Imagine what a shock it must be for a newly hatched chick to break free of its shell. There’s no way the chick could conceive, as it pecks its way free, what it might be headed for. It must be terrifically uncomfortable to be squashed inside a too-small shell, or no chick would struggle so hard to enter the unknown.
What has motivated you to break out into an unforeseeable new life?
As I think back, I now realize what an unforeseen experience I was going into when I established caring for my mom as she aged and then died. Without any doubt I assumed this responsibility. With the help of care givers and friends (hers and mine) I was able to learn many many ways to accommodate to her journey to death. Since she said, at age 90 plus, “I really don’t want to live in an institution with all of those “old” people”, I was able to care for and have her cared for at a home we shared. Although I know now, how to transfer a person, help with bathing, feeding and in other more subtle ways, as I look back, I wonder how I was able to do so. With the cooperation of helpers and the Medicaid program in our state, we successfully carried it out. It’s one of those times that I remember with an outcome that was not clear to me at the beginning but of great value to me at the end.