Dark Clouds and Silver Linings
January 2024 has been one of the most challenging times for me and my family, in many ways. Failing health for my Mother-in-law (MIL), a tragedy in my brother’s family, a scary health event for my father, and a harrowing car event were some of the circumstances that happened this month. I don’t know how I could have handled everything if I didn’t have Jesus. And through these awful events, God reminds me of His goodness, His perfect timing and His mercies to me.
My MIL has been in declining health for a while. She just turned 95 years old, and her heart and lungs are failing. We just started hospice for her. It’s great that there are great supportive medical services for her but initiating hospice signaled to our family that we need to think about her health in palliative care terms, not ones for treatment. That is a hard transition mentally. Practically, it also means making a lot of adjustments to the house which we live in. We need a ramp to put outside our house to make it wheelchair accessible because she has extreme difficulty in going up-and-down the steps. We are also putting hospital beds on the first floor and renovating the downstairs bathroom, so we could bathe her downstairs. The bathroom renovations haven’t started yet, but she has expressed in no uncertain terms that she doesn’t want these renovations. I’m nervous that the construction will be very unsettling for her.
Meanwhile, in my own family, my brother’s oldest son, Justin, suddenly and unexpectedly passed away at the age of 36. He was the first born of my brother’s family, the first grandchild on my side of the family. He was handsome, charming, and we are devastated by his death. We had the funeral services last weekend and something happened to make a horrible situation even worse.
I picked up my parents at their house to attend the wake. The home health aide remarked to me, as I helped my parents into the car, that my father must be stressed out because he was complaining of dizziness. I asked my father if he felt ok, and he waved me off and said he was fine. We attended the wake and my sister dropped them off at home, because my mom wanted to leave.
Christian, my son, was supposed to fly in from Michigan to attend the wake, but the airline canceled the flight so he couldn’t come. I was originally going to go home to Poughkeepsie, with Christian after the wake, and come back to Long Island for the funeral, the next day. Because Christian was not coming, I decided to sleep over at my parents' house and save myself from driving 2 hours, back and forth.
As soon as I passed my parents’ house, I knew something didn’t feel right. It was dark but the garage door was wide open. When I went inside the house, my Dad immediately said that something didn’t feel right. He felt dizzy and said his left arm felt funny. My daughter, Victoria, is a medical doctor so I called her right away and she told me to take him immediately to the emergency room.
It was a surreal experience. While my Dad was in the ER, I was texting and calling my brother and sister, who were at the wake for my nephew. I was thinking to myself how unfortunate and terrible it was, that both things were happening at the same time.
In hindsight however, there are a lot of things that I’m thankful for in this incident. First of all, going to my parents’ house that night was totally unplanned. If I had gone home, I would not have been able to see them until the following day, and who knows what could have happened? Secondly, the hospital was only 7 minutes away from my parents’ house. And although the emergency room was packed that night, my Dad was seen right away and immediately taken for a CAT scan, and a neurologist saw him within 30 minutes of going to the ER. And most importantly, although my Dad did have a stroke, it was a very light one. He had slight slurring in his speech, slight heaviness in his left foot, a little droop in his left mouth. But all in all, he escaped serious consequences from the stroke.
Although the events and circumstances this month were very hard in many ways, I felt buoyed up by God’s hands. “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress; My God in Him I will trust.’... For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.” Psalms 91:1,11.