The One in the Middle

Does the word “middle” bring any instant thoughts to mind or stir up any feelings?   Perhaps the feeling that comes up is one of calling out to friends or family to say that you are right in the middle of a task, treating a low blood sugar, a cry, a laugh, a great movie, the middle of your sentence, making dinner and the list goes on.  Is the word middle creating positive feelings & thoughts within you or negative ones?  Sometimes the middle is of something great & other times it is a mini or major crisis.  Do we like it when we get interrupted in the middle of something?  That may depend upon our personality style & a myriad of factors that are going on at that moment in time.  What if your middle candle light goes out?  What then?

2018 has come into our home like a grizzly bear.  Like so many other people in this little corner of the world (and far beyond our corner) the flu appeared on steroids.  New Year’s day was rung in immediately with the flu in our household.  This year’s flu is one that appears to last considerably longer than ones that I remember from previous years.  My husband came down with the flu on Jan. 1^st & then 10 days later our youngest son, Alex got it.  For Alex the flu lasted over 2 weeks.  Our home seemed more like a mini hospital during the entire month of January.  Mercifully (touch wood) the rest of the family in our home did not get it yet we all certainly felt badly for my husband & for Alex.  The flu is always miserable & this year’s strain is misery on steroids. 

Hindsight is 20-20 as they say so silently developing behind the scenes was the reemergence of that newest chronic"365" illness that I had developed last Spring.  It had nicely gone into remission last summer thanks to an amazing rehab. Specialist that my doctor sent me to.  You will likely relate to those situations in life that you just have to do what you need to do for however long that takes.  For me that is coping or hanging in there when it is necessary even when it takes it toll on my body as well as my well being in every part of my life.  The perfect storm of a particularly stressful month of December followed by nursing my Dear Hearts with the flu during the whole month of January lead to a reappearance of the room spinning, nausea, almost no range of movement in my neck and down my spine, headaches off the Richter scale & a plunge to my usual enthusiastic attitude.  Add on type 1 & I am confident that during December & January, I would have been lucky to see February without my sensor.  My blood sugars went beserk going low out of nowhere & high, high, high & never knowing which way things would go from one hour to the next.  My sensor literally has saved my life over the past 2 months.  That does not mean that I did not have to chase the highs & lows & continue to be the brains behind the diabetes management.(work my guts out day & night)  And my guardian angel as always thankfully works nights because my sensor does not alarm with lows in the night which can be deadly.  I had more lows some weeks than I have ever had.  It rightfully scared me big time.  Sometimes we can be supported through times like these and other times not.  From day 1 of diagnosis with type 1, I have been fiercely independent about my diabetes management & uber responsible.  Sometimes this makes it look to other people that I have it all handled.  Being a whole person & not merely my body means though that sometimes an encouraging word, humour at times, a hug or being handed a nice cup of tea with a wink would fill me to the top.  We are each human & are surrounded by humans .  Sometimes it means that others misunderstand our “365” to the point that they either say something abrasive or worse at times we are completely left out in no man’s land to deal with our struggles.  There are times like that in my experience yet thankfully & mercifully the majority of the days someone is sent in one form or another to assure that I am not carrying the boulder of type 1 & the 3 other chronic illnesses alone.  On the days when I feel totally alone in the struggle I realize that I am never alone.  It may be silent yet love has a silent language that is beyond the support of our human family. (human family meaning all humans of the world)

 There have been countless times when a Dear Heart who is struggling with either an illness or another challenge has asked me how I deal with the days when there is that overwhelming feeling of being alone which can lead to discouragement.  I always respond with the simple truth.  The truth is that I always hang on to hope.  I hang on when I have to ask for help to hang on through my faith.  And I hold on to my faith & hope as though my” life “depends upon it because it does. 

This morning I sat down to write.  Each time before my fingers hit the keyboard, I  put on a wee bit of gentle music in the background & light some beeswax tealight candles.  Last Christmas our youngest son shopped for each of his family members at the  Christmas shop that his school had set up.  He was so excited to choose something special for each person all by himself.  He was bursting once he purchased the gifts & insisted that everyone needed to open up the gifts from him immediately.  It was 2 weeks before  Christmas.  Of course we opened them because it mattered to him.  What matters to our loved ones matters.  My gift is spectacular & precious to me because he chose it with such love.  I opened it & it is a candle holder that holds 3 tealights and on the outside of the holder are the words, “peace be with you.”  Yes please.  Peace is a gift that we can give to one another if we allow ourselves to be a vessel of peace I passionately believe.  The 3 candles are meant to represent “faith, hope and love.”  When I lit those 3 candles this morning I walked away & when I returned I noticed that the hope candle had gone out.  Immediately I relit it.  And I thought to myself, “we always need to keep our hope lights lit.”  Do we get help with keeping the hope light lit?  Sometimes we do get help from our human family (human family meaning humans of the entire world).  Sometimes unfortunately it does not happen.  Do we ever have to keep it lit by ourselves?  We each will answer that question for ourselves.  I am a child of God.   When I pray and ask God to light my hope light for me through his mercy & love He always does.  He lights my hope light so that I know that yes many days are difficult but I am not alone.  And He gives me His mother each day to carry the burdens and love me too.  So yes, the light in the middle is the hope light & yes on the good days it burns brightly & on the bad days it somehow no thanks to me burns even more brilliantly.

My heart’s hope for you is that you know that you are loved every moment of every day.  Keep your hope light burning always.

Peace be with you.

Saundie

Always be gentle with yourself.  On a bright note, my rehab. Treatments have begun again so hopefully the world will stop spinning at such a velocity.  Also, on a positive note because I have had to slow down during February I have read more enriching books this month than I read all of last year.  Don’t ever let yourself lose hope.  Never doubt that you deserve love & are loved.  The next story sharing will be on April 23^rd.  Keep your hope.