Retirement and responsibility

This one has been bothering me since December.

Someone I know was invited to a wreath-making class, given by the friend's investment firm.

The firm has events regularly, but he had not been in the habit of going, let alone bringing a guest. Since he pays them $100,000 annually to manage his investments, he was trying to start taking advantage of it.

It took me back at the time; my total earnings in any year of my life have been less than half of that. Finding out that someone makes that amount is one thing, but that an annual expense is that amount is a little mind-boggling.

While that world is beyond me, I do know some rules of investing and things like minimum yields and such for it to be worthwhile, especially given the expense of having someone handle it for you. 

He has to have more than $2 million. I would say considerably more. 

That is actually in line with what would be recommended, especially considering that he is not that far from retirement age.

I also happen to know that he is likely to inherit significant wealth at some point. His investment strategy may be more aggressive than needed, but that is his money, and his choice.

It still bothers me. 

One reason is that I had recently read that paying a homeless person $750 a month for one year generally gets them off the streets. Things like being able to pay for housing application fees and deposit and first and last month's rent, maybe being able to update some clothing... those things work in a way that shelters don't. Maybe the key is personal autonomy.

Now, I don't know if that would hold true everywhere. Oregon specifically has such a housing shortage that it might take more money and certainly more housing. However, I can't help but think about other things that $100,000 annually could do.

It is considered very irresponsible not to plan for retirement. Paying into Social Security all one's life does not count because that's not how rich people do it, and rich people are really anxious to plunder it. That's only because of greed, but greed messes up a lot of things.

However, I also know of people who planned to travel during their retirement, but then the wife had to go with her second husband, because the first one died. Or the man was going to be very comfortable with his second wife, because really it was all his and why shouldn't he get someone younger? 

Or knees went bad. There's a lot to be said for traveling when you are younger and more energetic.

There are a lot of reasons to fear not having enough, but the "wise" strategies can't guarantee the results you want. 

If you are rich enough, eventually a stock market crash will rebound and you will end up with even more. If you are not rich enough to wait it out, it's a completely different story.

People with stock portfolios and contributing the max to their 401Ks are not as much the problem as billionaires addicted to grabbing up more of the available resources. However, what part is ours? 

What part of the damage are we contributing to?

What good can we do that we aren't doing? 

Facing up to it

Someone I know posted this week about giving away some food downtown and thinking that maybe they should always have some extra food when they go.

I have recently been through a similar process and so am totally in sympathy with that.

Someone else felt differently, though they didn't want to come right out and say it that way.

This person lives in another city, so there can be different dynamics.

They wrote about it as a safety matter for the employees of their bake shop. Their safety measures are not giving away anything or talking to the unhoused in the area. They don't want to encourage that presence.

She did mention her shop being in an upscale area.

One thing I found very interesting was that she talked about them donating to other charities that meet the homeless where they are. I can see the value in that, but it sounds like you are actually trying to get the people away from where they are to somewhere else.

You can talk about safety issues, but in general homeless people are more likely to be in danger than to be a danger. Sure, there are always exceptions, but overall it seems like there were many reasons given defensively but not accurately. It seems most likely that they don't want to have to look at the results of an economic system that grinds people down once they start falling behind.

I mean, you wouldn't want to start thinking that everything that you have may not be deserved.

I'm just going to put this here:

https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2019/september/HomelessQandA.html 

I promise that as I write about getting to the point where we have no poor among us, not every single post will be about homelessness.

It will come up a lot. It may be the most visible sign of our failures, as well as the one we put the most effort into not seeing. 

I used to hear it all the time: Don't give them money; they'll just spend it on drugs or alcohol. If you really want to help them give it to a shelter.

I also remember many years ago that the guy who was operating Baloney Joe's was a predator, that more recently Salvation Army is  terrible to gay people, and that people have picked up lice and diseases and had their medications stolen at shelters.

I don't want to be critical of shelters or the people who work in them. I know there are people doing good work and they are trying to do something that is very hard. 

I also know that sometimes it is great to have choices.

