With Grateful Hearts

According to Professor David Blight of the Yale University History Department, the first memorial day was observed by formerly enslaved black people at the Washington Race Course (today the location of Hampton Park) in Charleston, South Carolina. The race course had been used as a temporary Confederate prison camp for captured Union soldiers in 1865, as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who died there. Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, formerly enslaved people exhumed the bodies from the mass grave and reinterred them properly with individual graves. They built a fence around the graveyard with an entry arch and declared it a Union graveyard. The work was completed in only ten days. On May 1, 1865, the Charleston newspaper reported that a crowd of up to ten thousand, mainly black residents, including 2800 children, proceeded to the location for included sermons, singing, and a picnic on the grounds, thereby creating the first Decoration Day (which later was renamed "Memorial Day")

My heart is grateful today for all those who have gone before to fight for freedom and justice some sacrificing their lives and all their own peace for us. I remember the families who have suffered deep wounds from the loss of their beloved sons and daughters. I remember men and women and their families who continue to suffer the impact of war in their daily lives from PTSD and other wounds of war. This year has given a whole new meaning to Memorial Day.

Happy Day

Yes! We had one yesterday. Jeff felt well throughout the day with only one bought of dizziness in the middle of the day. At least, that's all that he told me about. He spent time with our beloved Pastor, Josh Butler, talking missions. He came home so encouraged.

We also stepped things up in our transition to America and got a 37" LED flat screen TV from rewards we've earned from our Credit Union. Now we can see the small print on the screen from our chairs. Are we getting old or what?! No need to comment more on that note.

As for me, I had 3 delightful and encouraging telephone chats with ladies I love. One called specifically to pray with me over the phone and the other wanted to know how our home community can care for us without causing us more stress. I feel loved and cared for with another dear friend, JK, from Uganda days sending me a lovely e-mail to encourage us.

Today I got to take Dylan and Kim to the airport as they launch their vacation/second honeymoon to France. We talked of things they plan to do and see. It is great to see how stress free they were as they had organized well, thanks to Kim's great gifting.

Today seems so much brighter than yesterday thanks to all our family and friends. Reminds me that indeed God is present with us and hears our cries not necessarily for what we want when we want it but in bringing loving people alongside when we most need them.

Link Care

We've turned in our application to Link Care in Fresno, California. The soonest we can get in is June 14th and they aren't sure about that. I'm feeling weaker as Jeff gets a little stronger. Odd how that is. New meds and commitment to exercise are helping him, at last.

Yesterday Jeff and I went out for some quiche at Cooper's Coffee (not the best place to talk as I can't hear over all the clatter of the baristas) but we did have a brief meaningful conversation about the impact of PTSD on our spirituality. There is loss even in that very core area of our lives where we are deeply wounded and challenged to believe there is God. Challenged to believe that he really cares. The only thing that keeps us connected is knowing he is present with us through it all. Like Jeff said, however, "We know the words which we have shared with others in their dark places." Numbness robs the words of their force and even of a sense of truth in them. I keep telling myself: This, too, shall pass. I am so very tired, though.

The VA Family Ed class seemed bleak this week as the facilitator said it is a travesty the VA cannot get Jeff into in-patient treatment when he is ready and willing to do so. The only suggestion was to call our congressman. Just can't seem to get up enough energy to do so.

We Will Be Fine

We seemed to hit a brick wall Wednesday with VA and finally realized that we needed to re-evaluate: the reality is that the VA is a big overburdened, broken system. As God so often does, He sent help at just that moment and a sense of humility which called us to reality.

Audrey Mueller, our dear WV Interim Director of Recruitment and Connie Befus, from WV Paraclete Center stepped up yesterday and are helping us to investigate and prepare the way for going south to Link Care. Connie is interfacing with Paul Otto, our friend who works for VA in California, to try to understand the issues with Jeff's PTSD so that is very helpful.

It makes me think of Jesus' words to Peter in John 21:18 though he was indicating what type of death Peter would experience. It seems comparable to our experience as we find we must die to our own way and submit (OH HOW I HATE THAT WORD!) to those over us as though they are God's angels to us.

All this to say, we will be getting more help sooner than later; so we are going to be fine.

Wounded Heart

Jeff spent a couple of nights in VA Hospital last week while they monitored and tested him for heart failure as he had symptoms which would have led one to believe he was going there. After all the tests and hours of monitoring he was deemed out of danger. No blockages only a slight heart murmur possibly just blood passing through the heart valve? What the testing could not detect was that his heart is wounded not physically speaking but in every other way.

