace of God, it had to have been. I've not walked outside since other than once with the physical therapist, and then with my misgivings as to the safety of walking on concrete or in heat.
But today is a turning point day, and I will next time up, after the pain meds have tamped down the pain level, I will use the reacher grabber tool to try to get the stamps out of the address book that is on a low coffee table. Then I will walker my way out the front door and to the mailbox; the effort will be a kinesthetic tactile plus pain prayer, for the granddaughter.
I've had an idea for quite awhile but have not taken steps to discipline myself to do it. But I've thought given the situation, as I must live in the reality of what God has allowed in my life and what He has not allowed--and consider it all by His grace either way--I could write thoughts in a journal, one journal for each grandchild. I wish I'd started it when they were younger, although I have kept some of their early drawings and one grandchild's note cards that his mother thoughtfully had him write.
I'm not very good at disciplined, daily type tasks, I must confess. And it is not easy to keep up one-way type offerings of self without knowing more of what the children are doing in their lives. Yet I will try this idea; at least begin it. I'm not sure where to begin, with what thoughts, though. I'm not even sure if the idea is from the Holy Spirit or just my own way of hoping to be a presence some time much later on, through words.
Perhaps such as this blog or the several others I've written, or my personal journals, would much later on mean more if they ever have a curiosity as to what was more inside this grandparent than the glimpses of occasional visits or having whatever input from their parents--a filtered view or comments made based upon feelings good or ill when not necessarily knowing or understanding from a life-lived standpoint.
It is true our view of others changes over time, mellows, matures. Even now, nearly 15 years after my own mother passed and nearly 17 after my father's passing, my understanding and knowing of them has altered and matured, become seasoned and more aware based upon my passing through stages of life very much influenced by types of suffering endured and appreciated.
One reality that I can embrace, is that sometimes even adult children have to keep a distance due to the pain from memories that can take over the mind and heart and spirit, when throughout life some aspect triggers it. Just this spinal surgery alone and the suffering and limiting effects of it, can trigger memories, I suppose, of now adult children remembering how it was with the other surgery in 1987 when they were such small children having to deal with major life changes and much hardship and responsibility to get through tough times.
It affects children differently; they grow up affected by aspects such as come with a divorce, but when there is also parent pain and disability, sorrow of divorce, loss of career and financial security, having to move, and also contend with what pain can do to the parent such as these dreadful pain sieges--I have no idea to what extent all of it factored then and now. Add in the spiritual dimension of a parent being a mystic, and their recognizing they did not have a "normal" parent but instead would say on their own, the parent to be "different" than their friends' parents--well, it is all part of their and my legacy, for sure.
I'd think that becoming adults, marrying, having careers, having families of their own would be a balm and reprieve from all that had been. Visiting and having more pain sieges when visiting--just how it is, and all the physical limitations that go along with it like concern for going to sporting events as to the noise and sitting involved--more reminders and their having to be concerned for the parent's pain level.
One older, wise, long-time friend wrote last winter that the now adult children all love me--but they love me in their own ways, the unique ways in which they are able to. And, it is not as if I am their only parent. They have two parents; plus with the other parent, they have a third through remarriage of my spouse. Then they have three to four more parents through the marriages of their own spouses who come from divorce situations. Or, as in the case of the son, there is not a marriage yet and might never be, but there are girlfriends and the girlfriends' parents.
Granted, none of the other parents are in consecrated vocations; none are Catholics, none are physically disabled by pain or otherwise.
I guess I needed to write this out while waiting for pain meds to take effect. I admit to becoming a bit dreary and bleary today. I am having to "pull out all the stops" to spiritually and temporally live my Gospel rule of life which includes being the grain that falls to the ground and is crushed, buried, in order to bring forth new life.
The second reading from Mass bolstered me. The Living Word will always lift us up!
Brothers and sisters:
Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us
and persevere in running the race that lies before us
while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus,
the leader and perfecter of faith.
For the sake of the joy that lay before him
he endured the cross, despising its shame,
and has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.
Consider how he endured such opposition from sinners,
in order that you may not grow weary and lose heart.
In your struggle against sin
you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.
~ Hebrews 12:1-4
I recall my late spiritual father being adamant the day after my profession of vows on Dec. 29, 2000. He said he did not want me to become "odd" nor to lose my personality. He said God gives us our unique personalities that we carry with us throughout life. I promised I'd not, in either point.
Catholic hermits do not lose our thoughts and feelings when it comes to those we love. We do not lose these aspects because we enter into an eremitic vocation, live our rule of life and exist fully yet imperfectly also as human beings within the Consecrated Life of the Church. But over the years, we learn and grow; we accept and exult in the virtues and graces that God gives us--many of them through the power of the Holy Spirit and from the mediation and dispensing of graces through the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Just from writing out the personal thoughts--not the first time I've thought of reasons and circumstances as to how matters in life unfold and are actually for the best in God's will for all persons involved--I am experiencing yet again a shift in the type of uplift that comes from His Real Presence. He desires that I not grow weary nor lose heart.
Time now to log roll to edge of bed, get the brace cinched on, stand and with the walker locate the postage stamps and also a birthday card I purchased pre-op that I'll send to a sibling. There's at least a chance she will get hers on time. Then perhaps after another rest period back on the bed--brace off and log roll onto the icy pad on the mattress that so eases the pain and inflammation, I'll next time walker out to the mailbox with the cards.
That will be quite the endeavor and benchmark of a turning point in physical healing. May it also be a tremendous pain prayer of the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual type. Healing of the past--even if the efforts repeat themselves over the years--bring health to our lives' present moments. And remember, us hermits and those who are not hermits: prayer is timeless and powerful across the miles and the ages.
Also note that the time we spend here on earth is miniscule compared to the "time" we all will be in heaven, including whatever our "time" progressing in purgation. For all eternity we souls can come to know one another all the more and better, in the fullness of Christ's love and light, in the eternal glory of life fully and forever in the Holy Trinity.
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