If this is the end

Writing about death last week, I said it was not about the Second Coming, but there are commonalities.

One sure thing about mortality is we will die; that end is always coming.

If it happens in a global apocalypse there are some different specifics, but it does not change how we would want our souls to be.

In this current timeline, it is really easy to question how close we are to Christ's return.

It would be foolish of me to try and answer. The scriptures tell us we don't know when it will be. Looking at times when prophecies were fulfilled... yeah, it's obvious that's what it meant after it happens, but not clear in advance how it will happen.

But yes, I do believe that Christ will return, ushering in a thousand years of peace. 

Yes, it does seem like we could be pretty close.

Does that make anything different?

I would like to express my disappointment that people -- including people who claim to be Christian -- voted for Trump. I don't think a lot of people had doubts on my feelings about that, but I do want to be clear.

I have to accept that there are a lot of things that are outside of my control. That has always been true, but there are ways in which it is more obvious -- and in scarier ways -- now.

However, I also have faith. Sin and death have been conquered, and a thousand years is a lot of time for healing and for promises being fulfilled and for things being made right.

There is a balance to be struck between what is known and what is not known, and what can be controlled and what can't.

Remember, I have written many posts on emergency preparedness, and I still think about those things. There is also a limit to how much they might matter.

For example, you can do things to make your home more resilient to earthquake conditions, but I am not sure how well those things would hold up when the Cascadia Megaquake hits. 

It your house is reduced to rubble, but you have tents and sleeping bags and flashlights and food and water supplies, that could be really helpful.

If part of the reduction to rubble is a big piece striking you in the head and killing you, those supplies won't do much for you. They could still help someone else.

Also, if you reinforcing your chimney and strapping your water heater tank to the wall and bolting your house to the foundation was not enough to stand up to the Cascadia Megaquake, but was enough for some of the smaller quakes we have had, well, that's something too.

I know some of the things that I am going to want to write about, but there are three things to think about over all.

If this is the end, it's going to look like we are losing right up until then. You can't let that discourage you. It will be better than good, eventually.

Instead of meaning that your efforts don't matter, it means that everything matters. It matters because that ultimately is who you are, and whom you will be after. It matters because when things are terrible, anyone doing good is really important.

Get good at listening to your inner voice. Maybe you will get a thought to buy sleeping bags and I will get a thought to get training on Naloxone... do the things that come to you.

If you are not particularly religious, this may sound weird, I know. 

I want to affirm that why I do what I do is based on my faith and my love. 

That gets me through.

I will take questions if you want to ask. 

Facing the end

This is not about the Apocalypse, though that is coming.

This is just about death.

Yes, we are still dealing with details of my father's death and my mother's deterioration. That may influence some of my thoughts, but this comes more from something else.

In our circle of acquaintance there is someone else's mother who is dying from cancer. They are working very hard to grant her every whim.

On one level that is very understandable, but there are things about this that have not felt right. That is largely because she has been a very selfish and kind of mean person. Still, they love her, they are losing her... we are not going to tell them how to deal with it.

Last week I was reading in the April 2017 General Women's session and read "Trust in the Lord and Lean Not" by Sister Bonnie H. Cordon:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2017/04/trust-in-the-lord-and-lean-not?lang=eng 

She shared the story of another woman who faced a cancer diagnosis with a low (17%) survival rate. She found the chemo so difficult that she wanted to stop fighting, and told her husband that.

In his wisdom, my sweetheart patiently listened and then responded, ‘Well, then we need to find someone to serve.’

That sounds insensitive, and maybe even condescending, except that he was also right.

“Service,” Amy testifies, “saved my life. Where I ultimately found my strength to keep moving forward was the happiness I discovered in trying to relieve the suffering of those around me. I looked forward to our service projects with great joy and anticipation. Still to this day it seems like such a strange paradox. You would think that someone who was bald, poisoned, and fighting for [her] life was justified in thinking that ‘right now it is all about me.’ However, when I thought about myself, my situation, my suffering and pain, the world became very dark and depressing. When my focus turned to others, there was light, hope, strength, courage, and joy. I know that this is possible because of the sustaining, healing, and enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.”

As it was, she lived. I don't know that the service is why she lived, but it is why she was able to bear it. 

I believe it would also have better prepared her for death if it had come at that time.

That's not saying that there can't be a balance. If there are things that she wants to do again or people she wants to see again, of course do that. 

As it is, it sounds like her greatest pleasure is in the catering, and I am not sure that will transfer well onto the other side.

It would also be hard to change from a life of selfishness (and a little bit of meanness) in just six months, I still think any efforts to that end are a good idea.

We can all be sure that we will die. I am equally sure that will not be the end. 

I was taught long ago that the only things you carry with you are your personality, your relationships, and your intelligence. 

If those are yours to keep (maybe the memories will take a vacation before you die, but they will come back), then that is worth some effort, and preparation.

