I’ve been running non-stop since last week, and today was the day I lost all will to accomplish anything. And the news about Mary G completely undid me this morning. May her memory be a blessing.
But Kindness posts must continue! This is a mish-mash of various kindnesses.
His brother posted a video on a similar subject on feeling joy in hard times. Here.
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I think I’m ready to start sharing some of the more poignant stories you’re sending me. This is one from this tweet that Steeplejack sent me.
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SiubhanDuinne sent me a bunch of sweet little tidbits, which I’m going to dish out in nibbles:
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I love this idea. In personal news, my neighbor’s daughter is just old enough to be my duck sitter when I travel (although, according to her mom, she spent a great deal of time with the kittehs, loving on them). In the process of setting this up, her mom and I realized that we could swap eggs. Her husband LOVES duck eggs and they have 6 chickens, so always extra eggs. This saves me from stupidly adding a couple of chickens to my menagerie just for eggs and her from letting her kids talk her into adding ducks. Win-win for all of us.
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And finally, there is just something about this song, about being kind to someone, that gets me every time I hear it. I think it was John Green who sent me clicking over to it from one of his videos.
And of course, pup updates from our trip are here. They were complete angels and were so careful around my dad, who is not as sturdy after his stroke. And here is your obligatory photo of Trixie at six months (today!). She’s just the sweetest dog, despite her predilection for chewing inappropriate items the last few weeks. This too shall pass.
Keep those kindness emails coming…
TaMara
….and I see this post stomped all over Anne Laurie. Sorry!!
eclare
What a sweet story about a haircut.
WaterGirl
@TaMara: And I have a post pre-scheduled for 7:30, and half a dozen people have been told in advance that it would be going up then, so I am about to stomp on you. :-(
NeenerNeener
Wow, Trixie looks almost as big as Scout.
sab
My family isn’t good with joy in hard times, but they are finally broadening out the definition of family, so that those who love them and would do ( and have done) everything for them are finally recognized as family, quarter of a century in to the relationaships.
NotMax
Spit-take worthy.
:)
debbie
@eclare:
Brought a lump to this throat.
dexwood
We had chickens for years – yay eggs – they always made us smile. We’ve never raised ducks, though we think they’re fun, too. Anyway, I’ve read, and been told, duck eggs are great for baking. And, it always amazes me how some large dogs are so in tune with toddlers and the elderly, so gentle with them. Yet, they can be so lovably goofy and clumsy at other times.
MomSense
I’m a puddle of tears.
TaMara
@NotMax: And I rewrote it a couple of times, each time something about it was really, really wrong. LOL
JPL
@MomSense: We all are.
TaMara
@WaterGirl: I’m not terribly worried, I always think of the kindness posts as something folks can visit to cleanse their souls after some of the more difficult posts (Adam’s comes to mind), more than a post full of comments and discussion.
Billcoop4
Hair Cut story:
https://youtu.be/FmnDXRJ7btE
BC
Starfish
This tweet from the other thread about a homeless man protecting some young ladies from the Sacramento shooting is thematically appropriate for this thread.
MomSense
@JPL:
My mom is changing so fast and last night I snapped at her and I just feel so miserable about what is happening.
Starfish
@Billcoop4: The album by The Magnetic Fields that contains that song is quite good. I Think I Need a New Heart is my favorite song on it.
WaterGirl
@TaMara: They are much appreciated.
OzarkHillbilly
Sorry to hear of Mary G. She was always a bright light. There go we all.
OzarkHillbilly
Don’t. Just don’t. Acceptance is hard. I know I didn’t want to let go of what used to be. It got even harder when I realized that there was a part of me that desperately wanted to, because I just wasn’t sure I could deal with it anymore.
I will always feel a little bit guilty about that. I told the truth, when maybe a lie would have been more comforting, would have allowed me a little more time, a little less pain. For all.
Saying goodbye to the one or 2 people who have always been there for you, is heartbreaking. Don’t pile more on top of it.
Bex
I wasn’t sure, but I checked, and the John Green in your video is the author of The Fault in Our Stars. I loved the book and the movie. He mentions that he quit divinity school after working as a hospital chaplain. That was because of a young boy who was brought into the ER after being badly burned. A couple of years ago, Green, who had been haunted about this for years, decided to contact the now grown boy who had survived the incident. He wrote about it and how the young man helped him deal with the memories of that. Definitely an act of kindness. Sorry I don’t have a link, but if you’re interested you could probably find one.
FelonyGovt
@MomSense: Please don’t feel bad about that. It’s natural, you are a human being. It’s such a difficult thing to deal with.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
@FelonyGovt:
I think unresolved issues are coming out at inappropriate times. I’ve got to process some things that will never be resolved with her so they don’t come out like they did about the stupid roku.
Our relationship is complicated – she is now in recovery but for most of her life she was a high functioning alcoholic with all the resulting family fallout.
jnfr
Thanks for the sweet stuff. I admit I’m having some trouble keeping my spirits up these days, and I’m usually pretty resilient.
mrmoshpotato
@TaMara:
@WaterGirl: A song for you two.
TaMara
@MomSense: If I didn’t go by my real name here, I would list all the things I’ve been going through following my mom’s death. Complicated just scratches the surface. I feel grateful I had enough time to process most of it before her death, my brothers are much younger and are having a difficult time with those complicated feelings.
