I have always wanted to share some of my experiences with others in the hope that it may help some. I also wanted to guide this site to be somewhat of a personal growth and development website. I plan on doing that but telling of my own life experiences, things I’ve done, mistakes I’ve made, and roads I’ve gone down and what I’ve found when I have. In some cases those roads were great ones, others they were dead ends and still others were just train wrecks.

So, with that said, I thought I would spend this first post talking about family. Mine is going through a tough time right now. My grandmother is ill, well, not ill, she’s 96. When you get up there that far it’s hard to bounce back from problems. About five weeks ago she went to the hospital with her heart beating too fast. The doctor said she needed to check in and slow her heart rate down. She walked into the hospital on her own steam but was wheeled out in a chair unable to walk. Now, I don’t mean to bad mouth the hospital, they are trying their best of course, but they gave her too much sedatives, a Dr. told us, and a large cocktail of drugs for her heart and other general aliments. Three weeks on your back, at 96, with too much sedatives takes it’s toll. She wasn’t able to walk when they discharged her, and hasn’t since. That was about 2 weeks ago. Last night she was admitted again because she said she couldn’t breath or swallow. She’s fine now though, still in the hospital, but can breath, swallow and is generally ok.

The bigger issue really is how an elderly or sick family member can both bring a family together and tear it apart at the same time. I’ve experienced both cases. When my father died, which i’ll go into in another post, the family came together and bonded during his illness. Now, however, it seems that my mother’s side of the family, it is my mother’s mother that is ill, is breaking apart. It’s sad for many reasons. My Grandmother surely sees it, and maybe feels guilty for it, I certainly don’t like seeing my family fight, but there’s so little that I can do about it.

I’ve chosen to do the only thing I could. Be supportive at all times, do not let myself get pulled into the fighting, do not take sides at all, offer comfort at all times. That’s very hard to do of course when you happen to agree with one side or the other. But, regardless if you do, there must be a balancing force in the equation. Even if someone is doing something egregious and terrible, is it really worth it to fight about it while a family member dies or is terribly ill? I’m sure some think it is, but I feel it puts extra strain on an already strained situation.  If you have ever found yourself in such a situation, how did you handle it?  What is the best way? Or is there even one? Every situation is different, every family is different, when such times come upon a family, I think its best to focus on that person, be there for each other, hold off on the fighting as best you can and remember all the good times you’ve had a family.

G. A. Miller