Writing, Parenting, and Working in the Mess: Authentic Spirituality and Social Justice

The day after I got to Ohio, my father was released from the hospital. It was clearly too early, and I suspect that the fact that he owes the hospital a significant amount of money (despite the fact that 80% of his bills are paid by Medicare) may have played a role, though I can't be sure. Maybe it's more mundane than that--there is an urgency to turn beds over as quickly as possible, that care is no longer patient-centered, even in one of the best hospitals in the world. In any case, on the day he was released, he had not yet been able to sit up or go to the bathroom on his own, and he could not climb the five steps he needs to climb in order to get into his apartment. Still, optimistic, we got him into my car, and we dropped my sister off at the airport on the way to his home. He cried as she left--in the two weeks she had been with him, they had gone from intending to celebrate my nephew's fifth birthday at the Cleveland Zoo to spending hours together at the hospital. On...

Last Monday, my sister accompanied my father to an appointment where he was declared, for the moment, anyway, cancer free. "Bone cancer doesn't ever heal, not all the way," the doctor explained, "but right now the real issue is a fracture in the hip." He agreed to surgery, in a month or so, to put a pin in his hip so he would be able to walk more easily, and eventually fulfill his desire to move to Greece. On Friday morning, my sister called to say that he had been airlifted to the hospital for emergency surgery. The radiation had caused a clot in his colon, which was dying. Twenty hours later, he was still waiting for the surgery; now, he is recovering relatively well, though he's confused and paranoid, and his heart is keeping an irregular heartbeat. Next week, S and I will head there for about ten days to help arrange for his care because my sister has to leave. I will have to cancel some 30 work-related meetings; S will miss the second and part of the th...

I have a giant, visible bruise on my arm from S, who bit me, hard, on Monday. It all happened so fast. I went back to work full time last week, but S doesn't start until after Labor Day. Her college buddies were busy with...well, college. So she was spending a lot of time surfing the internet in my office--more time, by far, than she should have been. It's not like I didn't try. Her college buddies came by whenever they could. The Saddle Club invited her to help with the horses during the day. She brought books every day, and sometimes even read them for two or three hours, but it's not really realistic that a girl with PTSD and ADHD would be able to spend more than three hours on...well, anything. Except, apparently, U-Tube videos of random pre-teen girls who are showing off their newly acquired ability to stand on their toes in pointe shoes. But, let me backtrack: Wednesday, my first day back full-time, went well. Thursday, also, until we went to school for the open h...