Tag: dying

April 25, 2022 – Readiness vs. Preparedness

April 25, 2022 /

Sorry, but it is going dark again. I will try to keep it high level for privacy reasons. We had a huge family blow-out with my mother-in-law last week. We were trying to convince her that she needed to start the power of attorney process and try to engage hospice. My opinion is that we are within weeks of needing to invoke power of attorney and hospice is needed now. She is no longer able to walk, she is eating very little and is going back and forth with her faculties. In fact, we had to call 911 the other night because my wife thought that she had a stroke.

The next day, when we had the discussion she was firmly obstinate and declared that she was not ready to die and therefore formalize power of attorney. That is where the genesis of this topic came from. In most people’s mind, the terms are synonymous, including mine until that moment. They can mean the same thing but they are distinctly not.

I am reading between the lines in the interaction but here is the reality. I don’t think that she is ever going to be ready to die. She insists that there are good days and bad days, which is true. But, every good day is less good than the last one. In her mind, she is still defiant that she is going to beat this even though all of the doctor’s opinions are otherwise.

Not being ready has led to not being prepared. You can be ready and not prepared and you can be prepared and not ready. You can also be ready and prepared and the opposite, you get the point. To me, preparedness has an ‘if’ component to it whereas ready has a ‘when’ component. When those two circles merge you have the if and when.

Let’s say that you are preparedness minded and you are all stocked up for a hurricane. You have procedures in place for this scenario and that variation. However, if the hurricane strikes while you are on a business trip, you are not ready for it. You are not there to execute those procedures and direct your family and turn on the generator, etc. By the same token, you could be home and prepared and the hurricane misses you so you don’t lose power, it wasn’t necessary. If you happen to be home and not prepared, you know the hurricane is coming so it is too late to do anything about it. You are ready but not prepared.

What other topics can we relate? How about life insurance? I have some but it doesn’t mean I am ready to die, it means that I am prepared in case I do. You have a will, you have other legal documents that just in case I get into a car accident tonight, I have made steps to mitigate the other problems that go on with the situation.

The theory of life insurance is that it replaces income in the event of a loss. As we age beyond our income earning years, life insurance is only there to protect assets for estate planning. So, the if is dying while you are making money and you have a family or spouse that needs it. But, even that tapers off eventually unless your spouse can manage the cash flow without you and you invest the life insurance.

I think the best corollary that most people can relate to is parenthood. So many people of my generation (X) opted to wait to get married or at least waited to have children. I know that we did. Some advice that we got was that you can really never be ready for your first child. It is hard to imagine being a parent when you have no context of what it is really like. Despite all of that, you can be prepared in terms of equipment, training, plans and education. Just because you don’t know if you are ready, that baby is coming and you take it day by day. What you don’t know, you make up and keep trying to learn and get better. This is really all you can do.

I like to think that I have possibly learned something about this interaction. Who really knows what we will be like when we get to this point. I can only imagine what I would feel like if I felt like I wanted to give more and needed more time. Unfortunately, all of this time is really wasting the remaining days. I am expecting this to be a clusterf*ck by the time it is over.

End Your Programming Routine: I suppose ultimately where I am at is that readiness has nothing to do with this situation, it is inevitable. All fighting does is make it more difficult to do the right thing at the right time. Ideally, you would have both states, but if you are going to opt for one, pick preparedness over readiness.

March 29, 2022 – The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back

March 29, 2022 /

I tried to do some research on the origin of the phrase and I couldn’t really suss out the meaning. I was trying to derive the significance of the Camel to the phrase. I did find out that this idiom has a long history which dates back to the 1700s and it has several variations from straw to feather and camel to donkey. It would appear that this is indicating a load bearing animal and it is one item too much.

Originally, I thought that I was going to title this the ‘fall that broke the camel’s wrist’ as a play on words for reasons that will become obvious later in this post. I was thinking that the camel was a stubborn animal and that it was more than just a plain, gruesome act. But it doesn’t seem so.

To say the least, this has been a difficult time since my father-in-law has died. I have written about this a little bit and for obvious reasons, not explicitly. To state it bluntly, my mother-in-law is dying, not capable of caring for herself and refusing to accept the situation. This has caused a strained relationship with her children and has driven wedges between my own marriage.

This is just a small flavor but she paid a down payment on a puppy. The children all agreed that this is a bad idea. My wife even spoke to the owner of the puppy not to sell the dog to a person that is living in a travel trailer and cannot walk more than a few yards un-assisted. I am sure we can all use our heads on what the possible problems are here. This lead to a huge blow-up where my wife blocked her mom and I had to become the middleman in constant conversation for two weeks. The words were nasty and hurtful.

That situation came to an end two weekends ago. They were all supposed to stay in a beach house for a week. My wife wanted nothing to do with her. My sister-in-law and her family didn’t want anything to do with her. I was supposed to drive my mother-in-law to the beach house but I couldn’t get ahold of her. A few hours later, I got a call that she had fallen and possibly broke her wrist. She was in the ER, already at the coast.

I told my wife and she unblocked her to communicate in the situation. They ended up spending the planned four days at the beach but that wasn’t easy either. I had multiple phone calls about how my mother-in-law was behaving and I don’t have words. I prayed.

I am not claiming to have a command of the best Christian behavior. Quite frankly, I would just as soon not have anything to do with her either. It would make my life a lot easier. But, that is not the way of Jesus. I certainly didn’t want to be the middleman or even try to get deeper into the situation. But, this is a time of need and our my beliefs would tell me to forgive the sinner.

I think that the broken wrist has made a thaw in the relationship. For one thing, we moved her into our apartment last weekend. The travel trailer is getting moved before the first and it will likely be her last night there. I haven’t had a direct conversation specifically, but I think it was a wakeup call that today is the best day that there will be.

Fifteen years ago, before podcasts I used to listen to Dave Ramsey a lot. One of his recommended books was Boudaries. I never got around to reading this book but I maybe it is not too late. I think we could all use some help in this situation.

End Your Programming Routine: From my observation, this is the reverse of raising a teen. They are trying to resolve the desire to become more grown-up and yet not quite ready. This situation is trying to get the person to realize that they cannot do the things they did even a year ago. It is hard and we have no legal standing to stop it in most cases. Keep all of us in your prayers.