Through many years of fatigue and depression, I slogged through dark winter day after dark winter day, dragging myself out of bed every morning, living for the merciful moment I could lay my exhausted head back down again. I lit fragrant candles, opened all the shades to let in light, but those efforts were no match for the relentless heaviness of bone-crushing fatigue that mercilessly pressed down upon my body every waking, agonizing hour.

I am so thankful for the doctor who fonally diagnosed my narcolepsy, and the treatment I receive for that and my two types of sleep apnea, obstructive as well as central apnea, which is where the brain itself failsto signal  the lungs and diaphragm to breathe.

But through those dark winters, I looked forward with desperation, to seeing the green leaves of daffodils starting to poke through the hard winter soil, because it was the promise of warm weather, sunlight and longer daylight hours. Each spring was a reprieve, a time I could anticipate a slight lessening of the heaviness for a while. The fatigue wasn’t condusive to getting outdoors, and low vitamin D levels compounded things. Eventually, by God’s grace doctors figured out the various aspects and got me to a level of functioning and quality of life again that I had lost hope of ever having again. Now it only gets that bad under extended periods of stress, which life gladly generates on a consistent basis, but now like normal folks, I get a break in between. The fatigue still gets just as heavy, but lets up a little sooner, stays lighter in between. Every spring, I would tell my Mom when the daffodils were popping up here in VA. West Virginia gets their spring a few weeks later than we do. Last Sunday when we went out to church, I noticed the daffodils once again. I thought, I gotta tell Mom, and then I thought, it might be the last time I get to do that.

Hearing about someone’s aging, fading parent is ubiquitous. But when it’s happening, and you are intimately, immediately involved in a protracted decline toward an inevitable end, it’s a hard row to hoe. Mom keeps expressing shock. “I can’t believe I’m like this, I never imagined….”

It boggles my mind that anyone can get to their mid-seventies and it never even crosses their mind that they might ever be old and incapacitated. That, to me, takes an awful, awful lot for granted. Maybe it’s because I was an RN. Maybe it’s because in my 30’s, 40’s and into my 50’s I was exhausted, weak, and living with constant pain, but whatever the reason, I have lived with a very acute awareness of the cruelties and indignities that come with aging and sickness. What they take away from you, and the feelings, frustrations and humiliations that engenders.

Watching her traverse that path has had a sort of PTSD-like effect for me. Forcing me to revisit a period I only had just begun to finally escape at the age of nearly 60 with the hope of some normalcy for at least a few years before facing my own “real-deal” old-age. Being intimately involved in her care, has halted that recovery and set me back way too close to the heavy version of fatigue I had only just had  a mere single blessed year of enjoying having escaped. I had lost the excess weight that comes with being too tired to move. I was walking regularly, doing stretching every day, and conscientiously taking supplements and focusing on nutrition. I had actual days when I didn’t physically feel awful.

And then Mom needed surgery for bilateral totally occluded femoral arteries, and the last 15 months the luxury of focusing any further on my own wellness evaporated into a wistful memory.

And that’s life. But the daffodils are poking through. I got up this morning and it was toasty warm and I thanked God sincerely for our gas heat and the money to pay the bill. I’ll raise the shades and let the sunlight in and be glad I know how to mitagate against the heaviness. I scan the headlines and don’t have the stomach for passing on all the stuff about how the pharmaceutical companies knew the vaccines weren’t safe, how China owns the Bidens and half of congress, how we armed Russia via Afghanistan and how the satanists are standing up for their religious right to abortions.

We got to have our son and his wife and the grandbaby here over the weekend. Along with them comes their geriatric diabetic sometimes incontinent husky. (Have I mentioned we finally got new carpet?) After accident number 3, my son and daughter went out and bought some doggy diapers. (Thank you for caring!)

My husband’s old dog has developed some sort of upper respiratory condition (apparently permenant) that has him hacking and snorting like the old codger that he is, but an unsuspecting visitor could be forgiven for wondering if we have adopted a pig for all the noises he makes. I love that I have hearing aids now, to hear our grandbaby’s chatter, but I’m very thankful there’s volume control on this set so I don’t have to hear the pigdog in high-def.

I am thankful for the year of relative good health and well-being that I got to enjoy before Mom started her decline, and I am thankful that I have been able to do what I have done for her over all these months, even if saying it out loud comes through gritted teeth. I am grateful for the hospice nurses and especially grateful and thankful for her aid.

I am so very grateful that we have finally found a church full of the Spirit and the Word and alive and refreshing.

I praise God for all His goodness and forebearance and patience and mercy and generosity. I see the daffodil tops and know that this has been a dark winter for most of the world. I don’t know how anybody does this life without Jesus.

If you don’t know Him, you can. He wants you to. He died to pay for your sins and to redeem you. He rose from the dead and conquered death itself. Death is the wage of sin. When Adam and Eve sinned, it introduced death into the human race, and Jesus paid the penalty for us all, if we will but place our faith in what He did on the cross. This has been a dark winter, and the governments of the world have given up all but the thinnest vabeer of looking out for the citizens they supposedly represent. The tribulation lies ahead. The Bible says those who place their faith in Jesus for salvation will be removed from the Earth before the tribulation. Those who will not accept that precious gift, will unfortunately face the most horrible 7 years the world has ever seen. Today is the day of salvation. If you believe after the rapture, you will be saved, but will likely be killed for your faith. The beast system is lined up, and only another global crisis or two will bring it online. Surveillence cameras everywhere. Cell phones and Alexa and Siri and your listening smart T.V. all are taking notes.

Jesus is coming. This might be your last warning. If you read this and something inside you registers truth, don’t ignore it. The Holy Spirit Himself is witnessing to you that this is truth. Reach out with both hands and grab on, ask Him to save you. All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.