Words

It's a New Year!  2011 started quietly for us.  Well, as quietly as life in Memorial Southwest Hospital can be.  My 92 year-old Dad fell and broke his left femur on December 28th, and was recovering from surgery to repair the break with a rod and pins.



Here's Dad looking really good in the pre-op waiting area.

By January 1st he was in a great deal of pain, not from his leg, but from his impacted digestive system.  Practically constant griping pain gripped his belly; so between Dad's beeping pulse oxymeter, personal television, and his genuine gasps and groans and pleas for the pain to go away, his room was anything but quiet.  Poor sweet suffering man.
One time as I sat next to his bed, his struggle with the pain overwhelmed him to the point that he exclaimed, "Damn it!"  That would be the first time in my life I ever heard a curse word on his lips.  Immediately he apologized for cursing.  In just a little bit, Dad was unsettled and kind of "fussy."  I don't know how else to describe it--not child-like, but fussy, which is more than understandable for the pain he was experiencing.  He stopped practically in mid-sentence and looked up to say, "I don't know why I'm being so contrary."  At that moment, I caught a glimpse of his mother, my Grandmother Beatty, addressing one of her children and chiding that little one for being contrary.  I'm sure that's all she had to say in order to restore order.  That's all Dad needed to say to calm himself down, even in a place of pain.

Whether used to curse or bless, words carry great power.  God has been teaching me about the power of my words lately.  Now that Dad has moved into a residential rehabilitation facility, I'm spending mornings with him and the staff of the facility as well.  Just a few days after his arrival there, he pressed the call button for someone to come help him.  We waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.  After nearly an hour, I pulled on my big girl panties and left his room to find help or know the reason why not!  When Dad's nurse appeared, we walked to his room while I told her he had been waiting almost an hour.  I'm sure she could feel my dissatisfaction, even though the actual words I said were an unvarnished statement of fact.  She turned to me and said very sternly, "M'am!"  Her one word broke loose all the frustration and fear of the past 10 days, and out they all tumbled in tears down my hot cheeks.  I was hurting, and my words hurt.  She was busy, overloaded, and dealing with an emergency unknown to me.  I apologized to her, and with our words and a hug we were able to mend the rift.

Words are powerful enough to define a situation as well.  Or re-define, as the case may be.  Hyperbole has a way of escalating the way one views a situation.  But, really, which comes first . . .?  Does the situation mandate the verbiage, or does the word choice escalate the issue?  I heard someone describe her employment as "the job from hell."  I heard another say that waiting [for the next daily event] was "a nightmare."  I had to ask for clarification on that one.  How is being in a well-lit room with adequate ventilation, comfortable seating, ice water, coffee, chocolate, and a number of diversions including a tv remote in hand "a nightmare?"  Cataclysmic words like "horrible" and "disaster" are better left to serve situations like floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, unexpected fatal accidents; not so much a time when it took three attempts to reach someone by phone.

Ughh.  Here I am, writing words that express my opinion and criticize the words of others . . .
God is also showing me how important it is to hold my tongue.  "Be quick to listen and slow to speak."  Oh, these are lessons I need to learn so much!!

God, help me to be aware of the power of words to bless, not curse.  Help me to use words that heal, encourgage, and speak the truth of a situation.  And I pray, Lord God, that the names of people--especially those I love--are safe in my mouth.  WORDS are an issue of my heart, and not my vocal cords.

 

I Will Make Known

I will remember the deeds of the LORD;

yes, I will remember Your miracles of long ago.

I will meditate on all Your works and consider all Your mighty deeds.

Psalm 77:11-12

Linda Dillow, in her 4-week Bible Study entitled A Deeper Kind of Calm, suggests that it is important to one's spiritual health to remember. Dwelling on God's works and wonders in both world history and personal history is an intentional choice. It's a choice to obey God's repeated command--do not forget . . . remember . . .

So, I choose to begin an "I Remember" list.

