An Amazing Community of People

I am new to Des Moines, Iowa. I have only lived here since April. But I am periodically stunned by the giving nature of the people here and how they value community.

Sadly the mother of a boy in 3rd grade died unexpectedly this week. My son is in 3rd grade and while the boy is not in his classroom he is in his class. We have talked about the boys' loss and how sad it is and how we need to value every moment. But then the community became involved. To date, this is what they people have done for this family.

• Gift cards to restaurants, gasoline stations, and airlines to assist in helping with family members who want to visit
• Cleaning company once per week until January
  Meals made and delivered every day until January
  
• Someone will care for their pets during the day until school is out in June
• Rotation schedule to take care of the kids in their home after school until school is out in June

And these people have only lived here 3 years!

I am very proud to be a part of this community

Rumblings and Stirrings

I believe I am on the brink of learning new insights. I have feared writing about them would limit the insight from coming to me. I know that I will have my AHA moment and then will need to share. But I also feel a need to put out there that this is what is going on with me.

I watch my father navigate his acceptance that my mother, his wife, is now in a nursing home and that she will never be the person she was. There are many ways in which this might be considered good. She was a harsh woman her whole life. Her dementia only aggravates this personality characteristic. My father has always been faithful to his vows to her, tho she was not to him.

I watch my father keep his commitment to care for her in sickness and in health and in the beginning of this journey I thought it was firm commitment to always standing by his word that kept him with her. Lord knows I tried to get him to divorce her since I was 14 and he would not. I watched his lonliness and sadness my whole life as these two people who were not meant to stay together did so.

Now as she travels through time in her head I watch him travel with her. There were good times, even though I never saw them. And they are reliving them together. And I am a voyeur. I have seen them kiss for the first time ever. I have heard them say I love you for the first time ever. And I have heard my father whisper to her "come back to me" with a pain you can only know if you have lost someone you love dearly.

He stayed with her because he loves her. I have never known that. I have no idea where this will take me but I know when my AHA comes I will be better for having experienced it.