Lay awake unable to sleep.  Mind buffeted by every passing thought, swept into every dead end, shoved down listless paths of repetition, distracted by blown flotsam.  It was then I realized I had no center.

Had recently read a book, not a very good book, Tuvalu and the only reason the main character was memorable was because he had no center.  He bounced from one scenario to another showing little more than a passing interest in his own life.  It was a somewhat grim and unsatisfying book as he had learned nothing by the end but would continue to meander through the days with about as much sinew as cooked spaghetti.

Which is exactly how I felt.  Didn't sell the Yeti yesterday although I was certain, for the second time, it was sold.  No, he said, the 4 wheel drive doesn't work.  Took it out on flat grass and the wheels didn't turn where they were supposed to.  Not sure how that's supposed to work but took his word for it.  He doesn't want the car?  He doesn't want the car.

But can I let it go?  Took Mikaela to Dallis Park so she could have a run and I could have a walk.  Had met this man twice, took the car to a mechanic for a pre purchase check (2 and a half hours),  sent him a photo  of the recent service, checked the oil for him, talked on the phone, texted back and forth and then yesterday he wanted to show his partner.  Sold I thought.  Not sold I found.  Another squirrel on the treadmill to replace the ones named Cam and Anthony. 

Drifting.  I do my chores, try and practice guitar, do yoga  and then it's time to feed horses and go see Richard.  Home after visit to walk dog then arvo chores and dinner.  But am not painting or writing.  Living on the surface.  No ooomph.  No spirit.  No spiritual. 

Empty and sad.

Maybe cut myself some slack?  Still mourning?  Each time I leave Heritage I am relieved to escape.  Richard wants to come home, says he's coming home, asks to come home.  And I change the subject, encourage him to look at picture books (coffee table type books with photos) with me, ask him to eat a piece of fruit.  I make busy tidying up his room.  Then I sit and hold his hand or rub his back and try to pretend this pretty room with its tv and the occasional glimpse of bush turkeys scurrying past is not a prison.

Had a flying dream - not the usual one of my youth soaring and sliding with the grace and speed of Superman.  This one started in a light plane.  Flying over crystal clear lakes south of Junction View, which doesn't have lakes, crystal clear or otherwise.   Then the plane disappeared and I just flew.  The flying was less exciting than the water, as clear as air, green, blue and gold seaweed undulating in a lazy current.  How I wanted to swim!

And then I was at a resort.  Taken four years to build I was told, cabins half hidden by trees.  I had a little black dog, like a motorized ugh boot.  It wasn't my dog and when I put it down to do its business it promptly disappeared.  Oh, it'll be checking out the 'long drops' the owner said, so we started searching.  Instead of outhouse pits the long drops were sandy and clean.   A monitor lizard was in one, a set of car keys in another. 

Water seems to be a theme (still haven't been to the beach!).  Two nights ago I dreamed of more than a dozen waterspouts on a stormy sea. 

Friday a friend will visit Richard and I won't.  It's cold but if it's not windy I'm going to the sea. 

He was agitated when I arrived yesterday.  One of the carers was with him in the room, both standing.  Richard is adjusting but he isn't adjusting.  He wants to make 'application' to come home and see the animals.  I feel the biggest kind of shit as I change the subject for of course he can't come home.  It would be cruel to bring him here only to take him back at the end of the day...if he got in the car and it wouldn't be stretching it to guess he'd refuse.

He has these moments of clarity and insight scattered amongst the rambling.  He said, you're life's pretty good now, isn't it?   I thrive while he suffers. ( Although it isn't quite so clear cut, she writes, tears threatening to spill over again).

Then I remind myself it took two people to get him up, changed and clean on Tuesday.  He'd wet himself and the bed and had tried to call the nurse using the bed adjuster.  One carer was large and burly.  I had to sit outside but I heard them say the same things I would say, "Put your hand here, no, not there, Richard, here.  That's it.  Now lift that foot, just move it a bit, yes, that's it.  Hang on to me.  Now the other foot.  Can you stand up?  Try and get your feet underneath you.  You won't balance otherwise.  No, back a bit further, yes, now the other foot.  Maybe you want to spread them a little, help you balance.  Now up, hang on to me.  Look up, yes, straighten up, I've got you.  No?  Okay give it a minute, we'll try again.....and on it goes.

Took two of them 30 minutes.  And I sat in a chair in the hall and admired the freshly painted nails of one of the residents.  She proudly displayed them to me (and if I hurry they'll do mine too!) as she trundled past in her walker talking nonstop.

Today's card:  Receive your guidance.

From the book (paraphrased):  Meeting negativity with negativity makes more negativity.  Meet negativity with, if not love, at least kind thoughts.

I've such a long long loooonnng way to go.  Why do I find being merely kind to those whom I perceive to oppose me so difficult?

After all, what others think is none of my business.  What I think is.

In a strange way I think I've been set free.  When I wrote the email to the boys, I was as clear and as honest as I was capable of being.  Granted, it is only my opinion and I may be wrong.  Still the answer I reeived from Anthony kind of lets me off the hook.  If communication is so fraught and misunderstood then what's the point? 

His reply was:  These exchanges don't feel or sound positive to me. Quite the opposite. I will say that some of the things you mention I agree with and some I disagree with completely. We are just trying to discuss and have input into how we see Dad and how to to help him.     .

As I get down to visit Dad I'll continue to do the very best I can. Further discussion re the below is pointless - and I shall certainly keep my views and experiences reference grief and trauma to myself....

