Mama Update: (Day 59) Anxiety, Grief, Hope

Feb 7, 2023 (day 59 of recovery & rehab from a stroke) update for Bonnie Spencer Kitchens.

Anxiety, Grief, Hope

Anxiety:

Tomorrow. Tomorrow Wed Feb 8, my mom will be discharged from Shepherd Center. She’s coming home. (Photo attached is from her graduation ceremony today. Jay photog cred.)

This is good news for her. I know she’s ready to come home. This is good news for Wayne. He’s been sleeping in a makeshift recliner bed in her room for weeks now. I know his back will be grateful to be in its own bed.

But if I’m honest, this creates a bit of anxiety.

At Shepherd Center she’s been getting three meals a day, great nursing care, wide doorways and hallways to traverse, a button to call for immediate help, round-the-clock monitoring, and the best therapy on the planet (speech, occupational, physical, recreational, psychological, etc.) But home creates new obstacles and challenges. Now don’t get me wrong, Wayne is gonna be the best husband you’ve ever seen, amazing care-giver, and the whole works. He’s the man!!! But we all know it’ll be different. More independence. Less help. It’s a bit scary. I know we’ll get through it. But it doesn’t come easy. And there’s a bit of anxiousness surrounding the welcome home party.

Grief:

Grief is a monster. It pops up and surprises you when you’re least expecting it. We can grieve all sorts of things. Yes, we can, and have, grieved the loss of life with our friends very recently.

Jay, like many of you, lost a dear friend gone way too soon. A loss that’s sent shockwaves through our community and especially through his tribe. And just a few days ago, I attended a virtual funeral for one of my good buddy’s one-day old daughter. A one-day old, y’all, cmon?!? A devastating blow for my dear friend. And a heartbreaking loss on what was supposed to be a day of joy and new beginnings. We’ve grieved with our friends.

And while our grief PALES in comparison to our friends’, we are also grieving the loss of normal. We are entering a new normal with my mom. Please don’t hear me complaining or griping; I’m ecstatic that my mother is still with us. I can hug her. I can tell her, “I love you.” I can play UNO with her. But I’ve been grieving some of what seems to be lost. She still isn’t able to walk or use the right side of her body. She isn’t able to communicate verbally or consistently give thumb’s up or thumb’s down for yes and no. And she isn’t independent in many ways.

BUT listen, she’s come a LOONNNGGG WAY from where she was. And we are grateful. Very grateful. But still I grieve what has been lost.

Hope:

I speak all of the above as a current reality. But not a final reality. Here’s where hope comes in and wrestles with my grief and my often minimal expectations.

Hope is not a monster.

Hope is a dragon-slayer.

Hope is a fighter.

Hope keeps me looking to the future, peeking over the horizon, and trusting that whether in this life or the next, things will be better.

In the context of our suffering, the Apostle Paul states it this way,

“…but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3b-5 NRSV)

Suffering produces endurance.

Endurance produces character.

Character produces hope.

Hope does not disappoint.

Hope. Does. Not. Disappoint.

If we hope to win the lottery we will be disappointed three hundred million times to one.

If we hope it doesn’t rain this weekend we will be disappointed nearly every weekend in the bi-polar southern winter.

But if our hope is in something sure, such as God’s love displayed for us in Christ Jesus, then we will never be disappointed. For this world is not our home. We are here for only a moment, and then an eternity elsewhere. If you would like to know more about that real hope, I’d love to talk.

I believe there is hope for my mama, now and in eternity.

I believe there is hope for my grieving friends.

I believe there is hope for our nation and our leaders.

I believe there is hope for our community and it’s future.

I believe there is hope for the next generation.

And I believe there is hope for whatever you are going through.

Yes, we will be anxious.

Yes, we will grieve.

But hope does not disappoint.

We all want joy, peace, and hope.

So, I’ll end this with a prayer for you, and for me, as we struggle through our anxiety and grief:

“May the God of HOPE fill you with all JOY and PEACE in believing, so that you may abound in HOPE by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13 NRSV)

Amen.