Today’s prompt is presented by Linda who shares Wendy’s blog with us-she gave the actual word today which is “celebrate”.

This is what I’m struggling with the with…can I celebrate when I feel in some ways as if I’m revisiting the “scene of the crime”? Let me explain.

When we lived in Groves for five years, my mother was ill and my dad was still working. Yes, my brother was closer to them then me at the time, but still out of town. I felt guilty for leaving yet it was for David’s job, whose boss made hm an offer he couldn’t refuse.

We supposedly had my parents blessing, but really, what were they gonna say? No! You can’t go? So we went, and discovered that we loved it down there and proceeded to get very involved. (Well I did anyway) That is where I learned about and joined Sertoma, volunteered with the United Board of Missions, Missions Attic, and even held a pt job at an assisted living facility as an assistant activities director.

I loved it all and had good friends, yet always in the back of my mind, I felt guilty. Guilty I left my aging, elderly dad to care for my demanding, less-than-pleasant mother who was post-stroke and on dialysis three days a week.

Kevn helped when he could and even ended up moving closer to town but they were overŵhelmed. Then I went home a few times to try and get medical assistance set up to ease my dad’s burden, but she wouldn’t hear of it…at least the transportation part. I wanted her to switch her shift so she could be taken by transportation dept. which would mean Dad wouldn’t have to get up at 4am three days a week to get her ready for dialysis.

She stubbornly refused.

Finally I was at least allowed to set up a nurse to come check n them periodically. That turned out to be a good thing because Dad wasn’t watching his own health and got a UTI which is dangerous in older people.

Long story short, I returned later when Mom was near the end and spent the last month with her, at her side in the nursing home, but it was too late. She had dementia rob her of her faculties and we did not have the conversations we should have. She was babbling incoherently and they told me it was because of the demetia. I told her I loved her and that she’d been a good mom but she wanted to say something back and couldn’t.

It haunts me to this day even though she passed in 2014, and my dad is gone too. So how can I celebrate the fact that we have been given a second chance in the place that we loved?

I’m trying.

I’m telling myself that if God didn’t want me to, He wouldn’t have lined things up so perfectly. Dave being offered a job randomly three years into his retirement. The chance to have real insurance instead of the VA who hasn’t done much for me and my issues. Chris being here just when we needed his help to get the bus down there and placed in an RV park.

I will go, I pray that I will be healed, and once we are all settled and I see that maybe it was really meant to be, maybe then I can celebrate. 🙏☺️