I know that in their determination not to give, some people will avoid any eye contact or acknowledgment of humanity. I know that so much dehumanization takes a toll.

This is a better approach:

https://facinghomelessness.org/

In addition, I believe that constantly looking away gets us into a state where we believe that it is not our problem, allowing us to disconnect.

Moreover, sometimes when people see problems that they can't solve, as illogical as it is they develop hostility to the people suffering from the problem.

This is not the time to look away. This is not the time to rely on the systems already in place.

We can work with those systems and check in with them. Maybe you can pick up some volunteer shifts or go to an informational meeting... there are a lot of options. 

Regardless -- and remember that this is primarily a religious blog -- if we want to be God's people we cannot turn away from the poor.

Related posts: 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2025/02/one-story.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/02/help-someone.html

Big, big picture

Before getting into working toward having "no poor among us", I want to treat something else.

I have been thinking about it because of a conversation about another family who is going through a hard time, including death and a seriously ill child. 

(Plus, when I was thinking about how many families could be described as "going through a hard time"... well, it seems to be pertinent.)

Anyway, something I was trying to say -- probably coming across as weird liberal lady -- is that it is not surprising that things are harder now or that children are taken in by it, no matter how unfair it seems.

When we are talking about why bad things happen to good people, religious people can sometimes fall into this trap of thinking it is something specific designed for them with lessons they need to learn, or even a punishment.

Without completely ruling out that there can be elements of that, my philosophy is more that we live in a world with disease and decay and with a bunch of imperfect people making choices. That brings plenty of opportunities to learn and be refined. I absolutely believe that we can get help and guidance in dealing with things. I believe that they are important. 

I also have seen that they can hurt a lot, and you can be grateful for experiences without feeling like choosing them. Thinking that everything is specifically designed feels too cruel, and I don't believe in that cruelty.

So far that is all pretty basic, and probably something that I have written before.

What was coming up in the conversation is that things are worse now. There is more cruelty and more stupidity and more spite.

Maybe this is a good time for Matthew 18:7:

Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!

We do not always think about some of those connections, like how pollution can lead to more asthma for children, or various toxins lead to more cancer. Cancer has broken many hearts. I'm not saying it can't happen without industrial pollution and additives in food, because it does. However, if we had a world where we treated the environment as precious and people as important, I think we would see a lot less cancer, and other diseases.

You can insert what you want about the rise of measles and people becoming more anti-vax and anti-mask, and it's relevant, but the point is that currently things are much harder than they need to be, and that is getting worse.

There are people losing their jobs for ridiculous reasons, then being jerked around about whether that is legal or not and they have some hope.

Even if there were actual cost savings, there is an aftermath economically and emotionally that is widespread and will have an impact.

I personally am exhausted from all the emotional upheaval, and I know I am not the only one. 

As we have less in the way of food safety or EPA oversight or any thing that protects and attempts to give people fair shots, that will increase illness and unrest and difficulty.

That will affect good people. It will affect children. 

I have faith that all of that will be healed, eventually. The wait can be hard.

I also believe that there will be a price to be paid, but that we should think about our place in that.

Right now a lot of Trump voters are suffering, but they had wanted that suffering for other people; they just didn't think it would be them.

Often the corporate havoc that is wreaked is for profit, and I know why the people profiting directly don't care, but are we too accepting of it? Well, that's just good business, right?

I wrote a letter to Amazon letting them know that I won't be using them anymore. I had already stopped using them, but I realized they should know why they were losing business. It also reinforced my resolve not to shop there, which may have been important.

There was also this guilt that I hadn't stopped using them a long time ago. Did I use them that much? Could I have saved some of the bookstores that went out of business? Not alone, for sure, but if I had been more conscientious about my shopping and tried to encourage other people to do so as well, could that have made a difference?

This may not feel like very clear communication. Here are a few points that I am getting at...

• These are hard times. Don't blame yourself for feeling that stress.
• Also do not take that stress too personally; that is more likely to hurt than help.
• But also, collectively we do have an impact that is often easy to overlook, and that is worth thinking about. 