And if death is quickly stalking all of us, then it becomes more urgent.

The Decades Long Healing Plan

Just in case you have an accumulation of damage that would take decades to heal -- even though you may be well into that process -- I thought that I would document my journey in case there are tips in there that can be useful for someone else.

The frustration is that I have documented parts of it all along -- on this and on the main blog -- but searching all the links just does not appeal.

To be fair, a lot of what was documented was only partially documented; my perspective has changed and understanding has been added over time.

To recap...

The starting wounds were that I came to a father unhappy with himself in general but also at a time of grief. Even with a loving mother, she believed that proper parenting was telling other people your kids were great, but telling your kids what they needed to correct.

It was exacerbated by having communication shut down at various times, because they were busy or didn't want to bother.

That left me with a feeling that there was something lacking in me, and no one wanted to hear about my problems, so I tried to be very good and make up for it.

In school I learned that the problem with me was fat, and that no one was ever going to love me until I fixed that. If a boy pretended to be attracted to me it was a joke, and if I showed that I liked him, that was gross.

Also, I probably have ADHD and sensory issues.

The mix of things in how it happens is very important.

Yes, there will be people who will judge you right away for your body size. There are also people who can be attracted to you, and it not be a joke.

I know women who are heavier, and would have faced at least some criticism for it, but they were very validated by their fathers and they were still able to have some confidence and romantic relationships.

I want to stress that, because while there were definitely people along the way who were selfish or cruel or jealous or thoughtless, different people could have reacted differently to it. 

I took everything as my own responsibility, and also I accepted things that were very harsh against me. 

When it was revealed that I liked a boy who was also my friend, I believed we could never be friends again. I am not sure that was true now, but withdrawing seemed like the only option.

Anyway, that's the damage that I had.

I mentioned recently starting to realize that in fact it is better to admit when you are wrong, and that such a thing was possible. That happened in my early 20s, and happened by observing other people and their reactions.

Caring about other people's feelings was also an important part of that. I don't want to worry about people's opinions on me that much, but if I am causing other people to feel devalued or put down, I do care about that.

Also, if I am wrong about something, I would rather know and change it.

Learning that was important, and possibly my main growth until my early 30s.

That was when I started to believe someone could like me, was crushed terribly, and was clinically depressed for several months.

This is also when I lied to the therapist. 

One key thing about that session is that it helped me understand that some very clear memories had that clarity because they shaped me. I didn't really analyze them at that time to see that the lessons I had learned were wrong, but having the reference points still helped.

As it was, the depression only ended through prayer. I was healed of that pain through the Atonement.

I prayed because I realized that if I was still hurting that much after so long, I was not going to get better on my own. 

At the same time, I suspect that all that pain that came out -- the months of crying and gloom -- was necessary. I believe I needed to feel the emotions I had shut down so hard for so long.

Emotions are inconvenient, but they are real.

At the end of that particular phase of healing, there was an understanding that I was capable of being loved, but I still did not have a vision of how that would work and what it would look like.

While I don't know that it was directly related to healing, this next phase involved blogging, and starting on social media, and employment issues.

Expressing myself more probably did help with that belief that no one was interested in hearing about my problems. 

Starting to have money and job problems cracked at that need to constantly fix everything for everyone else, though that was a process.

It still is, in some ways.

Still, I think the next big stage in healing was that I started adopting depressed teenagers on Twitter. 

First of all, I started a lot of reading to try and understand and help them better, much of which also had insight for me. 

The other big thing is that if I wanted them to believe that happiness was possible and that they should be allowed it, how much of a hypocrite was I going to be if it was only for them but not for me?

The thing that felt big most recently was connecting the need to fix everything for everyone else to Dad not being happy with himself. Caring for others is good and a core part of my nature, but there are limits to what can be done and what is my responsibility.

That was the basic trajectory. Is it helpful?

I believe in paying attention and analyzing. Sometimes there is a sense that it will be painful, but usually not examining the pain hurts worse and over a longer time period.

I also believe in the power of prayer and the healing power of the Atonement. We don't have to do it all on our own.

We all incur damage. I would like to say that it doesn't have to define us, but my damage has been so much a part of my life, it might define me.

Fine. That definition includes the compassion and strength that I have gained, and the healing. 

Healings, rhymes with feelings

Last week's post made me think I should write something about being emotionally healthier, working out the issues that we have with loved ones before they're gone.

It's a worthy goal, but I find it very hard to say anything helpful about it. I kept thinking about different things one could try, and then found myself thinking they wouldn't work.

I believe I mentioned that my own healing regarding my father took about fifty years. Does anyone really want a 50 year timeline for healing? 

Part of my pessimism comes from reading YA and middle reader books.

Most recently, I read The Sea in Winter by Christine Day. 

