Enough is Enough

When I was a kid I tried hard, at almost everything.  I, like most of us, was raised to do our best, to succeed because we worked hard and devoted ourselves to our task.  But I have to say, I always wondered at the time was I doing enough.

I carried that question and that focus through young adulthood.  I was ambitious, I wanted to do great things with my job and personally.  I wanted lots of friends, an important job and I wanted to be wildly successful in anything I did.  I pursued the jobs I wanted relentlessly and I worked long hard hours to prove myself. 

Still, I worried, was I trying hard enough, was I doing enough.  I was not alone, a lot of people I knew had the same worries. 

A lot of people I know still battle that same self-doubt.

The truth is I worked hard, was effective, and successful at most of my work endeavors.  I wasn’t really very good at the whole work life balance. Too much of the time I found myself working too hard and too much so I could be sure I was doing enough to earn those badges of success.

Fast forward to a wife who had a couple of strokes and needed constant help and caregiving.  It was constant, it was an always and forever journey filled with times of doubt and fear.

Of course I was obsessed, I was hyper vigilant and I constantly second guessed all the things, all the stuff, all the decisions, and then I worried whether I was doing enough, was I attentive enough, was I smart enough, was I enough.

Too many times I talked myself into thinking I wasn’t doing enough, I wasn’t good enough, I was lazy and not worthy of providing care for anyone much less this very fragile woman whom I loved.

Today, I see more clearly, I understand better.  Today I know the answer to the question, did I do enough? 

Yep.  Did plenty.  Hindsight gives great insight.  Now I know.  Now I say to you, be easy on yourself.  You are doing the impossible.

The day Marty passed as I was walking into the hospital my mind was a jumble of different things but I knew, I, my children, my friends had all done enough.  We saw Marty through 14 years of a precarious life, we saw her home and she left knowing she was loved by many.

All that doubt I had, it’s gone.

Today, looking back, I did enough and all the angst I had over the years, worrying was I doing enough, was I good enough, was I smart enough. Wasted energy.   I did enough.  I did it good enough.  I worked hard enough.  I cared enough.  I loved enough.  I lived enough.

None of that means it’s time to quit doing things.  None of this means you don’t strive, that you don’t put your energy into important things.  What it means is when I worry about doing enough I should see I have a long history of doing enough. 

Guess what.  It’s the same as you.  You are doing the best you can, you are caring for your person the best and most anyone can.  You can doubt it but someday you will see, you will look back and realize just what you accomplished and how much love you gave.

You are doing enough.  Now breathe. 

 

 

White Butterfly

In my dream Marty told me.  She touched my face with her hands, she leaned over, kissed my cheek and said, “Thank you for loving me.  I was right about all of this, don’t ever be afraid.”

About two weeks after Marty passed in 2019 I had a dream.  I normally don’t remember dreams, this one I did because I woke up and the memory stuck. 

I remember the dream today.

Like any memory I’ve had, I’ve probably managed to edit and emphasize the dream to meet my own ideas.  It’s what we do, we revise, we edit, we embellish, we make our memories fit into our preconceived ideas. 

The most important parts, the words, the gestures, the end, I remember.  Those parts feel real even today.

In this dream I’m pushing Marty’s wheelchair across a forest trail.  It’s a well-maintained path, one of those crushed granite paths that allows for easy wheelchair travel, about 4 feet wide with grass or dirt on either side.  I could hear the small pieces of the trail being crushed and breaking under the hard rubber tires of the wheelchair, a crunching sound. 

To the right is a small creek, rushing to its end, noisily running over earth, rocks, and vegetation as it seeks lower ground and a place to spill.  To the left were trees and bushes and flowers, all volunteer, growing at different rates to different heights with no rhyme nor reason for where they planted themselves.

We moved across the path in silence, listening to the water, listening to the ravens talking to the other ravens, listening to the wind blow through the trees on our left.  The leaves danced to the tune of the wind, the water moved relentlessly across a path dug eons ago, a place for the water to run to its master.

We hadn’t walked far when I saw a spot to move off the trail and sit and listen to the sounds of life around us.  I told Marty what I was going to do, she just nodded.  We pulled off to the side and I stared at the brook, the clear water slowly moving downhill. 

I’m not sure what it is about the sound of running water, I just know it gives comfort.  We stopped and listened and watched the birds fly, the clouds billow and the water continue to erode the ground as it rushed and tumbled down the hill. 

I looked at Marty and she stood from her wheelchair and faced me.  Blew my mind. This was not the sick, broken Marty, this was the Marty I met in 1974, the Marty with long brown straight hair parted in the middle.  This was the Marty in too short cut offs and a white cotton blouse that moved slowly in the wind.

Marty turned to me; the wheelchair that had transported her for 14 years was gone.  She stood for a couple of beats and looked at me, her blue eyes clear, sharp, and knowing.  She reached up to me, put one hand on each side of my cheek and said, “Thank you for loving me so well”, she kissed my lips gently and whispered in my ear, “I was right, it’s just like I said.”

I looked at her, looked up and she was gone.  I watched standing beside that stream in silence.  I saw a small white butterfly flying away, up and around a mountain juniper and down the trail without me. 

That was all.  Truthfully, I’m not sure how much of this is the exact dream and how much of it is my own brain creating what I want to remember.  I just don’t know. 

I’ve struggled a bit to write this.  In some ways it feels a bit, well, weird.  I’m not into weird supernatural stuff.  Well maybe not.

When I was hiking in Colorado this past June with friends I was walking down a forest trail and what did I see, a white butterfly.  I followed the butterfly up the trail a short distance and out into a small white meadow with a stream of snow melt running downhill.  It was like my dream, and I left a little of
Marty in Rocky Mountain National Park. 

I told my kids and their kids this story and now when the grands see a white butterfly they see their grandmother.  And you know what, a white butterfly has taken up residence at daughter Erin’s house. 

My grands will never see another white butterfly and not think of their grandmother. 

It’s a good story and as far as I know, the dead level truth.