Are you ready?

I've missed a week of posting. It's been a difficult time for my family and extended family as we tended to my mother-in-law who passed away on August 19. She fought a heroic battle against cancer. She died the way she lived. She pushed through and did what she needed to accomplish and served her God and her family until the end. Her pastor came to pray with her in the hospital and when he was through she asked
" Am I ready"? He replied,"yes, you are ready". Prior to that she asked her daughter just a day or two before if she had finished writing all of her thank you notes to people who prayed for her, and supported her in any way. Her daughter assured her that she had.

If you've ever suffered the loss of a loved one, you know well that the death itself is only the beginning. There is a long road ahead to healing. I've mentioned before that our culture doesn't really have any language or at times proper protocol as to what to do or how to act whether we're family, friend or neighbor.

There is the immediate pain of the loss, the domino effect on the family who tries to support one another but who can't successfully lean on one other, because should they lean too hard, the next one will fall and the rest will follow. There is the overwhelming administrative side of grief - taking care of the business of death (writing sympathy acknowledgments, closing accounts, settling debts, tending to the estate, etc).

Grief can bring out the best or the worst in people. Some may hover in hope of acquiring some material item that they've coveted and others will instinctively know how to walk the grievers through their minutes and days.

Grief can come on like a tidal wave and it's unpredictable. In hopes of improving my own skill set in this area a while back I acquired a book called " Don't Ask for the Dead Guy's Golf Clubs". It's a book of things that grievers found helpful that people did for them or that they wished people had done.

I continue to learn through my husband and his family how to best serve he and his family based on their cues and needs. Everyone is different and I am certainly not the expert on their grief patterns. Grievers are their own experts.

You never know who is carrying a tremendous load. There are friends, neighbors, co-workers and people we may barely know who cross our paths who may be suffering deeply. Our society encourages us to shy away from pain and discomfort. The truth is, we need one another and we need to allow people to lean when their normal foundation is shaken to the core. It's why we are here. It's why we care. Society encourages us to stuff it and return to regular routine function and so, broken, we do our best.

I've mentioned before about taking a look at our core values. The way we spend our time is the clearest indicator (our discussions, our work, our friendships, etc) of our core. Is yours based on what is popular or is it based on something more?

In my field we are called to be role models. I am still a work in progress but I am glad to have been able to be complete with my mother-in-law and to thank her for raising such a wonderful son who is such a great husband and father. We were able to have a wonderful week's vacation at the beach with she and the rest of the family and although she wasn't the expressive type, I really wanted her to know that because she was born my life has been enriched by the family she created.

She was truly ready. How ready are the rest of us?

Treasure each moment and make it a great week.

Warmly,
-Andrea