Climbing Patience Mountain

Rising expectations in any one’s life always seems to make the waiting feel like one last mountain needs to be scaled before success is achieved.  

I have been climbing Patience Mountain this week, a Care Giver’s nemesis.  It’s been difficult, especially because waiting isn’t my forte.  Impatience has been my calling card for my entire existence on this big blue planet that we call Earth; a lesson that has repeatedly danced in my face, mocking me when I fail to learn.

I’m on the verge of a personal revolution of sorts, my expectations are rising; patience, I need patience.  Like so many others throughout history, a revolution is brewing within me because I feel a glimmer of hope. 

I have tasted the forbidden fruit of freedom and it tastes divine.  A ground swell is lifting up out of the depths of my proclaimed hell, reaching for the hope that Heaven delivers.

My rising expectation of regaining a piece of my life is the dark before the dawn of my new life.  Finally, the sun is rising for us; Mom has qualified for services to stay at home because of a special program for seniors at risk for entering a nursing home; a program paid for with tax dollars.   

Nursing homes are expensive and the government subsidizes the costs of homes.  It’s more cost effective to have a loved one living at home and receiving Government subsidized services in the house.  

The impending help has my expectations on the rise as my patience for the services to begin, declines.  It is harder knowing that help is coming than it has been to keep my head down and push through the insanity of Care Giving.

It's times like yesterday, when everything seemed so dark and I felt that I can't go on anymore.  I can see the light at the end of the long dark road, a road that seems so long and nearly impossible to walk another step.  

I ask myself, "Can I make it?"  "Can I go on?"  Despair begins to take up residence in a small part of my brain, spreading like a cancer, breeding more hopelessness.  Shit!

Tears flow.  I cry in an attempt to wash away the sorrow my heart feels for myself, my family and my mom.  Visions of my dad pop into my mind, his words of wisdom fill my soul, "rest if you must, but don't you quit!"

I find myself chanting a mantra, "I can if I think I can."  Over and over again, I repeat this phrase; a form of self-hypnosis that has not failed me throughout my life.

My expectations are rising.  I am in the middle of my own personal revolution for freedom.  I am excited for the future; we have the best possible outcome.  Mom will stay with me where I can continue to prepare her meals using food as medicine, she has a fabulous Day Program that she attends with her new friends and then…

The phone rings...

"Hello, Susan?"  I hear my life line from Elder Services, a voice that touched my heart like an Archangel rejoicing the dawn of a new age.  "I have good news...  I found your mom a companion!"