Even with the best intentions, priorities change when you are ill. June and I have had to live life on the edge with our planning. Occasionally things go as scheduled but we don’t give it a second thought.
June has a high sense of commitment and follow through. Admirable really. Rescheduling is something she has to fight herself with. She doesn’t yet give herself permission to put herself first. When she has to cancel something she is extremely hard on herself. For instance, for a Christmas present for June, my family put together a list of things we could do to help her around the house; replace batteries in the smoke detector, replace light bulbs, bring her Christmas decorations out, etc. It was planned for several weeks, we were all looking forward to it. I woke that morning with the feeling I should check in to see if she needed anything we could pick up on the way. She sounded awful that morning; she could barely speak above a whisper. She had been up all night with a stomach virus and was still feeling it.
Simply put – she did not want company. Now I know how important this was because she talked about getting her nativity scene out and how excited she was to ‘gets these small things done”! In that moment, during the call, the last thing on her mind was decorations and light bulbs. But she felt it necessary to apologize to me.
I think it really put things into perspective for both of us… if you don’t have your health – you don’t have anything. Not even a nativity scene!