Giving Yourself Grace
The travails of being responsible
It is emotionally taxing when a family member is in pain and unable to fend for themselves. Your own life collapses to the demands and requirements of a full second life. At moments it seems like even more. After decades of solving problems, raising kids, and dealing with life’s challenges, we attempt to chalk it up to “just one more thing” and expect that the resiliency and fortitude that carried us through life will simply handle one-more hurdle.
Navigating hospital trips, insurance requirements, doctors’ inquiries, and follow-up appointments on top of an already busy schedule, responding to the demands of others who rely on your contributions, slowly builds stress. Unless we use our gained wisdom to grant ourselves a little bit of grace, we might get overwhelmed.
I’m spending a lot of time these days granting myself grace.
Mom fell a few weeks ago and broke a hip. Or more likely, her hip broke due to poor physical conditioning and advanced osteoporosis resulting in the fall, but arguing semantics doesn’t get her out of the hospital bed.
Each subsequent week, she’s managed, in confusion, fits of anger and defiance, or simply because she woke in the middle of the night and hadn’t gained enough awareness to know that she wasn’t at home, to pop the replacement hip out of…
