Don't bite the hand that feeds you

This has been the year from hell for our family.

It all began nine days into the year when my sister's ailing health took a turn for the worse and she was hospitalized, resulting in hospice care two weeks later – and her passing four weeks after that at home.

Hospice was a nightmare, with mistakes being made every which way by the two nurses - fric and frac - who not only couldn't log their visits properly, but didn't communicate well and mostly ended their visits by patting my sister on the back and saying, "You're just tired."

She was tired alright – she'd been fighting this battle for exactly 20 years. A number of strokes, followed by heart attacks and a diagnosis of congestive heart failure in 2002, which slowly zapped her strength and ability to be independent. She had severe diabetes, macular degeneration and glaucoma as well. She was a pistol though – kept her mind almost to the end and never lost her sense of humor and her sense of humanity, belief in Christ and love for her family persisted until the end.

My anger at the hospice group is just now beginning to abate. I can't change what I can't change. Nothing will bring my sister back – it was her intense suffering that they caused and that I can't change. I can only take comfort in the fact she's at peace now and at least one of those ditzy, lousy nurses is no longer working there; while the one social worker – not worth her weight in fly poop, is no longer the social worker.

I had to quit my job this year – a job I loved at a nearby city's newspaper. I had a popular history column, opinion column and ran a number of popular feature articles. I had won numerous awards as a writer and designer for years. But the publisher was a nutcase, only out for himself and couldn't make the slackers do their job, nor could he make a single decision. This year alone, he lost four of the top employees within five months.

I had to let that go. So now I have this blog and hope to find other work writing somewhere, somehow.

We moved – it's a life change – a good one, but still a life change.

We had some huge family drama in June that has left us devastated. But again, you can't change what you can't change. If people want to be mean, hurtful and rude – guess they have to answer to the Lord anyway one of these days. We continue to pray for them – they have no beliefs whatsoever – no spiritual base and unfortunately, as a result of that – they are empty.

I had a car accident a few months later – unfortunately – the one time I had managed to get into my late sister's car, which she left to me – and drive it. It had held too many memories of the many appointments I'd driven her to, the last time she came home from the hospital was in that car, and the many genealogical trips we'd taken to Sedalia and Eldon, shopping trips to Jamesport and Blue Springs and chiropractor visits to our friend's, Paul Schaal in Olathe. The car still had some of her blond hair stuck to the seats, her oversized sunglasses and little ball cap on the passenger side, her many maps in the door slot, loose coin in the coin box, her Yanni CDs in the visor, her blanket on the back seat and her "car" cane that she kept in the car.

Boom! Some 20-something floored it while backing out of a local business right into my path, leaving about five feet between our cars. I hit him at about 30-35 mph. My late sister's car was totaled and I was injured. Still recuperating from those. And her car was declared as dead as she was just seven months earlier.

Then we have had more family drama – worse than the first in June. This more of a betrayal than I could ever have imagined. Confessions of sins far worse than we could have anticipated and thousands of dollars scammed from a relative's account who needed them desperately for her late in life care.

As all this unfolds, one might ask God just how much more He expects us to take in one year? As always, I am reminded that He never gives us more than we can handle.

God bless Joel Osteen's ministry because a simply subscription to his Facebook page brings me, as only the Lord can do, appropriate as if "composed just for me" quotes every day.

Today, after an exceptionally emotional morning, I arrived at my chiropractor's office at the same time as two new patients – nuns – who spent the time in the waiting room trying to lift my spirits. Their kind smiles, their kind words that had nothing to do with my emotional state, was a stiff reminder that God exists in this world. He forgives us for our sins (if we ask for it) and He has redeemed us by offering up His son as a sacrifice over 2,000 years ago.

It was a reminder that I'm never alone. God is always with me as He is with the people who have hurt us. He is with us all, and he expects those of us who believe in Him to pray for those who have hurt us.
It's a strong lesson in humanity to learn to forgive and move on. It's a strong lesson to pray for those who have hurt you. But that prayer lifts the burden, even if you have to keep at it constantly as the burden returns the next day or you experience another attack by the evil one.

The title to this blog may seem not to correspond with the subject matter, but it actually does. It came today in the form of the inside of a bottle cap to an organic iced tea. Many of this year's hurts and pains have come from those we've helped and loved over the years, only to be betrayed sinfully.

Its words are meant to remind those of us who are children and still have our parents living, that we should never bite the hand that fed us. Our parents brought us into this life, changed our diapers, fed us, clothed us, guided us – sometimes it wasn't always rosy – but most of us can probably say our parents did the best darn job they could have done under the circumstances.

We must always remember that we, too, will some day be old and need to be cared for. Our children cannot ever forget that they will also be old and need to be cared for.

Caring for a parent, or even a sibling – such as I did this year – is done from the heart. We should never expect payment for it or NOT do it because we don't care if we get payment. It's not about the money, the will, the glory. It's because we love and care about another human being.

We all deserve to live our lives and reach the twilight years, the ending years, with grace and care. We deserve the very best and an easy transition into God's hands.

Don't bite God's hand either.