A Haven for Vee

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans. ~ John Lennon


On the 24th, I was busily getting the house ready for my sister and her beloved and her daughters to enjoy for Christmas Eve. I was bowing out as gracefully as possible and planning to spend the afternoon and evening quietly with my parents and my grandmother. Those were my plans. Of course, everyone else in the family also had his or her own plans.

When I arrived at my parents' home, my mother was off doing some last minute shopping. My grandmother was shuffling about as she does when she's worried, but she said nothing other than to acknowledge my greeting and to nod toward the den.

So I turned and went there to find my father who was sitting in his usual chair. I think I noticed right away that something was wrong. I asked him how he was feeling and he said, "lsdfhiognd." "Dad, are you all right? What did you say?" Again the strange babbling. Then I noticed that the right side of his face was definitely different...sagging... and his right eye was closed. I took the glass of milk that he was now offering me..."you smdinkg tfris."

Thankfully, my mother was pulling into the drive and I went out to the dooryard to say, "Listen, I don't want to worry you, but Dad is not well; I'm afraid that he's having a stroke; we're calling 9-1-1."

My mother hustled as quickly as she could (she has severe rheumatoid arthritis) to check on him and realized that something was very amiss. The phone call was made, a second phone call to my sister who, as a nurse, is always consulted early and often. The ambulance arrived in fifteen minutes and thus began our new plans...getting my dad to the hospital because now he had become hostile and belligerent and was refusing to go. My mother was pleading, the medical personnel were urging, I was staying out of it since I was the one being blamed for the call for help. Finally, my sister called to tell him, "Behave yourself and allow people to help you." After that things went a little better. My dad listens to my sister.

Eventually, the ambulance pulled away carrying my dad on a stretcher in the back and my mother riding along in the front. I was to follow as soon as someone showed up to stay with my grandmother who was now telling me that my father had been mumbling incoherently all the time that my mom was at the store.

Several calls to my daughter and my nieces had them all there within a half an hour to stay with their great-grandmother...very different plans than they had had, of course.

An Emergency Room Christmas Eve is very much different from those warm, fuzzy ones spoken of in my last post's quotes. Cold, sterile cubicles with needles, x-rays, cat scans, urine samples, etc. One becomes acutely aware of the discomforts and indignities of being human. One watches one's own loved one struggle and suffer and one sees the suffering of others. The worst was a snowboarding accident...poor young man without much of a face left.

Back to my dad...yes, it was determined that he'd had a TIA or mini-stroke; he'd have to be admitted; he'd have to be carefully monitored for the next three days because they are the most critical for having another event. Yes, there was evidence of an earlier stroke...yes, it may have been the cause of all the imbalance and dizziness he's been experiencing since summer. (Don't get me started on the doctors involved in this saga prior to this event.)

So Christmas limped along yesterday. Mother was with my dad for several hours in the morning while I made the preparations at her house. My sister was with him in the afternoon for an extended time. We all had a good look at what Christmas is like without two very special people...the anchors of the family; we didn't like it.

This event has reminded me of a story my friend told me several years ago. During that Christmas season, her friend Denise's mother was diagnosed with a terminal, malignant brain tumor. It was a very fast cancer and the woman was not expected to live more than a month. One day, after a particularly grueling week, my friend was expressing her frustration over Denise's circumstances, what a toll it had taken on the family, and how unfair that it was all happening during Christmas. Her companion nodded and said, "But I thought that this was why He came."

Indeed. This is the reason why He came...to walk with us when we are in difficult times...even through the valley of the shadow. Even when Christmas Eve is spent in an ER, when Christmas Day feels absurd, when we worry that a parent may be in more trouble than we know, when we don't feel adequate, when we are worried about whatever-it-is, when we struggle with our flaws and failings, when we're not sure which path to take...this is why He came.