A Matter of Trust
I am angry tonight. Angry, disgusted, and disappointed. I just came home from driving by Dad's house to make sure everything is OK, and discovered that, for the second time in a week, someone has broken into the house.
Oh, no real damage was done. My brother and I finished clearing out the house on Saturday; basically now there isn't anything left. There wasn't much to take the first time. On Saturday, we discovered that someone had pulled the electrical meter off the carport wall, disconnecting the power; then the front window had been pried open and the thief had taken the air conditioner from that window, the microwave oven, the perishable food from the refrigerator (interestingly enough, the bottle of soda remained), and the riding lawn mower (which didn't work) from the back yard. The burglar had pried off the locks on the two toolsheds in the back yard. So we finished our work Saturday in great discomfort - North Georgia's summers are HOT! - and bought lunch out. We have a contract on the house, and the buyer plans to install central air, so the loss of the air conditioner was minimal - as was the loss of the microwave. We'd planned to give the lawn mower to the next-door neighbor, though, who really wanted to have it; that hurt.
Tonight, I discovered that the burglar had returned for the other air conditioner. Again, no damage to the house - the culprit(s) had entered and exited through the window. Again, the loss of the air conditioner is of no consequence as we are no longer working in the house.
What makes me angry, though, is that we believe we know who one of the burglars is. If we're correct in our suspicions, the burglar is someone we should have been able to trust - and someone Dad had trusted and had helped a great deal. This is how the person chose to repay Dad's trust!
I'd been thinking earlier today about trust. One of the greatest gifts Dad ever gave me was his trust in me. Dad frequently asked my advice if he was unsure about something - whether to quit wearing his wedding ring after Mom died and he started dating again; what to do when he discovered several unauthorized electronic withdrawals from his checking account; what kind of car to buy and where from when his had been totaled in an accident. He trusted me to know what to do and to guide him to the best decisions. Especially during the last few years, Dad had elevated me to what I'll call "walk-on-water" status - in his eyes, I could do no wrong.
One of the last memories I have of Dad is the night I told him that we wanted to transfer him to a hospice. He'd been in the hospital for nearly a month - ever since the day I took him to the doctor and the doctor told me he suspected an advanced abdominal cancer. Dad was recovering from an unsuccessful surgery and had spent the weekend in the CCU; during the night that Friday he'd developed some breathing trouble and was transferred to CCU. The doctor told me that Dad was too unstable for them to determine whether the breathing problem resulted from a blood clot in his lung or whether Dad had suffered a heart attack.
But this was Tuesday night, and the social worker wanted to stop by tomorrow to do the assessment for transfer to a hospice. There wasn't anything else to offer - surgery had uncovered a massive spread of the cancer, and chemotherapy for renal cell carcinoma is extremely rough, even for a young person in good health - and Dad was 81 and very debilitated. I had to tell him. How??? Dad just wasn't talking about what was going on. His doctors reported to me that, although they'd discussed his situation with him, they were not sure if he understood. His pastor would soon comment, while delivering Dad's funeral sermon, that Dad was so calm and so unworried about what was happening to him that the pastor himself had trouble believing that Dad knew. We'd all noticed, especially after the surgery, that Dad was easily confused and rather vague (something I now know is part of the dying process). And we'd never talked much about dying, and I didn't know whether Dad knew what a hospice was. But there was nothing else the hospital could do, and they needed the bed, and...
So I talked to him. "Dad?" I said. "You know when they did the surgery last week, they didn't get that cancer." "They didn't? I didn't know that!" he responded. I knew they'd told him that, but he didn't remember things at all. "No," I continued. "They discovered that it had already gotten too big, so they couldn't take it. So they can't make you well, and they think you should go to a different kind of place where they'll take good care of you instead of trying to cure you. And Tommy and Lisa went with me and Phillip last weekend to see it, and it's real close to where I live so I can spend more time with you, and it's more like being home instead of being in a hospital. And they'll let people bring dogs, so Louise and Jennifer (two of the dearest people God ever put on earth; their story will appear here shortly) are all excited about bringing their dogs to see you."
God only knows how I managed to get through that without bursting into tears. God knows I sure cried enough everywhere else - my coworkers had gotten very accustomed to seeing me walking around with tears streaming down my face, right out of the blue! I continued, "There's a lady who wants to come talk with us tomorrow afternoon about it. What do you think?"
Dad looked at me and said, "It sounds pretty nice to me." A simple statement - but oh! the look on his face! I've never in my entire life seen anyone display so much trust. If I'd stood there and explained to Dad that I was taking him to Hell, I could see in his face that he'd have willingly gone with me. There just aren't words enough to describe what a gift that look was. I'm the older of Dad's kids, and my brother doesn't live here, and I'm just plain the one who takes care of things - you know how in most families, there's one person whose job it is to make things happen? Well, that's always been my job, so most of the decisions during Dad's illness naturally fell to me. And the decisions were agonizing! What a wonderful blessing it was to know that Dad, even through his illness, had such absolute confidence that I would know what was best for him and would take care of him.