King David wrote in Psalm 109:21-23 of his own similar experience at a time when he was under great duress. It touched me deeply as I read his words this morning.

O Sovereign Lord, deal well with me for your name's sake; out of the goodness of your love deliver me, for I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. I fade away like an evening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust. Help me O Lord, my God.

Last night I learned more about PTSD and it's treatment. Central to PTSD is loss: loss of identity, loss of innocence, loss of familiar things, loss of time when all the world seems to shift, loss of relationships and connection, loss of significance, loss of vision and mission, loss of brotherhood with those left behind, loss of purpose, loss of a sense of connectedness with God, loss of self-esteem, loss of home, loss of friends. In the loss, arises the need to grieve. Need to access the emotions tied to those losses even though numb and unable to feel. With treatment perhaps then to integrate who he was before with who he is now and to recognize growth. I learned it is a process, a journey which takes time.

But in the meantime looking for some significant help with the process and the journey, we wait. I watch with some anxiety; will help come soon? I wait with sadness as I see the world move on leaving my wounded soldier in the margins.

Last night Jeff received a phone call at 10 p.m. which moved him to go to his office today and clear out his things to make room for someone who needs that space.

Left a message with the RN at the Mental Health Clinic this morning asking what to expect in the way of treatment? Are they tired of hearing from us? No one has returned that call. Hoping it's just that they are still working on the scheduling.

This afternoon I called his Primary Care Doctor at VA to make an appointment to follow up after his hospital stay. As I spoke with the doctor's office and it became apparent no appointment is available that my heart is pierced as I hear Jeff say, "They don't want to see me?" The doctor will be reviewing Jeff's file and will set up a phone appointment rather than an office visit. After that kind of day, he's gone to bed "not feeling well". My heart is so sad for him today as we wait.

LEARNING

Yes, I am finally learning more about this VA system we are trying to launch into. Today I finally called the Billing Information number and found out why we've not been receiving any bills from all the office visits both for the mental health and the primary care. There is good news here! Jeff is in a priority catagory that allows him to receive services both for out patient and in patient services free of charge. What a relief! We thought we were going to be hit with some incredible bill with the numerous office visits we are making. It is wonderful to have that cloud removed from over our heads.

I also have placed a call to the clinic and am waiting for them to call back with hopes of hearing something concerning scheduling further treatment as it has been 2 weeks tomorrow since we last were seen by the Nurse Practitioner. It took learning how to work through the VA system phone numbers and extensions to actually raise someone in person in the clinic.

Another positive is that the Family Ed group really met yesterday with mothers', a father and spouses' of soldiers effected by PTSD ranging from Viet Nam to Korea and Iraq service. I think the major thing I took away from this first class is that Viet Nam vets have coped with their PTSD for decades but when their health fails, or life changes such as a death of a spouse, retirement or, in our case, the end of a ministry shakes their world they are robbed of their coping skills. I was assured, however, that there is hope through treatment for these dear soldiers. Next week we are going to learn about the treatments being used to help the victims of PTSD.

Random thoughts

"In quietness and trust is your strength>"

When I am anxious and fretting because things do not move according to my own timing and plan, I am weak, frazzled and find lots of aches and pains in body, mind and spirit. Oh to trust! “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well,”

Oh to live in the moment and to live it well not enslaved by all the "if onlys" or "what ifs". Today I want to live well in quietness and trust.

In some of my reading today, I discovered the good news that gerontologists have categorized old age into 3 stages: 65-74 year olds are the young old, 74-84 are the old old, and 85 and over are the oldest old. That means I AM NOT YET OLD!!!! I just thought I was. Ha!

As the bumper sticker says, "Don't believe everything you think!"

On the other hand, Uganda just lowered retirement age from 60 to 55. I guess old age is categorized differently depending on where you live. That means if I still lived in Uganda I would be old but since I now live in the USA I am not old.

I think the issue is not whether or not one is old but how one lives whether young or transitioning into old. A book I am beginning to read, The Gift of Years, Growing Older Gracefully, I anticipate will help me to live creatively,remaining open not closed, humble and able to listen but also willing to give of oneself. I may be writing more on this subject as time goes by.

False Start

I went to VA yesterday for the scheduled Family group but it was a false start as only 3 of us showed. The facilitators apologized but said 3 is not enough for a group. Maybe next Monday, they said. Disappointed? Yes, but it just seems waiting is par for this course. We are still waiting to hear from Deb Wilson with a definite schedule for Jeff's treatment plan. Maybe today. Sigh!