Because God asked you to / All ministers

RantWoman has been saying prayers of humility and regret for two figures from her Meeting who died at some remove from Meeting life. When RantWoman speaks of humility, she means humility about her own capacity as much as anyone else's. But since RantWoman's sadness does not go away, let us at least offer prayers in memorial.


Warning: if you are "not interested in (RantWoman's) thought process, please consider some prayers about that issue and read all the way through anyway!


One of the women died over the summer. She suffered for a number of years from Alzheimer's. She lived for several years after the death of her second husband at one retirement community. When her funds were depleted she was moved into an adult family home in a different part of Seattle, at least two buses away from RantWoman. For a time she continued to come to Meeting on paratransit even though it was clear that she was not able to interact very much. In time that also stopped. RantWoman thinks she had little family other than Meeting.


The hard piece: this Friend died in July and Friends in Meeting did not even learn of her death until October. RantWoman is feeling a pang. It would have been HARD for RantWoman to go visit but it would have been possible. It also would have been possible to nag someone who lives closer or to do the phone work of scheduling paratransit so that perhaps we would have learned sooner if Friend with Alzheimers was no longer able even to take paratransit. Alzheimer's is SO hard. The visits would have been difficult. One can only guess whether familiar voices would have made a difference. It's not even that there is that much of formerly vigorous health for anyone even as seasoned as RantWoman to remember so more prayers on that account.


RantWoman is thinking of another Friend, someone RantWoman shared different blindness-related experiences with. This Friend also lived independently for several years. When she could no longer live independently, her son moved her to a retirement facility near where he lived in ID. Blind Friend did NOT like Idaho. She missed the moisture of the Puget Sound and all her social ties in Seattle.


Finally her son decided that he would move hist mother to Alaska with an intent also to move there. The move to Alaska happened; the son wound up not moving until several months after her death. Some other Friends from our Meeting had previously moved to the same town in Alaska. When those who knew Blind Friend learned of the move to AK, others supporting Blind Friend contacted the other Friends and asked them please to at least Look in on Blind Friend. They wrote back a couple times of ministering as they were able. One time toward the end of Blind Friend's life, the other Friends wrote to say they were unsure why they had been called to minister to Blind Friend.


RantWoman's response today would be sort of categorial:

1. You have only been worshipping together for a few decades. Why WOULDN't you look in if Blind Friend is close?

2. Because God asked it of you and did not ask whether you felt able to do this cheerfully.

By comparison with these situations, MAYBE RantWoman's thoughts of tending to others' grief closer by are supposed to look easy. RantWoman recently did a mental count. Besides the community in some way or other mourning Friend with Alzheimers, RantWoman counts 7 households in our Meeting where someone has lost a parent, spouse, or other close family member.

Urk! RantWoman forgot to count herself. A pillar of one's neighborhood is not the same as a spouse or parent, but today RantWoman walked past the pillar of her community's office and was just grabbed by grief!
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2012/12/still-remembering-donna.html

RantWoman, ever gifted and overachieving about conflict realized the grief count partly because also of thinking about people she is irritated with and needs to speak with. Sigh.


Then RantWoman did the again with the email thing. RantWoman is sorry. Too many phone calls are beyond her Light but RantWoman wanted to share sympathies. RantWoman also wanted to test whether anyone has found a resource they want to share and to commend the time after RantDad when Meeting had a facilitator come to Meeting to do one of her regular grief group series for several Friends at Meeting. RantWoman discovered:

--One Friend who thanked RantWoman for thinking of her and says she is fine for now.

--Various perspectives on the "do a grief group with people one knows/ do a grief group with people one is never going to have to see again" exercise.

--One grief group facilitator in Meeting who offered to convene a group if it is still needed in a year when she gets back from a planned year living abroad.

--Enough thought from Oversight that RantWoman THINKS she is going to be fine about "Make it So" and see what emerges from others' discernment. And RantWoman thinks we are all ministers of God and probably lots of us know one or more of the grieving Friends, so probably prayers and Light matter all around.

RantWoman is just saying...