{"id":5634,"date":"2012-04-27T09:21:01","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T16:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/?p=5634"},"modified":"2012-04-27T09:56:46","modified_gmt":"2012-04-27T16:56:46","slug":"thoughts-on-being-sick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/2012\/04\/thoughts-on-being-sick\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on being sick"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last night I took a long walk around and around the baseball park during practice. I’m in training for a youth pioneer trek. Just call me “Ma Ross” and I’ll say, “Yes, dear? Do you need a band aid for that blister?”<\/p>\n

On my long walk through the dust, I thought about my sister who is very ill. I wondered what I could say to help. My mind traveled back to those 3 summers in a row that I was in bed recovering from surgeries. I remembered the feelings of frustration, helplessness, and the temporary depression. I couldn’t mother; I couldn’t teach seminary anymore; I was miserable. I worried that I would never be happy again. I was lonely, but when someone would visit, we rarely talked on the deep level that I craved.<\/p>\n

I remember each visitor and each bouquet of flowers and I was deeply touched these acts of kindness. I only felt angry about the “gratitude journal” I was given. I wasn’t ready to be grateful. I remember feeling heartbroken that I couldn’t take care of my kids. I remember the generosity of family and friends.<\/p>\n

I learned to never tell someone, “I understand what you’re going through.” I learned to be forgiving when people said this because they meant well.<\/p>\n

The biggest lesson I learned during these summers was that I could weather the bad stuff. Although the comfort from friends and family was cherished, the deep comfort came from within, through my choices to listen to the Spirit. I had to change the way I viewed my situation. No one else could do this for me. I had to be the one to make the choice to be thankful. No one could make me feel this. I had to accept physical limitations for a while. I admit that I did not do this very well.<\/p>\n

During this time, I clung to Church magazines and had profound experiences reading the scriptures. The gospel was truly the only thing that could penetrate my troubled heart and mind. It was a revelatory time. I have journals to prove it. I wrote to pass the time. I wrote to record my testimony over and over. I wrote so I could remember.<\/p>\n

For the next few weeks I’ll try to write something each day so my sister has something new to read or look at.<\/p>\n

I love you, Susan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I took a long walk around and around the baseball park during practice. I’m in training for a youth pioneer trek. Just call me “Ma Ross” and I’ll say, “Yes, dear? Do you need a band aid for that blister?” On my long walk through the dust, I thought about my sister who … Continue reading Thoughts on being sick<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extended-family","category-life-according-to-angela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5634"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5642,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5634\/revisions\/5642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}