Beauty for Ashes
In more than two decades of marriage, we have cared for 6 of our elders together, accompanying 5 of them on the last leg of their earthly journeys, through multiple illnesses, hospital stays and ultimately, palliative care at home. This was not something we had planned on doing and I certainly had absolutely no skills to do any of it when we began. I have joked with my husband that if I knew before marrying him, that we would give so much of our lives to our elders, I probably wouldn’t have married him. He knows I was not really joking 😉 I have also not cared for 3 other elders because I was too young/too indifferent/too overwhelmed with caregiving when the time came for them. And so I write this post, not with pride, but with gratitude for this ongoing journey. The gratitude comes with much retrospect because in the thick of things, I had no time to reflect, only enough time to respond the best I could. And in retrospect, I can see so clearly the beauty from the ashes of our