And then this person has to go and honor Dad's memory by violating all our trust in him like this! Grrrr!!!
Oh, no real damage was done. My brother and I finished clearing out the house on Saturday; basically now there isn't anything left. There wasn't much to take the first time. On Saturday, we discovered that someone had pulled the electrical meter off the carport wall, disconnecting the power; then the front window had been pried open and the thief had taken the air conditioner from that window, the microwave oven, the perishable food from the refrigerator (interestingly enough, the bottle of soda remained), and the riding lawn mower (which didn't work) from the back yard. The burglar had pried off the locks on the two toolsheds in the back yard. So we finished our work Saturday in great discomfort - North Georgia's summers are HOT! - and bought lunch out. We have a contract on the house, and the buyer plans to install central air, so the loss of the air conditioner was minimal - as was the loss of the microwave. We'd planned to give the lawn mower to the next-door neighbor, though, who really wanted to have it; that hurt.
Tonight, I discovered that the burglar had returned for the other air conditioner. Again, no damage to the house - the culprit(s) had entered and exited through the window. Again, the loss of the air conditioner is of no consequence as we are no longer working in the house.
What makes me angry, though, is that we believe we know who one of the burglars is. If we're correct in our suspicions, the burglar is someone we should have been able to trust - and someone Dad had trusted and had helped a great deal. This is how the person chose to repay Dad's trust!
I'd been thinking earlier today about trust. One of the greatest gifts Dad ever gave me was his trust in me. Dad frequently asked my advice if he was unsure about something - whether to quit wearing his wedding ring after Mom died and he started dating again; what to do when he discovered several unauthorized electronic withdrawals from his checking account; what kind of car to buy and where from when his had been totaled in an accident. He trusted me to know what to do and to guide him to the best decisions. Especially during the last few years, Dad had elevated me to what I'll call "walk-on-water" status - in his eyes, I could do no wrong.
One of the last memories I have of Dad is the night I told him that we wanted to transfer him to a hospice. He'd been in the hospital for nearly a month - ever since the day I took him to the doctor and the doctor told me he suspected an advanced abdominal cancer. Dad was recovering from an unsuccessful surgery and had spent the weekend in the CCU; during the night that Friday he'd developed some breathing trouble and was transferred to CCU. The doctor told me that Dad was too unstable for them to determine whether the breathing problem resulted from a blood clot in his lung or whether Dad had suffered a heart attack.
But this was Tuesday night, and the social worker wanted to stop by tomorrow to do the assessment for transfer to a hospice. There wasn't anything else to offer - surgery had uncovered a massive spread of the cancer, and chemotherapy for renal cell carcinoma is extremely rough, even for a young person in good health - and Dad was 81 and very debilitated. I had to tell him. How??? Dad just wasn't talking about what was going on. His doctors reported to me that, although they'd discussed his situation with him, they were not sure if he understood. His pastor would soon comment, while delivering Dad's funeral sermon, that Dad was so calm and so unworried about what was happening to him that the pastor himself had trouble believing that Dad knew. We'd all noticed, especially after the surgery, that Dad was easily confused and rather vague (something I now know is part of the dying process). And we'd never talked much about dying, and I didn't know whether Dad knew what a hospice was. But there was nothing else the hospital could do, and they needed the bed, and...
So I talked to him. "Dad?" I said. "You know when they did the surgery last week, they didn't get that cancer." "They didn't? I didn't know that!" he responded. I knew they'd told him that, but he didn't remember things at all. "No," I continued. "They discovered that it had already gotten too big, so they couldn't take it. So they can't make you well, and they think you should go to a different kind of place where they'll take good care of you instead of trying to cure you. And Tommy and Lisa went with me and Phillip last weekend to see it, and it's real close to where I live so I can spend more time with you, and it's more like being home instead of being in a hospital. And they'll let people bring dogs, so Louise and Jennifer (two of the dearest people God ever put on earth; their story will appear here shortly) are all excited about bringing their dogs to see you."
God only knows how I managed to get through that without bursting into tears. God knows I sure cried enough everywhere else - my coworkers had gotten very accustomed to seeing me walking around with tears streaming down my face, right out of the blue! I continued, "There's a lady who wants to come talk with us tomorrow afternoon about it. What do you think?"
Dad looked at me and said, "It sounds pretty nice to me." A simple statement - but oh! the look on his face! I've never in my entire life seen anyone display so much trust. If I'd stood there and explained to Dad that I was taking him to Hell, I could see in his face that he'd have willingly gone with me. There just aren't words enough to describe what a gift that look was. I'm the older of Dad's kids, and my brother doesn't live here, and I'm just plain the one who takes care of things - you know how in most families, there's one person whose job it is to make things happen? Well, that's always been my job, so most of the decisions during Dad's illness naturally fell to me. And the decisions were agonizing! What a wonderful blessing it was to know that Dad, even through his illness, had such absolute confidence that I would know what was best for him and would take care of him.
And then this person has to go and honor Dad's memory by violating all our trust in him like this! Grrrr!!!
posted by Brenda King | 6:18 PM
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