...in the movie Titanic, there is a scene where Rose and Jack are holding onto the railing and he tells her they're about to go into the water. He's pretty much warning her that things are about to get Very Bad. The dread and tension is almost as high as it can go.
I can't shake that feeling now.
My mother in law fell a week ago. When she falls, she can't get herself back up, because she is so frail. She is mere skin and bones, hunched over, cold all of the time, and very weak. She did sit up straight with delight when The Most Adorable Baby Ever visited her two weeks ago, but otherwise she lives very quietly, with frequent naps.
So when she fell my husband went down to help get her up (they live very close to our home) and then called asking me to come down to help get her out of the awkward spot where she had fallen. She is light as a feather, he just couldn't get in beside her the way he was trying to. I went down, helped get her up; then I washed her back (when she fell a large, heavy chair that she had been trying to hold on to, somehow fell over on top of her, and she was scraped and bleeding) and bandaged her and then I washed her hair for her.
Yesterday my father in law fell - trying to help her put her socks on, he got up and lost his balance (probably because his hand is bandaged, from a minor procedure to remove a cyst, he couldn't put that dominant hand out to steady himself).
He went to bed to lie down, and a while later his back was so stiff he couldn't get up. We knew when Nana was on the phone asking us to come down, that something was very wrong. My son went with his dad and came home and broke down in tears seeing how fragile his Papa is.
It's just a strained back. Tylenol and the heating pad made him much better in an hour and a half. But things like siblings arguing about how much Tylenol he can take (it's plain tylenol for god's sake, one every three or four hours for a day or two IS NOT GOING TO BE WHAT KILLS HIM. )
My heart is breaking, universe. He still calls her HIS GIRLFRIEND and pats her "on the can" as he puts it. They have been married for 52 years and have five grandchildren who don't want them to go away.
But the boat is rushing down into the water now.
2 comments:
I have no words of wisdom to make it any better, so "I'm sorry" is really all I have to offer. And I am sorry. for them. For all of you.
hard to be in this spot---where no matter what happens, it snowballs from a little spill to an OMG. One begat another, begat another, begat another, begat another OMG.
if it were healthy folks, it might be a giggle moment, (without the painful parts), like when I can't keep more than 1 thing in my hands some days and one thing after another after another keep dropping.
peace to all involved and keep breathing. In. Out. Repeat as necessary. And hopefully your F-I-L keeps grabbing his g/f's "can" every chance he has the opportunity, for as long as it is good for both of them.
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