Accepting and Acknowledging....

In the past week I have been mulling over a concept.

BALANCE.

Definition from American Heritage online
verb-To bring into or maintain in a state of equilibrium.

For a control freak such as myself, this is a topic of persistence. I find it permeates in my parenting, my personal world, and general rationalization that often floats in my brain.

Currently it can applied to finding the perfect balance for a person (specifically my Grammy) after having a life altering accident. For me, for this situation....it all balances on the idea of integrity. This is a lady that has had 80 years of strong independent living. She was influenced by the financially critical years of The Great Depression. She graduated at 16 from high school. Having grown up in Maine, she worked her way out to the west coast, stopping at various intervals for work and school.

Without sounding like a eulogy (because while that is something that could be needed at some point in the near future, we are NOT there yet....), my point is to indicate what shaped her as she grew into the person I know.

After falling in November, she has still not left the hospital. Well, she has, but has been in the rehab facility. Either way, it's not home. We as a family have been rushing to arrange matters because Grammy is being released from her facility due to little progress in her physical therapy. Truth be told, I don't believe that anyone believes she will ever be independently mobile. It would be nice...

So now, we are having to recognize that an era is ending and a new reality will have to be created. My mom and aunts have been scrambling to make it happen. I have helped whenever possible. The new reality, will be that Grammy is being moved to my Aunt and Uncle's house. She will require 24 hour care, while being mostly in bed....the balance that I keep struggling with has to do with the extreme change of lifestyle for my Grammy. There is no grace involved. Kinda like a clumsy attempt at dancing (like I do....).

Before the fall, she was out and about on her own-in complete charge of her own care, of her own home and life business, make thoughtful choices about the direction she wanted to go-short term and long term. Now, there is no weekly bridge game, no knitting (she can't remember the patterns she has ALWAYS knitted), no painting, no walking the 2 blocks to Traders for her 2 Buck Chuck and other grocery miracles. Now, she relies on someone for everything-personal care, a glass of water, remembering things.

Her house will be empty for a while, and probably boxed up and sold. Her castle. She left in an ambulance thinking she would be home after her leg healed. She hasn't been back in 3 months. It is doubtful she will again. I walk in there and look around-absorbing it all. Thinking of her motives in decor, of the photos she has all over, and why those are the ones she opted to have out. I look at her food in the cabinets, thinking of her plans to make a meal. Material items being what they are....I think they still have merit. They represent as person, a life, memories.

How do you re-write the reality, and make it balanced to allow for the new needs, but to preserve the integrity of the person. Perhaps I am over thinking this-as Lizzie often points out. But to me it is imperative to keep Grammy's life enriched, to enable her to maintain as much as possible, while allowing that she is not in any shape or form in the same place as 3 months ago. My aunt and uncle and cousins will be re-writing their own realities. How do they balance what they have in place with this new wrinkle?

I imagine, more than anything for Grammy-it is huge just to be released from the institutional world. She is so excited to be leaving. Who knows how long this plan will function, will be in action. Who knows how much my Grammy will maintain for herself, and for how much longer.

I do know I am sad-sad that the stupid simplicity of a broken leg has left her with the complete loss of so much. I know that we have no control over life and death-the manner in which those occur. I am having trouble acknowledging the truth. I often wonder if (and slam me if you wish) coming back to our world after being so critical in ICU, was worth it for her. Integrity-it doesn't come from a Rehab facility....that is deterioration. That is just crossing off the minutes inside of a small 4 walled space, the smells, the noises, the pure and total reliance on a staff that may or may not actually care. It's just wrong. There is no balance in that place.

Ok, I could probably take this long post to another few hundred words, and so I will stop here.