Wheel of Fortune

Ora et Labora

Ora et Labora--work and pray---St. Benedict who revised and cleaned up monastic life back in the day, that was his focus---work and prayer.

For now that's what's keeping me going. Like a cog in a wheel.

I feel like the rest of my life is always going to be overshadowed by pain and fear and concern for the grandchildren. I don't want to wake up every morning to the taste of despair in my mouth but I don't see a way out.

Kierkagaard said that often when we grieve, we grieve from "remembering the future".....all the hopes and dreams, and perhaps illusions we held for someone, when something alters, we grieve over those lost, imagined possibilities.

At the beginning of all this a wise friend counseled that I needed to give up the illusion of this happy, mythical family. And I well knew there were deep issues lying unresolved, but you push on hoping. So the illusion is gone, but what's to take it's place?

I feel as if I've stepped out of the familiar into an unknown territory that has no maps, no logic, no rules.

And so I work and pray, keep one foot in front of the other, try to stay strong.

But what do I do with all this pain?