I have been away this week at the home of a ninety year old friend. Her husband took a swift turn into the very worst of health and is in the neuro-intensive care of a nearby hospital. My friend is deaf, unable to drive, and suffers from memory issues. She was coping in her life situation mostly because her husband was a little bit younger and a little more spry. Once he fell so ill, the situation called for someone to move in with my dear friend. So I decamped from Green Hope Farm knowing that Deb, Elizabeth, Sophie, and Jess would carry the day in the office and with all the dogs and that Jim and Will would be fine on the home front.
My friend’s family doctor made a house call right after I settled in to help me sort out the pills ( which no doubt tells you how far out in the country and in the last century we are that a doctor would make a house call). The doctor asked that I not leave my friend unattended for more than a few minutes. Because my friend set off her smoke alarm three times with burning pans within the first few hours of my arrival, the doctor did not need to say anything more. I knew it was an excellent call.
Me arriving and then not budging was a more difficult challenge for my friend than for me. There was much organizing, sorting, cleaning and other housekeeping and cooking to keep me busy and I enjoyed taking care of my friend since I like mothering. For her, there was great distress about her husband and a new life where all her routines and comforts had abruptly gone out the window.
The one problem for me was that I knew I had to eventually return to my own responsibilities and her four very adult children were resistant to coming to relieve me. Each had their own spin on why they couldn’t be there. Since I have known my friend for a good thirty years, I had seen her move heaven and earth to do anything and give everything to these four children. I also knew that all four of them had the resources to be there for their mom. Instead, they were telling me in our daily, sometimes hourly calls how marvelously their mother was coping in the situation without them. Since I was actually WITH their mother and KNEW FOR A FACT that this was not true AT ALL, our conversations were complicated.
Green Hope Farm Flower Essence remedies seem to always get created by the Angels when I need them most, and never was this more true than with our great new mix Pack Leader.
During the last week, I have needed Pack Leader’s vibrational support to be a calm assertive leader to support my friend in this extremely out of balance situation. While my experience was one of meeting with immovable objects again and again, I found myself able to respond to the behavior of my friend’s children and to other challenges with a measured calm and a detachment which was an enormous help to me. I felt immeasurable grateful for every bit of serenity this remedy afforded me, because in the past, I have gone through similar crises in a way that was a lot more exhausting, taking on useless emotional battles and keeping a more fevered pitch. This time, for a number of days, I felt calm as I spoke calmly.
Nonetheless, Pack Leader is a remedy I have more to learn from. As I got more tired- my friend was up each night at 3 am in a state of worry- I began to find it more challenging not to respond to the children’s excuses with emotion. I definitely lost my cool when the eldest son started to dictate a message in french to me about someone at the Sorbonne. Like I could give a hoot which way the accent went on the guy’s name! Yes, I am a bit testy STILL about that one so Pack Leader has more to teach me!
In any case, I kept at it with these phone calls, kept the cups of teas rolling and one day when someone else arrived for an hour I had a most Zen experience taking my friend’s very anxious dogs for a long walk. I knew it would help them immeasurably to get to have a real walk to release their tension and I looked forward to it myself, Having never walked four on a leash at once, I found it a mystical experience to get them all moving at my side, one with each other and me, their temporary pack leader. What a difference it made the rest of our time together to have me know the dogs in that way.
Last night, a week had passed and I finally wore one of the children down enough to have her agree to come and relieve me. I passed the baton to her at 8:40 pm with grateful thanks to divinity and Pack Leader.