New normal

One question I ask myself a lot lately is “What is normal?”  I think normal is what we expect to happen.

Why do we do that to ourselves?  Nothing we expect to happen ever goes the way we think it will.

I expected my parents to grow old together & putter around doing old people things until God called one or both of them home.  Sounds silly doesn’t it?

Needless to say that hasn’t happened.  My new normal is that my mom is living with us off and on. 

She needs more care than my dad can do by himself.  He worries about how she’s doing.  Then he can’t sleep.

My new normal(for several weeks) was to wake up and have a phone call early in the morning(usually on Monday) every few days with a new crisis.  Too much medicine, exhaustion, broken trust, sharp words.  All these things can alone cause problems but when you combine them it can be a crisis.

Sometimes you have to head off a crisis before it happens.  To help my dad not worry we rearranged our home for a while.  We don’t have a guest room but our basement has two new bedrooms in it now

     

Mom has a room to come and stay in right around chemo.  She has a counter in the kitchen and space in the bathroom.  She comes and we give her some extra TLC before & after chemo.  Dad sleeps & gets his rest.  Everyone benefits.

Sometimes you have to think out of the box.  I am glad that my parents are comfortable in my home.  Dad even invaded the kitchen to make gravy!

Love for someone isn’t about what they give you or how they make you feel.  It is laying aside your desires and plans to help them.  I never thought that I would be walking this path but I wouldn’t trade the privilege of being Jesus’s hands and feet for my mom and dad at this time in their lives.

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friend.     John 5:13