Probably I am overly sensitive.  Nevertheless if I am scolded for my 'views and experiences referenc*ing* grief and trauma' and I am less than positive, well so be it. 

Strictly business then.  I'll do as I've always done - when they weren't included, weren't interested in being included, and look after Richard. 

Maybe I just wanted someone in the family to share the burden with.  My friends have been and are invaluable but they aren't family.  But I was wrong.  They are. 

Maybe it was the moon, that ruler of tides and water.  I didn't know I had it in me to cry for an hour and 20 minutes.  But I did.  I do.  I sat beside Richard, slumped on the side of the bed, put my arm around him and said, I know you're sad.  I'm not the most empathetic person.  I'm the person who misses the subtle signs, who doesn't shade her eyes against the sun to see the shadow.  But in those four words, I took on, at least for that hour, Richard's grief. 

When I got home, head pounding, contacts like sandpaper on my eyes, I thought, well, this is another of those times; all consuming emotional upheaval, grief like it will never end.  Pain pain pain. 

But it does end.  Nothing stays the same, extreme joy or extreme sadness.  It is the nature of the beast for time to shove you past 'that' moment, either while you try to cling to it, or try and hurry yourself away. 

Maybe one of life's most important lessons is plain endurance.  When the all consuming consumes, one has to hang a fingernnail on the remaining bit of unchanging self, that kernel of inviolate being at the center.  Like the deep waters unaffected by the sturm und drang on the surface, it's what we cling to rather than drown.

The boys, the men, are having difficulty.  After 4 months they have finally visited him.  They didn't like what they saw.  No one likes to see someone they love in pain.  They are brimming with ideas to help Richard join in activites, perhaps see a therapist, get involved in life again.  'Move forward' is the recurring phrase.  To me it seems they miss the point.    In answer I wrote:

As for Richard's sadness.  Perhaps it is time to step back and get a bit of perspective.  We have known 'this' was coming for years now while Richard has been safely cocooned in the slow but inexorable decrease of his cognitive and physical abilities.  This decline has taken place in a familiar environment with me as a constant support and companion.  Speaking for myself, I have been grieving for years as I witness and participate in this long goodbye.  From your Dad's perspective he has suddenly been moved to a strange environment. He's lost his home, his bed, his cat and me.  In other words, he is grieving.  If you've ever grieved for someone, you know it can't be hurried, papered over, postponed or avoided.  It has to be got through.  If and when you ever grieved over the loss of someone you loved, did you want to be involved in activities?   Talked out of it, jollied along, distracted? Perhaps you did but it only put off the sadness.    Sadness isn't a dirty word.  It is part of our emotional makeup and is the rightful, the only emotion, in some circumstances.

It has only been 3 weeks since he moved to Heritage, 5 weeks since he first went to hospital.  What, then, is the acceptable or correct time to move forward?

 I love him and my heart breaks seeing him sad like this.   But this is another phase of our lives together.   We've been a team through everything else.  We are a team through this.  Family love and visits are, in my opinion,  the best therapy.

He needs to know and see he is loved.

For years I've been  grieving for the husband I was losing.   The sadness and sense of loss became much more acute this past year, eventually reaching a kind of crisis of grief.  Which I'm still not through but there are entire days, even strings of days, when I don't cry.

In other words, I have had ample time to get used to the idea I was losing my husband.

Richard only found he was losing his wife a month ago.  His grief has only just begun.

When I visited him on Saturday - I didn't have an appointment, only stopped in with some fruit and asked, on the off chance they'd let me in, if I could see him - Richard was sad.  "When will we be together again," he asked.  So I cried.  My usual answer for the unanswerable.  And explained again why I can't look after him.  When he sees me cry, he pats my arm and says don't worry,, it's okay.  But he hurts and I can't help him.  And then the guilt comes again, should he come home?  Could I keep him safe?  But I can't and the end result would only be the same - a room in a facility.

So I go back today and take the Indian blanket we bought 30 years ago on our honeymoon, a repaired but beautiful delft bowl for his fruit, and me, to hold his hand, wrap an arm around his shoulders and kiss his head while trying to remain upbeat. 

And try not to want to escape too much from his need and sadness and the claustrophobic space that is the beautifully appointed open fire dining room professional kitchen spacious bedrooms with sliding glass doors onto personal patios Heritage Lodge.

Reminded again and again what little control I have over myself.  A perceived or real slight and I grab it and run to the nearest dark corner chewing and growling.  Got another email from Cam, still banging on about Richard coming home.  Followed by a 'ditto' email from Anthony who hasn't even been to see him yet!  Nothing I said has made one bit of difference.  So I interpret his letter not as a grieving son trying to avoid reality but as an impugning of my judgement, motives and character. 

Paranoia.

So lay in my uneasy bed with my undisciplined mind plowing the same furrow half the night.  Useless, even worse, it's a malignancy that grows undeterred because I do not have the mental strength or rigour to root it out.

Failed previous attempts at meditation but am going to have to do something to rein in this unruly creature. 

Logically I KNOW I am bigger than this easily bruised ego.  Logically I know I am capable of seeing the beauty in all, even myself.  Logically I can find compassion and empathy.  But when I am mired in this burgeoning ego, I am incapable. 

So I keep getting this lesson (the boys emails).  It's an opportunity to truly do something, to rise above, to be better.  Wouldn't it feel better to love than to resent?  How hard is it?

Pretty hard for me it seems.

Hard but not impossible.  If I can't love at the moment, maybe I can just learn acceptance without judgement.