And hang in there. 

Clarification

When I first started becoming aware of the problems of the patriarchy, there were some pangs; there can be good patriarchal things.  

Currently I am working my way through the hymnbook. My current section contains many hymns about Zion. Talk about a term that has taken a beating!

For the rest of the world, Zion comes from the name of a hill referenced in Second Samuel. There was a fort there, and was near where the temple was later built. The name ended up being used for Jerusalem, then the whole land of Israel, and now with a movement of genocidal settler colonialism that guilt over the Holocaust and their own colonialism makes it too easy to other countries to overlook.

For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, it is different. Zion means "the pure in heart". 

It was used as a name for the city Enoch built, about which we have this:

And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them. -- Mosiah 7:18

It rules out starving and slaughtering people.

The purpose of today's post is not to focus on Palestine; I've done that.

It is really more a continuation of the train of thought where if this is the end, are we ready?

It is probably pretty obvious that we are not collectively a Zion people now. 

That should still be the goal; we should be of one heart and one mind, and there should be no poor among us. If we can do that, we are ready to face and dwell with God.

It can be possible to get people to be of one mind and not have that be a good thing. There are people with whom I would never want to unite my thoughts.

There is an obvious answer here in that we need to align our wills with God's; then we will be united. There will be people who are so sure they are right.

Yes, normally I talk about the fruits of the Spirit and how you feel. Those are good things and I am not disputing them, but I want to make a point about conformity.

One thing I noticed from the philosophy I have read was that it is easy to think your way is the right way and that the problems we have come from the differences between us.

I remember that from The Republic, but even more from Utopia. If everyone wears the same clothes and eats communally and plays the same games, we will be fine. You shouldn't get too attached to your home, so people will move every few years.

Thomas More liked the monastic lifestyle, but he also liked having children. His plan for a model society stems directly from there.

Differences can be a point of contention, but they don't have to be. There can also be points of contention that have nothing to do with that.

I remember talking about the robes with one friend. She hates deciding what to wear, so she saw the appeal. 

I personally don't have a lot of variety in my dress, but I was sure I would find the monk robes overly stuffy and confining. It does not sound good to me.

I know other people who really enjoy clothes. If they were raised that way they probably wouldn't notice, but having to change would be very distressing.

Alternatively, we could all dress like we want to and not judge each other's choices.

We can prefer different games, and still be friends.

Your home can have a home theater and mine can be given over to cats and we can still work it out.

You can have pineapple on your pizza. Or anchovies. Maybe even both.

There are differences that matter. Sadly, political party counts in that because of the direction one party has taken, though there can certainly be issues with how you practice your politics.

If we all care about each other, and will work for each other's welfare, we don't need to be the same.

That seems like it should be so obvious.

And it's relatively easy compared to working on there being no poor. 

Mindset

Some of these posts may seem pessimistic, but I got some much needed perspective after my sisters met a friend for dinner.

They were talking about the sorry state of the world and finding various points of agreement. She recommended some books, some of which I agree with, some less so.

Then it got weird.

I should mention that this is not a friend from church.

She started emphasizing the importance of having camping supplies (not too unusual) and gardening. 

Gardening is great, and still in line with things we think about, though her obsession with sun chokes was a little weird.

Then she mentioned how she really wished there was an underground city to live in, and how you also need to remember to be quiet, have blackout curtains, and not cook anything too fragrant; you don't want people to know you have electricity and food.

My first thought there was that if you have electricity when others don't, either you are using a generator (some of which can be very noisy) or you switched to solar and they would see the panels.

I just don't think it's well thought out.

(Remember that you need the battery backup system if you want to be able to function off-grid.) 

It occurred to me that this was getting specific enough that with the right keyword search I could probably find her source. There it was, on a Doomsday Preppers site. There was a post about how after society collapses you have about three days, because most people have 2-3 days worth of food.

After that is when they will come to steal yours, guided by the smell of your cooking; betrayed by your use of herbs and spices.

Look, if I am going to go to the trouble of preparing, I'm not doing it so I can sit silently in the dark eating cold beans while my neighbors are hungry. 

