BEAUTY AMONG BRIERS...

Gratitude: A feeling of thankfulness and appreciation
Gratitude is the first word that comes to mind when I think of each and every one of you. My heart has swelled with overflowing emotion at your kind words, thoughts, and prayers. I have read each comment over and over this past week and they have given me strength in the face of adversity. I have copied and pasted them, printing them out, and securing them in my gratitude journal to remind me that friendship is a blessed and sacred thing to be thankful for. Thank you so much for the outpouring of support and love.

I will be away for yet a little while longer as I maneuver through a week of doctor visits for my mother, she was in the hospital most of the week last week and is home now. It is a lot to process, these rapid changes in roles, as I become the parent and she more childlike in need of care. Fridays appointment should put a label on her condition, a mere formality really, something we dare not say aloud which will make it all the more real. Not nearly as horrifying as cancer but in some ways much worse, the losing of ones self, of ones memories, of ones mind.

We plod this familiar path having stumbled down it with my precious mother-in-law, at least we are not so blind as to what is ahead in the next bend of the road. As heavy as all this sounds there have been little bits of uplifting beauty scattered among the briers. I first took notice of it when I looked out the window towards the east woods. There among the briers of the bare blackberry vines was a rogue clump of miniature jonquils blooming in all their colorful glory against a backdrop of prickly bare vines and crunchy dry leaves...The skeletal tree frames are beginning to cover their nakedness with new frocks of green colorful costumes coming to life, only just testing out the barest hint on the tips of their bony fingers... I find these layers of life quite interesting, the pleasant and the unpleasant that seem to blend and dwell together so seamlessly. One or the other always moving to the forefront blurring the other in the background...
This season of spring that is teaming with new life and the breath of beauty has taken the sting out of the dry prickly brittleness of emotion...
Filling it with fresh hope. Although their heads are bowed the sunny lemon yellow faces of the jonquils radiate joy. Their strong sturdy stems support them. Their vibrant green leaves are spread and lifted, outreaching to the heavens in a stance of praise...Though they stand in circumstances less than favorable, among briers and dry brittle leaves...
They don't let what surrounds them dampen their spirit or hamper their ability to thrive in the place they have found themselves planted. Often, out of adversity comes strength and stamina that we do not know that we possess. And, if we care to look beyond, there is a fullness of beauty among the briers.

P.S. For anyone who might be coping with a family member who suffers from Alzheimer's, dementia, or memory loss later in life I highly recommend the reading resource The 36 Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People with Alzheimer Disease, Other Dementia's, and Memory Loss Later in Life (4th Edition). This was an invaluable resource in understanding and coping with the care of a loved one with a memory affected disorder that I discovered while caring for my mother-in-law.