A Thief in the night

I've just kind of been wandering around tonight looking for a place I felt like I belonged. I posted for a while on Patientslikeme.com. This use to be such a quiet retreat for me and now the threads are huge and very complicated.....I read and reread to be sure I understand before I say anything. Nothing like the close little group from earlier times. I would say that my mothers heart attack is just setting in. Last Thursday morning she started having mild heart attacks and now a week later, she has five stints in one artery and seems to be fine though a little weak. In one fatal swoop I became "The caregiver" and everything that goes along with it. I was just learning to fly and got my wings clipped. God gave me this new freedom and then took it away....or did he? Could it be he is making me work harder for a greater reward. I can always come up with an excuse to not do something I deem boring. Yet if I have a passion, nothing is too big. There are so many things that seem to need to be done and so little time to get them done. Winter is fast approaching and as I look back at how my life has changed in the past year, I can only wonder what lies ahead. I once was a proud farmer with my yard just neat as a pin. Every flower bloomed in it's own place and my garden was a sight to behold. I grew vegetables by the bushels and canned for everyone. I raised and tended an assortment of animals and loved it. I cared for many grandkids on a continual bases and the week was never long enough between their departure on Sunday and arrival on Thursday or Friday to get everything all picked up again yet I waited at the door with open arms for their arrival. Nothing was too heavy to lift or job to dirty to tackle......I worked like a man and tended my flock with no questions ask. I cannot look back at that life and not mourn it's passing. It was a good life, full and gratifying. I keep hearing my son saying, "I just want my old mom back." She no longer lives here and won't be back. It was a simple and beautiful life and it furnished me so many happy memories but tonight I realize just how much this disease called Parkinson's has robbed me. It snuck in during the night like a very unwanted quest and stole my most valued possessions and left me standing in the middle of a huge field turning in disbelief. How could it happen so fast and with no warning. Why was I not able to see it coming and stop it. These are modern times. This should not be happening. I should be able to pray and his is gone and I should know that it will never come again to any one in my family.....yet there is no cure for this disease....It has robbed me and and violated my space and will never be punished for it in my time. I will never have the gratification of saying, "It's gone and everything will go back to the way it was." So many things are just not possible anymore and it's so hard to find those happy, sunshine filled parts of my like to bask in. And then as I cannot feel any more pain at the passing of my life, I remember my friend Tom and that I had sent him a poem last night and from my favorite book that was laying right here beside me asking to be read once again........

THE PRIVILEDGE OF LIVING Thank God for the privilege of living, The privilege of breathing the air The privilege of being alive in the midst of such beauty everywhere! Thank the good Lord for his mercy In giving me eyes to see, A mind to learn, and a voice to speak And a faith in Eternity. Thank God for the privilege of living... For sharing His earth and His sky.... That a gift so rare as the gift of life Is given to such as I.