The Ever Changing World

I seem so much more aware of the ever changing world around me.  It has become my job to live my life both for me and for my husband.  I am responsible for sharing every little event with him in some way.  It may be a few words in a phone call or it may be a long descriptive narrative in a letter.  In the process of watching life as though I am a camera lens and mentally recording everything, I find that I am much more attune to the changes that are occurring around me.
 
I spoke with my brother last night and he informed me that this would be my father's last holiday season at home.  His health and mental capacity are deteriorating very quickly and if time permits, at the start of the new year, he will have to be placed in a nursing home.  The family believes that at that time he would not even be cognizant of his surroundings and his daily care is becoming much more than any one person can handle.

This news does not surprise me since I have seen him slowly fading away from us as the dementia slowly eats away at who he is.  I believe that after my mother passed away he lost a lot of the fight that used to be in him.  What makes me ponder this next phase, is all the new changes that it will bring?  Both my parents will be gone, I feel like I am way to young to loose both parents, but it is an adjustment that I will have to get used to.  Going home will never be the same.  My brother will be in the house, but going home meant more than going to a specific place.  It meant going to where life was safe, it was a place where love was given unconditionally, and it meant surrounding myself with people who were always in my corner no matter what.

How does life change again?  The family dynamic changes yet again, I will only have my bother and his family left as part of my immediate family.  I have a sister, but for her reasons, we have not had any type of familial relationship for way too many years.  I would love to have a relationship with her but it is for her own reasons and I have accepted her choices for now.  I have a wonderful, extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins who remind me how wonderful my family genes are when we can get together.  I make the effort to see them whenever possible.  It works out to 2 or 3 times a year but that is better than nothing.  Many times it was only for weddings and funerals, and as we are all getting older it is more often a funeral now than a wedding.  But there is so much joy in spending time with family even in a time of sorrow that I find their presence such a comfort and unbelievably uplifting.

I watch my children grow and mature and record every little occasion of significance only to relay to my husband later.  A compliment from a teacher at school becomes fodder for a long paragraph about how well our kids are getting along.  A small accomplishment or change, such as one of them eating tuna or peanut butter, since they used to not like it, now finds itself documented and mailed off as part of today's events.  Do we all look at the world and our surroundings so closely? or am I the exception because of the situation that has been placed before me?

I am in the middle of all this change and am sometimes overwhelmed by it all, I can not begin to imagine how it will impact my husband.  The world will be a different place when he comes home and we will all be different people.  Time has stopped for him, his world is this one place for the next 2 plus years and what goes on outside those walls is just words and stories.  It will be testament to his character and strength in how he adjusts to all the changes and the challenges he has yet to face.