It's life. well, at least our life!

Sort of ended up bogged down a bit with life happenings that are just a part of mortality.  Today Terry got sick.  Same sort of stuff as last time and we self-diagnosed as flu.  Not sure what it is.  This time of life is so different.  I was sitting in chair and he is stretched out on couch.  Feeling miserable, achy, chilled to the bone and sort of moaning/chattering.  I'd done all I knew how.  Oh, did I mention he was also up-chucking.  Well, he was.  Anyhow I sat there while he dealt with what only he could and my hands were tied.  I felt so bad that in spite of my best efforts, I could not assist him.  I could not ease his pain.

Things like that always make me think of two things...the Savior and what he went through for us & the Father's role.  I have an entire dialogue that runs through my mind about the Atonement.  But tonight I thought of something else.

When I was a young mother, with little ones, I could scoop them up and offer aid and actually kiss pain/hurt away.  I learned, as I had more children, what to do.  What worked.  What didn't.  At first it was all so new and so foreign and so unfamiliar, even though instinctively I wanted to help.

That is the same sort of thing that happens with aging and challenges with health.  It's all so new.  It's all so foreign.  It's all so unfamiliar.  We've only had these big changes for one year.  We are not use to having this sort of thing in our life....The aftermath of his stroke and other ailments.

Life up to a year ago was very comfortable, familiar, and we knew how to deal with anything that came into our life because life had an evenness about it. If something needed to be addressed, it was not health issues beyond the norm.  Life had a security zone.  You pretty much knew what would happen next on a daily basis.  A predictability of sorts.

I think that is why older people talk so much about their ailments is because it is so new to them. Just like a new baby.  or toddler or child.  They've not walked this path.  They've not read about how to care for what the problem is.  It's a startling thing to have something enter your life that you have never experienced before.  Even more alarming- Not only does it enter but it stays or leaves a residue. 

This is entry level experience for us.  Our challenges health wise are only 12 months old.  and just as with new parents, nearby are all of the experienced parents and each have their own guidelines for handling their health challenges and they share.  Specialists are needed and just like looking for a pediatrician for the newborn, you find yourself collecting names, from those further down the road than you, of all sorts of medical folks and also even exchanging Rx preference. 

Advice pours in, both asked and unasked, all with sincere desire to help.  And just like the folks that divide into two camps- on letting children cry themselves to sleep or not always picking them up when they cry, you find your decisions sometimes being questioned or out and out told, you are wrong.

There are those so adamant in what they believe/feel/practice that it almost feels like political foes in action.

So I'm just saying.  this brand new health stuff is enough to almost make me think a sleepless night with a newborn is a piece of cake, compared to me asking my sweet man...tell me where you hurt?  you feel hot? are you feverish?  you need something in your stomach?  broth?  warm milk?  why won't you let me call someone and get a blessing?  you are really sick. I so wish I knew what to do.  how to help you.

He has felt utterly miserable for hours.  We have prayed and he feels that will work.

I hold his face in my hands and look at the wrinkles that somehow seem deepened by his pain, his mussed up silver hair, his beautiful eyes, express my love, and give him a hug and kiss on his forehead.  That's about all I can do.

He and I know, we are more fortunate than so many of our friends, that we love.  We count ourselves so blessed.  What we deal with is nothing compared to what we see others have on their plates.

I tell you what though, I'm thinking all those endure to the end scripture quotes are mostly for those over 75 or thereabouts.

Here is my darling man on Sunday...