Home alone

It's Friday morning. I took the day off work because I planned to go to a knitting retreat in a town 2 hours' drive away, a little 2-day gathering to knit and eat and chat and attend a couple informal workshops.

Instead I'm writing this blog post. I took the day off anyway, but I'm not going anywhere. My husband broke his wrist a week ago and it's in a cast from the elbow down.

Now I'm sure a healthy person could manage by themselves for 30 hours with one arm in a cast--even the dominant arm. But my husband is chronically ill. Adding another health crisis has him reeling. He needs help opening his medication bottles... he needs help covering himself up in the bed, sometimes.

So this is the life of the spouse of someone who's chronically ill. Holding plans lightly in case you have to cancel them at the last minute. Working around his needs.

I'm disappointed, of course. I thought about going to work, for about three seconds... but I already asked for the vacation day, and getting a day off is somewhat of a consolation. OK, I'll admit it: going to work instead of going to the knitting retreat would be rubbing salt in the wound.

Two months ago, I was asked to consider going on a six-day mission trip to teach knitting. My church has been partnering with a church in the Dominican Republic, and started a sewing ministry a year or so ago to teach poor women a marketable skill. These women now want to learn to crochet and knit as well.

My first instinct was to say, "I can't leave my husband alone for that long." And they laughed, thinking I was making a helpless hubby joke. Turns out my husband's health status isn't common knowledge at my church. But even after being informed, they were saying, "Have faith! What if someone brought him meals?" Meals are the least of my worries with him--he doesn't even eat some days. And there's always Domino's.

I started a flurry of Facebook messages with two friends at church who DO know the situation, and also have experience with chronic illness. One, who also has a chronically ill husband, said, "People just don't get it."

Our final conclusion? It's one thing to have faith, and it's another to fling yourself (or someone else) off the pinnacle of the temple and expect the angels to catch you.

My primary ministry in this season of my life is to take care of my husband to the extent he needs it. Any other ministry opportunities have to fit in around that, and also can only take up so much of my energy. I turned down another ministry opportunity more recently, even though it would have been right here in town and maybe only once a week, because I felt I didn't have the energy. I prayed about it, and did not get any sense the Lord wanted me to do it.

The Lord knew my husband was going to break his wrist slipping on the last ice of the season.

This weekend I'm going to go sit on the couch at my local yarn store for an hour or three, and knit and chat with whoever else is there. It's not the same. But it's as close as I can come right now.

What not to tell people not to say

I started to write one of those "what not to say" blog posts. 

Of course there are scads of those on every sensitive topic imaginable. There were scads of them on MY topic. I Googled the phrase "what not to say" and got over two BILLION results. Some are tongue in cheek, but far more are serious and earnest.

Now, let's be clear: these kind of articles and posts aren't aimed at people who deliberately say mean, unkind, cutting or abusive things. Those people wouldn't read a "what not to say" article anyway. "What not to say" articles are mostly aimed at the well-meaning but clueless.

It seems there's no shortage of people who have gotten bent out of shape over what someone's said to them. Including me, yes.

One of the items I had intended to list was a single sentence spoken kindly, but in ignorance, which led to me sobbing right through a whole song at church. Was that sentence intended to make me cry? Of course not. It was intended to make me feel better. Not their fault it backfired.

Implicit in the whole concept of a "what not to say" article is the idea that I have some kind of right to expect everyone else in the universe to never say anything that makes me feel bad in any way--even accidentally. Is that even possible? It's a bit embarrassing to realize I got caught up in that kind of thinking 

Also implicit is the notion is that if we all just get educated enough, we could all say just the right thing to everyone in whatever trial they may be going through. This is the hope of those who read such articles, those who desire to never wound anyone with their words. An admirable hope, but again, I think it's too much to ask. How can one person ever know all of it? Two billion articles....

Here's the thing. It's inevitable that now and then someone will pop off and say something that just doesn't work. Maybe a stupid platitude; maybe an ill-timed and ill-considered joke. I'm not saying we shouldn't even try to say the right things at the right times. But we all fail. We're none of us perfect.

"And I will show you a still more excellent way.... Love is patient and kind.... It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.... Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Corinthians 12:31b, 13:4, 5, 7 (ESV)

Hm. Nothing in that chapter that even implies that love never says the wrong thing. In fact, it looks like it's on ME to stop expecting that no one will ever say the wrong thing to me. To give some grace. To be patient, to bear it, to endure. To cut the other person some slack, especially when I can tell they were just trying to be helpful.

"So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them..." (Matthew 7:12, ESV)

If I want other people to take what I say in the spirit in which I intended it, then maybe I should do the same for them.

Photos in this post are free stock photos courtesy of Pexels.com

A tale of two strays

Turned out her name is Xena

The first stray was a dog, wandering down the road in front of my house in mid-March when we still had snow on the ground. She was dragging a leash, which made me think she'd gotten away when someone was trying to walk her—especially since the leash was entirely too wimpy for a large dog.

Since this was early evening, we kept her for the night. In the morning, I took her to our vet to scan for a chip.

Yes! She had a chip. The people at the vet clinic called the owner of record and put her in their kennel to await her people. Done! Easy peasy.

The second stray is a cat. A week ago, I was walking our dog, Butch, and our cat Princess Red. When she tags along, I'm always turning and calling her, in case she gets too far behind and can't tell which way we went. (I don't think cats can see a great distance, can they?)

So, I'm calling, "kitty, kitty, kitty," behind me--and out comes this gray cat, talking back to me. She let me come up to her and scritch her, and she sort of tried to follow me away despite the dog I had on the leash.

After finishing the dog's walk, I went back in my car. Sure enough, she came right out when I called. The house she was hanging out in front of had an empty divided pet dish on the front porch--AND the phone book that had been delivered over a week before. Looked like she was abandoned.

So I grabbed her, threw her in my car, and took her home. I set her up in our spare bedroom with her own food, water, and litter, and shut her in.

I listed her on the local Facebook lost & found pet pages. I put up little posters all around the corner where I'd found her. I had her scanned for a chip: no joy. Went to the pound to add her to the "Found Pets" list, but couldn't bring myself to leave her. She's affectionate and eats up any human attention. But all efforts to find her people were in vain. Not one phone call. 

We are calling her "Mia."

We thought about keeping her. But she's horrible to our other pets (a dog and three cats). She clearly needs to be the only pet in her home.

I tried to take her to the no-kill shelter in Rockford, Noah's Ark Pet Sanctuary, but they were full up on cats.

Meanwhile, her behavior seemed to indicate she was in heat. (Don't ask.) Another complication.

Finally I heard back from PAWS. They will subsidize the spaying and then put her on their adoption list. They don't have a shelter in Rockford--they just use foster homes.

I'm glad I didn't have to resort to taking her to the pound. I feel affection for her, even though we can't keep her. Even right now she is lying stretched out along my leg.

But wow! What a hassle!

After these experiences, I am totally sold on microchips. Once I find a job, I want to get them for all our pets. (Only one is chipped so far.) More information on pet microchipping.