Be gentle with yourself and understand you are doing the best you can in a difficult situation. Reach out to friends – or here where you can vent w/o judgment. [[hugs]]
TaMara
@jnfr: You are not alone.
FelonyGovt
@MomSense: Hugs. Just lost my mother-in-law in November. She was like a mother to me and it’s very, very hard.
debbie
@MomSense:
My and my mom’s relationship was probably all kinds of wrong. Very little between us was resolved in her lifetime, but I’ve since come to accept that she did the best she knew how to do while carrying all kinds of guilt with her. I’ve never blamed her.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: One of my great aunts was talking about her parents (my great-grandparents) at a family gathering and she summed them up by saying, “They did the best they could.” It’s the most we can really expect out of anyone.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: I listened to the whole thing as my punishment.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, and just that thought fixes so much.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
My dad started showing signs of dementia over 18 yrs before he passed with Alzheimers. It was long, long journey. You go through a lot of emotions before you get a hold/acceptance of it. My sister never really did but then her grasp of reality has been crappy for the last 50+ yrs. My other sister thought she could take care of him. She lasted 6 weeks. He lived about another 8 yrs after that realization. It’s tough to see your parents get old and forgetful and less able to live with the physical aspects of age, especially if their medical issues exacerbate their needs and personality significantly. And as I get up there in decades I’m seeing why.
Don’t be too hard on yourself, hell some days I want to yell at myself.
Dan B
@MomSense: Is she suffering from dementia? My mother lived with me for a couple decades into her 90’s. It was disturbing to experience her decline. I started snapping at her and realized I couldn’t do it any more. A friend’s father had early onset alzheimers and his wife died of stress related heart disease only a few months after her husband. I recognized the symptoms in me. There’s help available especially for yourself. Be healthy so you can take care of your mother
Edit: I see it’s been a long time. I hope you find help for you and your mom.
PaulB
A few months ago, I came to the painful realization that I had a hernia. The operation to seal the gap and put my insides back where they belonged took place in late March (initially scheduled for January but had to be postponed because of a local Covid outbreak). I was worried because I’m relatively new to the area I’m living in and because my closest friends all live an hour or more away, at least. I didn’t have anyone to pick me up at the hospital and hospitals won’t allow taxi or Uber drivers to fill this role.
Three of my neighbors noticed that my outdoor walking patterns had changed (because of the hernia) and all asked how I was doing. Each of them independently volunteered to be my driver, without my even having to ask or to mention that this was a problem, and also asked if there was anything else they could do for me. Each of them checked up on me multiple times after the surgery to make sure that I was doing okay. One of them even noticed that my lawn was a bit unkempt, so came over to mow and trim two days after the operation, figuring (correctly) that I wouldn’t be up for that for at least another week.
Those little acts of kindness, the checking up, the obvious concern about my well-being, for someone that they mostly had a nodding acquaintance with, kept me going. Bless neighbors like that. May we all be there for someone when they need it.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
“They did the best they could.” It’s the most we can really expect out of anyone.
This is great advice for anyone, do the best you can in a tough situation because no one should be required to do more than their best. Sometimes we rise above but more often we come in under our own expectations. But that is often as good as it gets because our expectations are sometimes much higher than being human allows.
Dan B
@Ruckus: My mother’s decline was about two decades. She got sweeter but it was the loss of other capabilities that was tough.
Ruckus
@Dan B:
Dad had always been a pretty good character, he could laugh about me calling him a fucking asshole when he lobed a big wad of chew my way without looking as I was walking behind him carrying a heavy plate of steel. I think I was around 16. (He had stopped smoking, shortly after that he stopped doing chew.) Mom could never get out thinking she was a of mom of pre-teens, even as her oldest had a married son and I owned my own business and she was in her 90s. Still they were normal parents with human issues.
As I said, I’m seeing this play out in real time. Not only am I getting up there, I live in a seniors complex and I’m not close to being all that much of an old here. We have an older woman – mid 90s who had Covid early on and 2 weeks later was back from the hospital. She still rides around on her electric 4 wheeler. I found out last week that she used to ride motorcycles and not on the back seat. It takes all kinds and all ages
MomSense
@Ruckus:
@Dan B:
She is changing rapidly but I’m not sure if it is early stages of dementia or just aging. COVID has been tough on her. She had to stop playing in the community orchestra. Mahjong and other weekly activities ended.
Meanwhile I have a lot of obligations and I’m not always as patient as I would like to be.
chopper
i was alright until i clicked on the mountain goats song, then i lost it. ugh
Ruckus
@MomSense:
Dementia can come on fast or can take a while to be noticeable and the reaction to it can be different in different people so often in my experience it can be hard to figure out what’s what. Also some people get very used to a routine and if that gets disturbed the reactions can vary all over the place. And sometimes things that worked well for decades decide to just stop. That’s what happened with my balance. One day fine, next day not even close to fine. Now everything is about balance. No one other than me might notice all that much but I do, every move has to be deliberate, showering is either eyes open or hand on a wall or rail. Had a doc give me a balance test one day about 6 months ago and she had to catch me. Getting old would suck except for the only other option.
Inspectrix
A dead thread but I have to quote from Springsteen’s autobiography:
“We honor our parents by carrying their best forward and laying the rest down. By fighting and taming the demons that laid them low and now reside in us.
It’s all we can do if we’re lucky. I’m lucky.”
Also John Green writes some darn readable YA books.