Control and Perspective

As I have stated before...I am the kind of person who wants and needs control.  I also talked about my pull towards the Lord, and I'm wondering if this is God's way of showing me and teaching me that I can't have that control-It belongs to Him. 

I am speaking of my daddy.  First you must understand that he has ALWAYS been invincible to me.  He was the greatest man to walk this earth (closely followed by my Papa Lee, some very special uncles and cousins, a few mentors and friends from childhood/teenage years).  Nothing has ever been as strong as my daddy is in my eyes.  But now, I'm seeing something take over and it's not something that I can fix.  That fact crushes my heart and soul.

First his memory loss/dementia has been so hard to take.  We moved a lot when I was younger, which I loved, but most of my memories do not involve all the same people, except for my mom and daddy.  My mom worked a lot and so I was with my dad a lot of the time.  I tried for a long time to figure out how to deal with being the only one who has those memories, I shed a lot of tears, I did a lot of praying...then somehow one day, I felt better (about that).  I didn't get over it, I accepted it.  Then the fact that the doctors cannot treat or even definitively diagnose him is just one more knife in the heart. 

Now he has pain almost daily, has had personality changes-withdrawn more than anything, which again is hard to deal with.  But none of this I can control!  None of this I can fix!  I have admittedly prayed more than normal recently than I have in a very long time.  But I am learning that I have to let God take the control-he already has it, I just have to accept it.

Then there is perspective of it all.  How does my daddy feel about all this?  How is he coping?  How much does he realize has changed?  How does he deal with the pain? 

My Mom:  How does she deal with not being able to make it all better?  How does she live everyday not knowing the answers and watching the man she has been with over half her life, change right before her eyes?

Yes, that was a lot of questions...maybe some of my readers will have cute little comments to make about all the 'how' questions in this post; but that again is perspective.  I have so many friends going through so much hurt and trying times, that I try to think how they would deal with things.  Would they really care if people out there had nothing better to do than talk about them, would they really care if money was ALWAYS the issue?  Would they give up $20, $50, $100, or any amount of money for their child, knowing the suffering that others are going through right now and the fact that it could happen to them at any time, or would that money mean more to them?  Would missing a day of work be the end of the world, or staying up all night with a sick loved one be something to complain about?  Would the little things matter? 

I think that's enough to ponder on for one night....more to come.

Also, Thanks to those of you who have been giving me positive feedback about my writing.  Thanks for reading, thanks for the emails, im's, comments, etc.....it's good to know that my writing is appreciated!