Oddly, she still talked about the importance of building community.

Instead I am remembering a city after a bad snow storm, and power strip hanging over a fence with a sign inviting people to charge their phones... I want to be that person.

If this is the end, remember that one of the key things you get judged on is whether you gave hungry people food.

Beyond that, expecting a clear societal collapse does not show a strong understanding of how society functions.

I definitely expect supply chain issues. We got glimpses of how that worked with COVID. 

I expect more adverse weather. It would be better to not have FEMA dismantled, but it generally doesn't involve a total collapse of society even locally.

Resource scarcity becomes an issue and it can be hard to get help. Those are great reasons to have food and water storage and first aid training and backup plans for staying in contact or getting home.. those are all good things.

Part of survival is also having mental resources, where you remain able to think clearly and have hope. Doomsday prepping may not be the best option for that. 

I guess the name kind of implies that.

Her fear is largely based on this round of the Trump presidency, and I get that. Bad things are happening and more will. It's not good. 

Viewing everyone around you as an enemy out to steal the fruits of your labor is how we got here. It's not going to help.

Here is how preparation is going at our house. Although I do not have any sun chokes, it did occur to me that we don't have a lot of shelf-stable fruits. On our last shopping trip, I bought two large jars of applesauce.

Next week I am going to get some extra peanut butter.

There will be other things -- including some inventories of what we do have -- but it will be in wisdom and order.

Ideally, we will not be the only ones doing that, so encouraging your neighbors to be more prepared is a fine idea. That can mean more people sharing.

I would rather share than hide. 

One story

Last week I started typing up two other ideas before I wrote what was posted. Sometimes order is important.

I also started thinking of one story earlier in the day, for something else. After posting, I realized that it may help illustrate last week's ideas.

It started with our Christmas ham.

It was big and came out really well. I knew it would make good sandwiches, but there was too much left over for us to go through it before it went bad. I was planning on freezing some, then the thought came to me, "You should make sandwiches and take it downtown."

Okay, I could do that.

I had different thoughts, but what I ended up taking with me was eleven ham sandwiches (eight with Swiss cheese), four Mandarin oranges, and some dipping sauces that I thought could work in place of condiments.

I worried about it being awkward. I can have a tendency to be overly apologetic, like sorry they are dry or that there isn't more or all of these things, but I am trying to be less awkward, and it was fine.

I ran into one person almost immediately who took two, and then I met up with a group of three men who took the rest. 

Okay. Easy.

Then I kept going and saw a group of about fifteen, and I had nothing left.

Well, you have to think of it like that story about throwing beached starfish back into the ocean; I made a difference to that one (or four).

There was one person on that sidewalk who stuck out to me; I needed to do something for him. Fortunately, I had a $5 on me, so gave him that.

I decided that there isn't any reason that I can't take some sandwiches with me when I go downtown, and maybe not just downtown.

I have done it a few more times. It has been mostly easy. It was a little more complicated one night. I don't mean it was scary, but there wasn't this immediate pull toward specific people.

I realized that people are more wary after dark; I can't blame them for that. Also, by the end of the day they have probably already done what they were going to do. In the middle of the day, it may save them some effort. After dark, maybe not so much.

I would probably still feel guilty not taking sandwiches at night at this point, but I will figure that out the next time it comes up.

That was the one time I did not immediately see other people who could use a sandwich after I gave out my supply.

Anyway, I think this illustrates what I was trying to say last week.

This was the inspiration that I had. It's a small, not life-changing thing. It wouldn't necessarily work for everyone else. You don't figure it out all at once. 

When you get those ideas, take those seriously.

Don't be discouraged by the work that is remaining. You cannot do it all, but the more people who are doing something, the more that is done.  

It really does matter. A sandwich is one meal; no one's life has been made lastingly better. However, at least one of them seemed close to starving or had really low blood sugar or something. I was able to see him after he had eaten and he had really perked up.

Maybe it was just being seen as a human, which doesn't happen nearly enough. 

Find what you can do and then do it.

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.