All this to say - I've carried it with me, felt flooded with waves of gratitude for how Providence managed to align the stars* so that I could spend the day with this particular young woman.
Also, I am making phone call after phone call - rushing hastily from and to waiting -one pop musak stream to the next. This morning I had to call an insurance company to sort out my brother's coverage options for seeing a counselor. I expected heinous, horrid line-holding and brusque conversation with a frazzled representative. Instead I quickly reached a local service representative. (I'm finding things in Kentucky to sometimes be blissfully small and personal right when I need it most.) I began by giving her my information, but then told her my brother's name and put my mom on the line to verify (as the account holder) that it was okay for me to get the details of his account.
True life story: the representative knew my mom...was a former student of hers. They chatted for a bit. When I hopped back on the call again, she told me she had heard about mom
asked me how I was doing and meant it (remember my rant from yesterday?),
asked a few questions about how our family was
- told me she was praying for us.
Flashback to another true life story: two point five months into this whole ordeal, and I feel so isolated. I've met others who've dealt/are dealing with care giving navigating the monster of dementia, etc etc. But, I remained desperate for someone who understood how surreal it is to cope at this juncture in life.
Three-ish weeks ago, I was at a conference for my grad program - sitting down to a nice dinner, and swapped tables to be nearer to an engaging speaker. Twenty minutes into a dinner where I'd planned to be gleaning insight from a woman who worked for a civil society organization in Afghanistan - I find myself engrossed in a conversation with the wife of one of my favorite professors.
Conversation with my professor is as follows:
conversation...conversation...get around to my mom (because he knows, because I had to tell them to get back in to UK)
Prof: How is your mother?
me: *lots of words...say something trite about how it's been hard but is getting better (fake smile)*
Prof: you know that my wife's father had dementia and moved in with us when we were 26?
me: *jaw dropped -agape.*
Then my professor switched seats with him wife, and thirty minutes later I've completed neglected my salmon, know nothing new about Afghani civil society - but have had the most timely, understanding, hugely-needed life-line-type conversation.
It changed the game - just in the knowing. And I carry it with me.
And here is a video of the good, good man I married dancing at a wedding last weekend - with our dear friend Nate (and Rachel chuckling with me in the background).
Sometimes, when I get home from school, he dances with me in the kitchen - just a few moments between tutoring Corey or cooking dinner. He drives me home after one too many drinks out with my classmates. He sends me emails that contain love notes from when we were seventeen, because he knows my day is hard - and he knows because he's standing right in it with me. And he loves me fully, even in my gross, emotional-blob-lump-heavyboots days.
Waves of emotion. As deep in the sorrow and even deeper and fuller in the joys, and the blessings.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever. Psalm23.6
*I mean this differently, and more personally to my faith - but presently can't find a way to say it that doesn't feel -- goofy or trivial.
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