Conundrum Time

Suffering: A state of pain or distress.

Last rites for my sponsor yesterday.  Mom, released from the ICU to a nursing facility associated with her retirement home, promptly falls and breaks her hip, and is back in the hospital.  My sister sent a note saying that she's really out of it and that the medical personnel aren't sure if this is an adverse reaction to the anesthesia or a symptom of a permanent condition.  She may be too old and too weak to snap out of it.

I'm not thrilled by any of this news.  This is part and parcel of the uncomfortable stuff that we have to put up with whether we want to or not, and I'm in a place where I can deal with it reasonably.  My sponsor is a piece of cake - we've had a few months to talk about death and dying from soup to nuts so I'm in a good place with him.  Sad but no regrets.  He knows that I'm not making the long trip back when he does die and I'm sure he would've told me not to come if I had asked.

My family, however, is a different perplexity altogether.  It's a long and expensive trip to a place in the grip of a cold winter and, as I've made clear, I'm not thick as thieves with these people.  I love them and I want to be supportive but it's not like they're right down the block and it's not like they made any effort to stay in touch when I was right down the block.   Or, to quote Little Westside Jonny: "It's not like we can just jump on a bus and get out of here."

I put together a few tortured notes to my sister this morning trying to get across the idea that I'd like to come home once, if possible: now, to help out, or after my mother dies, if that's indeed in the offing, no sure thing.  I'm telling you that it was one tortured, bullshit note after another - I sounded whiny or defensive or uninterested, sometimes all at once.  I got precisely none of these notes cleared by my Public Editor, SuperK.  She wasn't trying to be mean; she was really trying to help but nothing sounded good at all.

I settled on this: "What can I do to help?" 

I then called my Vacation City sponsor - soon to be known simply as "my sponsor" -  and I called Willie so that I could bounce this bullshit off a couple of trusted, disinterested parties.  They recognized the conundrum; they validated my behavior; they wished me good luck.  As it should be: I'm not looking for someone to make my decisions for me but rather to help me make sure my behavior is not too crappy.  I want to be able to look back at whatever I decide to do with no regrets.

I like this line from our literature: "Until now, our lives had been largely devoted to running from pain and problems.  We never wanted to deal with the fact of suffering."