Maisie loves ballet. All of her hopes and dreams are there, and all of her friends are from her ballet class.

Then a friend encourages her to try a move that she isn't ready for, she gets injured, and everything falls apart.

Her parents are very supportive. They would be willing to listen, but she doesn't want to talk to them about finding new goals and activities, because that would mean giving up. She is embarrassed to tell them that she has been shutting out the one friend, especially as she has less to share with her other friends. 

You can get pretty tired of reporting when all you can really say over and over again is that it still hurts. 

Plus sometimes the super energetic and enthusiastic younger brother that she does love is just too much.

When I initially thought about writing on this topic, I thought about the importance of being able to tell someone if they have hurt you, and them being willing to hear it. It would be important to be able to both give apologies and accept apologies.

There are people who cannot do this. They have their own trauma around it. 

If they don't do anything too terrible, that can be okay. Maybe you can live with it, and them, or maybe you need space.

My father (here he is again) could never admit he was wrong. I remember picking up from him this sense that if people see that you have made a mistake, they will never let you live it down.

That is true of some people, but it is also pretty common that if you are wrong, people are going to know. That means not admitting it is only exacerbating whatever you have going on. (I learned this on my mission, so around twenty-one and twenty-two.)

Noticing things can help, but sometimes it hurts a lot, and we shrink from the pain. 

Sometimes the solution will actually solve the pain, but we cling to the pain.

I believe I have told this story before, but I did once lie to a therapist. It was on the issue of whether I could see that I could be loved. I could not, but I knew if I responded honestly she wouldn't let it go. I did not want to have to fight the issue.

I was around thirty-one then. I did learn that I could be loved not too long after, though it still took over a decade to understand what that meant. 

I am sure there are people that can learn faster. Some have a better foundation, so don't have as far to go.

There were probably times when I was unnecessarily stubborn. That might be a family trait.

What I keep coming back to is having grace for each other, including ourselves.

People need times to be sad and grieve and to be angry. They can even need some time in denial, possibly. We can care while knowing what we can't fix, and not trying to impose impossible timelines for healing.

We can care more about others than our pride.

We can share, and we can back off. 

There are lots of things that we can do gently.

It helps if you are not in a hurry. 

Readiness, part 2

I think a big part of needing to write this is that I dropped a bombshell last week. It was in the pursuit of making a greater point (and I still believe the point was relevant) but yes, my father died. 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2025/01/readiness.html

The point of the last post was that something I had been working on for almost an entire year prepared me in a way I could not have foreseen. That we can be guided and that we should listen to that is very important to me.

We are also handling the death pretty well, so it didn't occur to me to dwell on that. However, the death of a parent can be a big deal. As we tell more people and they express more condolences, I see that I was insensitive to that potential reaction.

I guess part of today's post can be to assure you that we are neither cold hearted and terrible, nor are we in denial. There were various things that helped, and some of those may be helpful to look at.

In last week's post I did allude to this meaning he will not have to go into assisted living, which he would have hated. There are some specific fears that he had that did not come to pass. I am grateful for that.

There are some other assurances that are pretty personal, but ultimately this does seem like the best possible outcome for him, assuming that actually changing and becoming a better person in this life was off the table.

That might sound a little cold, but it comes from love.

Another thing that I think cushions the loss is that he had not really parented us since... technically the last time he disowned me was 2005. However, after the first time in 1989 and when we reconciled in 1991, there was not a lot of nurturing, and there wasn't that trust built where I could really depend on him. To the extent that losing your father can leave a hole in your life, it was left a long time ago.

That also might sound a little cold, but it's the truth. If I had not faced the truth, I would still have a lot of healing to do.

So the other thing that makes this easier for me -- and where I may be somewhat ahead of my siblings -- is that I have spent a long time on all of this baggage, and how it affected me and why it was like this.

I'm not saying that I have all of the answers, especially to what life would have been like if he had been different. The self-image that I'd had and the lens it created for how I engage with the world, however, has changed and healed.

When I say "a long time", that is literal; I was 50 when the last (at least as far as I know) part of healing clicked into place. 

That time was worth it. It makes everything better.

If I was still waiting for some kind of validation from him, or permission to be happy, this would be a lot harder.

If I were going to miss him, that would be a different way of being harder, but there would be compensations for it.

Also, I know even the most loving and caring parents make mistakes or miss things. Because of their large role in our early lives, that has a big impact.

For the best and the worst parents and all parents in between, for the things they caused or didn't prevent or didn't know about, it is so valuable to work for healing.

I might have some things to say about that.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/10/all-better.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/10/on-paternal-side.html 

Readiness

About a year ago I started picking one card out of a deck each week and letting it inspire some journal writing:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/02/2024-new-52.html 

While I knew starting out what the different suits would represent (hearts=love, clubs=growth and gardening, diamonds=money and spades=death), the numbers were more variable. It would depend on how things felt when I drew it.