Thank You, Father, for this past weekend. Steve & I were able to stay in Houston with my Dad, and You gave us so many reasons to praise You. Today, I 'will make known Your wonders.'

At 91+, Dad is bright and mobile. He works the newspaper's puzzle page every morning--usually by 7 AM! That means he uses his walker to go outside to get the paper, and uses Google to find clues/answers that stump him. This activity and all the daily life he lives are remarkably back-to-normal less than a month after a fall in which he broke both his left foot and his right collar bone. Now that's a God Thing for sure.

I was involved in a subtle tug-of-war with my Dad this weekend. He loves his crossword puzzles like a dog loves a bone. And I enjoy working crossword puzzles too. I was definitely sure that the newspaper puzzle page along with the affixing clipboard and pink mechanical pencil were all off limits. So I dug in the bottom of a basket to find an old crossword puzzle book and began to work. Setting my puzzle down briefly to start another load of laundry, I didn't realize it was up for grabs. So Dad found it, picked it up, and was working on it with great relish the next time I passed through the room with folded towels. I'd lost my bone!

Okay, so I rummaged through the basket again, found yet another untouched puzzle book, and settled in to work the Across and Down clues. This time I took it with me to my bedroom! But Sunday morning when I got up and greeted Dad, he didn't have his clipboard, pencil, puzzle page, little electronic Wordmaster, or either one of his two Crossword puzzle dictionaries in front of him. "I don't do the Sunday puzzle. See--it's too big to fit on my clipboard. I never do the Sunday puzzle," he said. "Okay," I thought, "everyone needs a little Sabbath rest. This must be Dad's day off."

In a minute or so I asked permission to use the clipboard, and Dad said that was fine. I was able to fold the Sunday puzzle in such a way that the whole thing, clues and all, fit on the securing surface of brown chipboard. And I set it on the kitchen counter while preparing Dad's breakfast. Half Cheerios and half Apple Cinnamon Cheerios poured on top of one-half sliced banana and topped with 2 chopped cooked prunes; one slice cinnamon bread buttered and spread with cream cheese, toasted--or should I say warmed--on #3 of the toaster oven; coffee--set up the afternoon before--freshly brewed and poured into the cup (with spoon in it) sitting directly to the left of the pot on the small black rubber square, with sugar.

While the details of the breakfast unfolded, Dad stood at the counter, and with his subtle "Let's see once . . .," began to work. "One Across is 'BEADS' . . . 'Mardi Gras accessories,' and One Down 'Volkswagen type' would be 'BUG.'" After breakfast, he again stood over the puzzle and we worked together on a few clues. I even asked out loud if he wanted to work the puzzle with me, and he thought that was a great idea. "Your Three Across has to be 'SIRE' so my One Down can't be 'BUG,'" he mused. With my suggestion that BUG become BUS, which is definitely a Volkswagen type, we were actually collaborating.

In a few minutes, he took the clipboard with our prized bone attached, down the hall on the seat of his walker. "I need to Google a couple of these," he said as he sailed past.

In about thirty minutes, he emerged from his little office beaming, handed me the clipboard, and announced, "I finished the puzzle!" I was shocked. "Wow, Dad, how did you work it that fast?!" In his best calm, meek voice, he explained, "The LA Times website has the completed puzzle, and I just looked it up and filled it in!" He was so proud of it that I could only be slightly miffed. "You fink!" I said with a smile and a hug. Good job, Dad.

The point is, this dear man--who, Lord willing, will be 92 in three months--is vital of mind and body. Sure, he needs help with "activities of daily living." Grooming and dressing, complete with compression hose are a two-man chore each morning. Though laundry, driving, shopping, and cooking are Alma's jobs, Dad steps up as much as his arthritic hands and hips allow. He empties the dishwasher, collects the mail, pays the bills and checks online for balanced bank account totals, plays board games with visiting grandchildren, programs his taped television shows, Skypes his great grand daughters in Brussels, and loves his wife and family with teary blue eyes.

And he wins 3-0 at Tug-of-War too. Praise God!