Finding Fortune In My Misfortune

Every once  in a while you make a connection with someone who helps you put into perspective the difference between what you feel is misfortune and what they feel is misfortune.  It goes to show you that it is all in a matter of how you think and how you feel about any given subject.

Some of you may remember the passing of my mother on Nov 22, 2011.  Three years ago this past Saturday is when God took her home.  Although my mom wasn't the picture of health and had suffered a couple minor strokes prior to her death, she was able to do most everything on her own.  The help we were able to give her came in the form of driving her around, helping her clean her house, doing her lawn and shoveling snow.  She was able to get around pretty well on her own and even worked part time cleaning offices in the building my brother Jordy was employed at.  When our mom had a major stroke, she was admitted to the hospital and that is where she died. 

My Sturges friends in Iowa have what I consider a more unfortunate demise with their mom.  Their mom's health has been failing for the last few years.  I call her Grandma Helen and I love the stories I have always heard about "Holy Helen".  It pains me to hear now all that they go through in taking care of their mom.  They are slowing watching their mom's life fade away from them as her health continues to decline.  In talking to Aunt OJ (Julie) who is one of Helen's daughters it has always been one of her sisters goal to never have to put their parents into a nursing home and let others care for either one of them.  Aunt OJ has told me that although her sister initially set that goal, several others of them have come to agree with her.  They take care of their mom as much as they can.

There are seven siblings, four girls and three boys.  I can imagine it takes all of them helping to accomplish such a commitment to their mom.  I admire their dedication to taking care of their parents in their later years.  Their parents are much older then my mom was when she died, by twenty years at least I would guess.  So taking care of them as they age naturally is probably a chore in itself and then to add Helen's failing health on top of that has to be difficult.  I mentioned to Aunt OJ that I say prayers for her parents and siblings daily, that God will ease the pain in Helen's body and keep the rest of them strong as they care for her. 

I made the statement to Aunt OJ, "I am sorry you have to go through this difficult time with your mom, I know it is probably not the way you imagined spending the final years of your mom's life with her."

She hesitated for a moment before she responded, "I am sorry you did not get this kind of time with your mom Jett. As difficult as it can be, I am enjoying spending time with my mom that I otherwise would have taken for granted had she not become ill."

I have been thinking about our conversation a lot since Aunt OJ made that statement to me.  I guess I imaged a lot of sad days in their lives taking care of their mom.  I imaged a lot of pain, frustration, sadness, tears.  Talking with her put a different perspective on their situation for me.  Sure they get tired she said.  Her sister is a teacher and works full time which if you know anything about teaching is more then a 40 hour week.  She has really been the main care giver of her parents for years already and she was the first to commit to seeing that their mom remain in her home, working through her health issues.  Cooking and cleaning and grocery shopping and taking care of her medicine.  Often sleeping on the sofa to make sure Helen's needs were taken care of day in and day out.  The other siblings all playing a role as well, all of them working at least full time jobs, the girls providing relief for their sister so she gets rest and a break from the dedication of her role as care giver.  The boys taking care of the house and the yard so the girls do not have to worry about that as they care for their mother.  One of the sons has even helped with the medicine and the care of making sure Helen is safe when she needs to get up and move about. 

I loved my mom deeply and I always thought if she would have survived her stroke and needed that kind of attention and help I would be happy to do what I could.  I was devastated when my mom died and wished I could have done more.  I now think about the time I spent with her before her major stroke and while I did what I could, I now wish I could have done more.  I never got to see my mom grow old  I never got the stories from her of her youth and her life that I could have had she lived longer then she did.  My brother and I still talk about how hard it would have been to live our lives like we were used to had mom survived her stroke.  How time consuming it would have been to help her with things in life that we could.  Maybe that was our way of relieving some of the guilt of having to decide to keep her on life support or take her off. 