Last Sunday there were only two cards left. The one I drew was the two of spades.

Two has not stood for my parents before, if for no other reason than that they have not been a unit for many years. Last week, it clearly stood for the death of my parents.

It made sense at the time. While Mom's eventual death has been hanging over me for a while, she had a fall the week before and needed to be transported. While she has clear Do Not Resuscitate orders through the POLST registry, there are situations that require decisions. I found myself talking to a doctor about how to best honor those wishes.

Usually it is a comfort to me that she made those decisions when she was able to, and I totally recommend having your parents do that. It was not a source of comfort right then.

(Fortunately the doctor was great. We ended up deciding that they would X-ray her hand but not do an MRI or CAT scan, and that seems to have been fine.)

In addition, while I have been estranged from my father for some time, I do still hear things through other relatives. He was getting more frail and likely to need more care soon. 

I had been thinking that maybe I would need to engage with him. Maybe I would have the emotional bandwidth after Mom's death, but I still wasn't looking forward to it. 

My reasons for remaining estranged were always that it would take too much out of me without doing him any good, but I had always known that things could change. 

I have written about my relationship with my father before, but I don't think I have written that I had in mind to try and finish all the daughter and trauma books (two separate reading lists, both pertinent) by Father's Day. Then if I did need to be in touch with him again, I would be as prepared as possible. 

Then I drew the two of spades. 

It was not a new thought -- I have had to think of this many times. I wrote about that, and the possibility that he might die before we reconcile, and that I could be okay with that. Not engaging with him still felt like the best thing. Without knowing the future I could only go by what seemed best.

He died Friday.

I was not expecting him to go before Mom. I have put the majority of my death preparation into her. 

My primary feeling is relief.

There are some other things that I am not going to get into here, but primarily it is that he will not have to face going into assisted living, which I believe he would have hated. 

I don't have a Father's Day deadline anymore for being ready to deal with more trauma. That is kind of a relief. 

I would have done it. If it had felt like I could help or he needed it, I would have made it work somehow, but this is easier, and I need all the breaks I can get.

I thought it would be a lot harder to adjust, but that journal session last Sunday really helped. I didn't know how important it was going to be. I had been picking cards for 51 weeks, but it had felt like a good thing to do when I started.

I write a lot about believing that we can get guidance. It may not always be obvious, but it helps.

I think some of the others sessions have been helpful, but this is definitely the most striking.

That is drawing to a close, and other things will come that will be opportunities for review and for growth and for learning what I need to know and do.

I hope you will all find things that work for you.

And if anyone is wondering, the last card is the ten of spades, which seems to indicate massive death and loss, so obviously about the incoming administration. I guess it's good I'm writing about it before the inauguration.

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/10/on-paternal-side.html  

It was for me all along

Let me preface with two things:

1. I always assume that my blogging is for helping me to clarify my own thoughts, specifically by spelling them out in a way where they make sense to someone else.
2. If something turns out to be helpful for you anyway, that's great.

That being said, the way the point of my recent thoughts has been evading me feels a little ironic.

I have written recently about the things you have to do: 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-things-you-have-to-do.html 

I have also written about counting the cost beforehand:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2024/12/counting-cost-part-2.html 

I had grasped that if you know that you don't have the resources to do something, you probably shouldn't do it.

I had grasped that there are things that you need to do even knowing that they are going to be hard. 

I had missed knowing you have to do something that is hard and trying to plan ahead for that.

That particular oversight makes sense for me.

In the past, my tendency has been to try and keep my head down and push through when things are hard. I had realized that wasn't always the right strategy recently (though I believe that was during a journal session), but hadn't really had a chance to put doing things differently into practice.

I have thought that sometimes it is better not to think about it too much.

I thought that about being my mother's full-time caregiver. I knew it was the right thing to do, so I was going to do it. At the time, I had no idea that would last four years and that it would change with her going into memory care rather than with her death.

I have also thought that it was better not knowing. If I could have foreseen how depleted it would leave me -- financially, yes, but not only financially -- I believe I would still have done it because I knew it was right, but there would have been a lot more fear and worry at the beginning.

However, what if I had been able to think about it, realize that money and respite would be issues, and had conversations about them early on?

Those discussions happened later, as big angry fights that were ultimately productive but not fun. 

It would have been hard no matter what (I think there still would have been some anger and fighting), but maybe some of it could have been alleviated by thinking it through beforehand.

I still wouldn't have known how long it would take, but maybe some resources could have been accessed sooner. 

Asking for help does end up being in there, but it is more than that. 

If I can reference one more post, since the election I have felt pulled in different directions and having a hard time deciding where to focus:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/11/art-therapy.html

That has been largely due to uncertainty about how certain things will unfold and what resources I will have.

Putting this together might be what allows me to move forward.