Seasons, Reasons And Lifetimes

This morning saw the property owner at my door to pick up her check for our leasing agreement. She's a mess these days with her Mom in a nursing home. Actually, she's a mess for other reasons going back 8 years now to the death of her husband, but she's dealing with a family issue that is adding more to that mess.

It seems her younger brother took advantage of the impending death of his step-father to grab power of attorney for step-dad and his own Mom. Their mother is an alcoholic with liver disease and with that power of attorney he also acquired her healthcare proxy. His first action was to lock her out of her own bank account so that she didn't have access to money for booze. Secondly he went through her house with a fine tooth comb and cleaned it out of her stash. 

There are long term alcoholics that shouldn't be dried out without medical supervision. She is one of them and she wound up in a locked down mental ward at a local hospital. Her kidneys shut down. As a result of his actions she is no longer considered to be capable of managing her own affairs and he has now transferred her to a nursing home. She needs to be there. I know this sounds harsh, but other than his lack of understanding of just how drying out would affect her, he is doing this for her own good.

His sister is upset. Not because of her impending death. She is upset that her Mom wants to go home to die and her brother won't let her. The doctor has declared this woman can't live alone any more. She falls all the time since all she's done for years is sit on her butt and drink until she passed out. She won't cooperate with the therapy to make her stronger, and there is no room in her apartment for someone else to live in.

There is a solution, but it isn't one my landowner likes. She has a 3 bedroom ranch in which she lives all by herself. It hasn't been cleaned in 8 years and she spends no time in it except to sleep at night because her husband died there, 8 years ago.

He didn't die suddenly, he died from cancer. Prostate cancer because he was a Jehovah's Witness and wouldn't accept the treatments that might place him in need of blood transfusions that were against his religion. She had time to prepare herself and she didn't. I don't know if she was in denial, I don't see how she could have been had she paid any attention to his condition. Then again, her lack of ability to stay home started when he was suffering. Church members spent more time with him than she did.

My Dad died May 4 and her husband died May 20 in 2007. My step-Mom has gone on with her life and she misses him 8 years later, but she lives her life head on. She doesn't run from the pain of loss. She owns it and finds things to do when it's this time of year. At the time, she let go, she didn't try to hang on to him because he was suffering. That's not what my landowner did.

Death hurts. Being left behind to fend for oneself hurts. The only way someone is in our lives for our lifetime is if we die first. That's a fact that can't be gotten around no matter how hard we try. People are in our life for seasons or reasons. For lifetime we have memories. It's up to us what mood those memories give us. We can waste our time wallowing in the hurt or we can use that hurt to do something constructive for someone else. It isn't the hurt or the loss that defines us, it's what we do afterward that will. That's our choice and nobody else's.