After my recent conversation with Aunt OJ I have to say how much I admire and respect their decision to tough this out with their mom.  To stay by her side day and night, to dedicate all the time they can to making her life better by being able to stay in her home.  I think about how I always felt fortunate that our mom did not have to suffer with health issues even though it meant we no longer have her here.  I think about how I have thought how unfortunate for the Sturges siblings to have to watch their mom suffer so, and dedicate their free time to helping her.

How wrong was I?  Incredibly wrong.  I love their outlook on life as they find themselves feeling fortunate to spend so much time with Helen, hearing stories about her youth.  Discovering new things about their mom that they would otherwise never know had they not decided to keep her in her home.  How wonderful of a job did Mr and Mrs Sturges do in raising their seven children to be so thoughtful and thankful to their parents.  Thankful enough to want to never let go, to want to be with them until they take their last breath, in the home where they were raised.  The memories they will have to share long after their parents are gone.  How fortunate they are to have this special time together.  How unfortunate for me to not have that same opportunity with my own mother. 

Lessons in life come from so many different sources in our lives.  Capture ever minute of the breathes your loved ones take.  Don't assume fortune and misfortune is what you are facing in the difficult times.  Embrace the moments before you, good and bad, and find the things you can walk away with and revisit when your loved ones leave you. 

The very last memory I have of my mom before she had her stroke was taking her out to eat.  I was frustrated with her never being able to decide what she wanted to eat and wanting me to make the decision for her.  The very last memory I have of my mom before she took her final breath was thinking about wishing we were going out to eat and me getting to, not having to, decide what my mother might like for her meal.

I felt it was my misfortune to have to make those simple decisions for my mom when I should have felt fortunate that I got to spend time with her, anyway I could.  My conversation with Aunt OJ has enlightened me in making sure I find the fortune in the misfortune in my life.

Happiness In The Pursuit

 

I think about all of the time I have spent not feeling as if happiness would ever come my way.  All the times I spent feeling as if I did not deserve happiness, but never really figuring out why I felt that way.  I remember at a very early age in life I thought happiness always meant something bad was about to happen.  It was as if something bad was the punishment for enjoying anything good.  When I say at a young age I am talking about the single digit age numbers.  I may not have been able to pinpoint the feeling at that age but I remember knowing the difference between happy and sad and feeling happy at things in life then waiting for something sad to follow. 

I've not ever shielded my blog following friends from the abuse that was inflicted upon me by my birth dad in the form of mental, physical and sexual abuse that started around the age of seven.  At that age you accept it for what it is in your life because you really do not know it is wrong, especially when it is hidden deep in the walls of the house you live in.  Years later I realized it was around the time of my little sisters death that we no longer went to family gatherings, we no longer had visitors at our house and we no longer enjoyed the freedom of the outdoors when our birth dad was around.  It was around this time that the abuse started for me, even though years later I would find out it had been going on for years for my older brothers. 

I remember all the happy times I had with my mom during the day hours while my birth dad was at work.  When it was close to the time he would come home from work the happy times would be tucked away for another day and the evenings brought on the abuse.  I never realized the abuse my mom also suffered at the hands of her husband, at least not until I hit my early double digit numbers in age.  I knew it was getting worse for me, but I never thought about what my mom was going through.  Homeschool teacher by day, slave wife by  night.  That is what I would describe her life as back then, knowing now what I did not know then.

So the fun I had during the day, the learning, the reading, the crafts, the walks up town to the library, would always be followed by the yelling, the beatings, the sexual abuse at night.  Happiness followed by sorrow, it was the way life worked right?  Enjoy a bit of fun, pay for it later.  Find happiness in your day and expect to be punished for it by night.  So many people wonder why women, or children for that matter, stay in the home where the abuse is occurring.  If you have never been the victim or an abuser you may find it hard to understand that you do not think about it being a choice.  You think of it as being routine, the way it is for everyone, you know no different because you have come to accept the punishment of sadness for the reward of happiness.

