There's nothing more painful than watching someone you love suffer. What can you do

to make it better ? You stand there looking at your loved one in that hospital bed. You try to put up a brave front. After all, one needs to be careful about letting emotions of

sadness and frustration come out in front of the loved one. Your loved one has enough

on his or her mind. Hold back those tears. Excuse yourself momentarily if you must so you can wipe your eyes and pull yourself together.

You start to remember times when your loved one was up and alive and happy. It's good

to have those memories. They may be the very thing that holds you together if the outcome does not end well.

The dear one who lay there suffering is an important person in your life. More than anything you want that relationship again. You are not ready to see it fade away. So, you

stay there, and try to give a reassuring smile, a soft touch to brush a stray hair out of their eyes and a gentle kiss on the forehead. You say softly, " I love you" while you are silently

saying a prayer. When you leave the bedside and go out of the room the pain is allowed

to surface with full force. This is not going to be easy.

The voice on the other end of the telephone asked if I was Christine. After I confirmed that I am the person, she went on to give me the news. All my life I have known the news would come. I just did not know the exact date and time. She had a very calm voice, and yet she was concerned. She has probably had this conversation so many times that she knows it by heart.

It takes a special person to do what she does. Why would someone purposely choose to do what she does? I am glad that she was there and knew how to reach me. I was both saddened and relieved by the news. I knew things would never be the same again. I was

breathing a sigh of relief that the pain and suffering was finally over.

I had to wake up. I needed to go and see for myself and settle this in my mind. I felt numb. Why was I numb? I think it's because I didn't know how to feel. Maybe it's because that is all my mind and body could handle at that moment. Even now I am still quite numb.

Feelings can be fleeting. Sometimes I am not consciously aware of them. My subconscious is not at all shy. When I dream at night I am so aware of the feelings, good or not so good.

She visited me in a dream recently. I woke feeling very confused. She said that she almost forgot to give me something. It was a check. I started to ask what it was for but she left quickly without an answer. As far as I was concerned she did not owe me anything. Feelings of confusion with her were very familiar to me. Many times I tried to force an answer. I didn't like those confusing and hurtful feelings. Usually she avoided the questions just like she did in the dream.

Now that I am older, will the answers come more easily to me? If and when I do get answers, what will I do with them? I hope I grow from the answers.

What kind of answers will she get where she is going? Maybe it won't matter. It still matters to me. As long as I have breath in me, I think it will still matter. She was my Mother. She has left this earth.

Before I ever laid eyes on my husband we wrote to each other.  I got to 

know this person by the way he wrote.  One day he mentioned a line from a

famous song.  It went something like this, "You fill my heart with gladness, take

away all my sadness, ease my troubles, that's what you do."

 There was that one day when my phone rang and as I picked it up the song was playing.  Oh yeah, there was another time when he slipped the CD in the car player while we were in a parking lot, and then we were dancing to this song.  I thought it was silly and incredibly romantic. 

Can you guess what is our most requested song while we are out somewhere and there is 

dancing ?  I will never tire of this song.  It's our song :)

Everyone likes her when they meet her.  She is sweet and kind

and incredibly smart.  She has potential beyond measure.  I have

seen it so many times over the years.  

"Why didn't she finish what she started?", people often ask. She

had a set back.  She had some temporary health issues.  They interfered

with the semester in her junior year.  

At the end of four years she left.  Something was missing.  It was her final goal.

It would have looked so amazing in a frame.  Eighteen more credits would have

made it happen.  No one ever counted on her getting sick and having to make up

the failed credits.  She came up short. It would not be honest to list a degree on a 

resume that does not exist.

She left five years ago.  "Will she ever go back and finish what she started?", many

ask that question.

She met a troubled soul.  She loves him and absorbs her life with him.  She has a 

job that pays far less than she would have received with that precious degree.

She doesn't like to talk about her unfinished business. 

I wonder if she realizes how I secretly cringe and my heart sinks every time I think

of what could have been in her life.

The night that I met you I had mixed feelings about you.

I needed something from you.  

So, I was drawn to you.

I began to see what a troubled soul you were.

After the second time I saw you, I wanted to give you

something, so you would remember me.  

It was a butterfly, which turned out to be symbolic.

Little did I know then, how eager I was to transform you into

the beautiful soul I believed you could be.  After all, I love butterflies.

You gave me something that night also.  It was a metal cross, also symbolic. 

As the years rolled by I found myself clinging to the cross.

You did not seem interested in the cross.  I loved the cross and still do.  

The irony of it all, was that you, in all your creativity and wonder, eluded

the butterfly.

 "You have MS ?, but you don't look sick."  I get this a lot.

One day after being treated for lost vision in my left eye, I asked the specialist,

"What caused this 'Optic Neuritis' "?  He calmly said, "You have MS".

 "You must be mistaken, how could you say such a thing?" 

Life as I once knew it would be changed forever.  There was so much

to learn. I'm too tired. Life is passing me while I sleep.

The needles make me feel like I have the flu.  

Sometimes different body parts hurt.  I must continue to move.  I shudder

to think what would happen if I constantly give in to the pain.  I like moving

in the water, so I go to a pool. 

Then, there is the annual MRI.  They want me to go into the closed kind to

get the best picture. This frightens me. So, they numb my emotions with drugs.  

Later, we look at the pictures to check for lesions.  They look like 

lightening bugs that we see outside on a summer night.  But we hope

the picture is not so fascinating.

 MS is not a death sentence. You learn to live with it.

 People often try to measure time.  They say it took this long to find love, finish their

education, to reach a certain goal and the list goes on.

  Time can often get away from many of us.  You have heard people say, "My, where has the time gone?"  Some will say, "If only I had more time." As I see it, time does not belong to humans.  Oh, but they really think it does.  

  Folks will try to guard what they think is their time very carefully.  I have heard some say, " I don't have time for this." Next, they will refuse to help someone in need or visit a friend who needs them or ever call their buddy and the list goes on. 

 The truth is, time belongs to God.  He decides how much each person is given.

Just let that sink in.  It could be life changing.  Ask God how you should spend

the time you were given.