I just finished a book entitled "Home is )%)_# Burning" by Dan Marshall. Marshall was in his mid 20s when he was called home from L.A. to attend to his cancer-stricken mom and ALS-stricken dad back in Salt Lake City. His sister Tiffany had been holding up the fort up until the time both Marshall and his brother returned to the family homestead. Two younger sisters were still in their teens and had significant issues of their own (one having an affair with her much-older coach; another struggling with untreated Aspergers)...
As I read the book, it reminded me of the friends I have who also came from larger families where the sh** storms never stopped on any given day. With so many personalities all living under the same roof, each with their own "stuff" to manage, it's no wonder that so many I knew grew up only to leave---and never look back---let alone return back---to "home" again.
Marshall is different. In spite of his own issues around a self-involved girlfriend back in L.A., an ongoing affair of his own with alcohol, and references to his own battle of the bulge...he clearly committed himself to the care of his father. Which is extremely admirable. Who do you know now, in 2016, who has given a year or more of their lives, let alone a month or two, to the care of their own elderly parent or relative? Now imagine the person you know who has done that and is also 25 years old? There aren't many, I can tell you that. Yet Dan Marshall was and is one of them.
After I read Marshall's book, I thought about my own experiences with my last living relative who is now 91 years old. For the past 2-1/2 years, I have been responsible for her care, though it'd be a cold day in Hades before we'd end up in the bathroom together. Dan Marshall and his brother not only spent countless hours doing the unmentionable in caring for their dad...but they also managed to crank out some pretty hilarious, albeit crude, observations as part of that process. It wasn't until their dad was close to death did the brothers hire a caregiver to take over where they had left off.
Everyone's home is burning to some extent. We can spend hours, days, weeks, and months agonizing over what we are going to do or should do or can do or won't do...but in the end, we have to do something. If we do nothing, then nothing will change. As I have often said, it is much easier to act ourselves into right thinking than it is to think ourselves into right acting. When we think and over-think something without doing anything about it, we get stuck inside our own heads and our feet become paralyzed. Thankfully for Marshall's parents, their sons' feet moved when they needed to instead of staying stuck back in the land of comfortable and familiar.
That is all. Until next time.
As I read the book, it reminded me of the friends I have who also came from larger families where the sh** storms never stopped on any given day. With so many personalities all living under the same roof, each with their own "stuff" to manage, it's no wonder that so many I knew grew up only to leave---and never look back---let alone return back---to "home" again.
Marshall is different. In spite of his own issues around a self-involved girlfriend back in L.A., an ongoing affair of his own with alcohol, and references to his own battle of the bulge...he clearly committed himself to the care of his father. Which is extremely admirable. Who do you know now, in 2016, who has given a year or more of their lives, let alone a month or two, to the care of their own elderly parent or relative? Now imagine the person you know who has done that and is also 25 years old? There aren't many, I can tell you that. Yet Dan Marshall was and is one of them.
After I read Marshall's book, I thought about my own experiences with my last living relative who is now 91 years old. For the past 2-1/2 years, I have been responsible for her care, though it'd be a cold day in Hades before we'd end up in the bathroom together. Dan Marshall and his brother not only spent countless hours doing the unmentionable in caring for their dad...but they also managed to crank out some pretty hilarious, albeit crude, observations as part of that process. It wasn't until their dad was close to death did the brothers hire a caregiver to take over where they had left off.
Everyone's home is burning to some extent. We can spend hours, days, weeks, and months agonizing over what we are going to do or should do or can do or won't do...but in the end, we have to do something. If we do nothing, then nothing will change. As I have often said, it is much easier to act ourselves into right thinking than it is to think ourselves into right acting. When we think and over-think something without doing anything about it, we get stuck inside our own heads and our feet become paralyzed. Thankfully for Marshall's parents, their sons' feet moved when they needed to instead of staying stuck back in the land of comfortable and familiar.
That is all. Until next time.