And then you grow older, not really wiser yet, but your thinking changes and start to wonder where the happiness without the punishment comes from.  For me I decided to reach out to my older brother Joey.  If you are a blog following friend of mine you remember Joey is my brother who died at the age of 24 from complications of Stage 4 lung cancer.  The year before he was diagnosed I was thirteen and I reached out to Joey for help, telling him of the abuse I was suffering from our birth dad.  He promised to help me, to make things better for me and I was so happy that Joey loved me enough to come around home more often then he had ever done since he moved out.  It didn't stop the abuse but on the nights Joey stayed and never left my side our birth dad stayed out of my room.  It made me happy, I felt Joey was going to be able to protect me from all the abuse in a short manner of time.  Then he got sick and he only grew weaker.   My happiness was being punished.  I was so happy Joey was there for me and my punishment was him becoming terminally ill.  I accepted this, once again, feeling that I brought on the bad by enjoying the good.  When would I learn? 

There would be no happiness for me without sadness.  It was as common as slapping jelly on a peanut butter sandwich, it's just the way it was.  Happiness and sadness were meant to be together, like rain falling from a dark cloud, it just is.  I can think clear back to when I was six and Jocelyn was four and we were happy to be riding our bikes out in the sunshine at a family gathering, laughing and enjoying our day.  Then she darted across a driveway sidewalk where she was backed over by car and killed, proving from the single digit of age six that if you want to be happy, you have to be sad.  Would it not just be easier to not enjoy any good feelings and go with the bad ones if the end result was going to be the same?  Why not seek out the bad and just let it flow if that was going to be the outcome anyway.

At the age of fourteen I would enjoy a bit of sadness with a gob of happiness when my next oldest brother helped me flee our Bushnell home in Sioux City IA and take me to Boston MA where I would continue to be punished for being happy.  Happy to leave the abuse, sad I had to leave my mom to do so, that made me sad.  This was the point in my life where I realized I should be on a pursuit of happiness.  Go out in this world a boy full of doubt and find the happiness I felt I earned.  I would spend the next eight years in the pursuit of happiness before I discovered all I really needed was to enjoy the happiness in my pursuit. 

I know now that in my journey towards eternal life there will be many sad times.  I will lose family, friends, and even friends families to death.  I will experience failures that will eventually make me a better me.  I will make mistakes that will make me feel as if I was enjoying to much happiness along my journey's way.  Because that is just life, and without the sad times I would not appreciate the happiness I stumble upon.  I know now that it is OK to be happy, to expect happiness, to accept happiness, to live for happiness.  I also have come to realize that there is no journey in the Pursuit Of Happiness, but there is Happiness In The Pursuit of everlasting life.  That I should enjoy every moment of happiness I come across in my journey on earth.  That its not about deserving happiness in your life, its about enjoying that happiness.  It took me a little over 22 years of life to realize I am allowed to be happy with some sad moments and I shouldn't wait around for the bad times to follow the good fortunes.

The Pursuit of Happiness does not exist in our journey on earth no matter what we feel we are on a journey of.  The Happiness of the Pursuit is alive and real and we should embrace every moment of happiness that comes our way.  Accept the challenges of the sad moments and use them to measure the amount of happiness we actually do have in our lives.  Since I have discovered the concept of deserving happiness and I have stopped waiting for tragedy to strike me down for enjoying it, I am the happiest I have ever been.  I would like you to be the happiest you can be as well.  Start today, count your blessings and as you do, know that you deserve them as well as any happiness that may come your way.

I make the choices in my life and only I can enjoy those with all my heart.  The changes I have made in my life this past six months have been tough.  The paths I have chosen to follow have not all been smooth.  There have been a lot of hesitant feelings where at times I wondered did I make the right choice.  I breath and I tell myself that even a wrong choice is still a direction.  A decision to learn from, a decision to grow with, something that will confirm not only my faith in God but my faith in myself.  Leaping forward with happiness has been a lot more productive than leaping forward with fear.  I no know longer regret the chances I have taken even if the outcome was not what I desired it to be.