Dear Miracle Workers,
Assisted living is full of mysteries. My mom is 94 and in assisted living. The thing they don’t tell you when you are taking the nice tour, or after you’ve paid your deposit and are going through orientation, is that your loved one’s “things” are going to disappear. This is especially true with clothes, towels, sheets – you name it. You can go through a whole Sharpie putting names and initials on things and they will still disappear. It’s a mystery.
Some people go into assisted living because they need physical assistance. But some, like my mom, are in various stages of dementia and a lot of her neighbors are like that, too. So, who knows? Things might be “borrowed,” or “found,” or “collected.” Some go into the laundry room never to be seen again. And anything new or of value might walk out the door with a temporary worker. Mom’s wedding ring disappeared that way – I think.
I pretty much take this all in stride – thanks to ACIM. “All things are lessons God would have me learn.” (OrEd.WkBk.193) I can only feel lack or loss, or even annoyance, if I feel I have been deprived. And I can only feel deprived if I have forgotten who I am and what this world is. My attachment to concepts such as order, future needs, history, the past, possessions, and judgments of right and wrong, will become powerful anchors to the illusion, if I let them. Instead, “... there is a way to look on everything that lets it be to you another step to Him and to salvation of the world." (OrEd.WkBk.193.17) So now I try to be like Byron Katie. Wedding ring missing? I look forward to that happening again! – so I can continue to learn.
(originally appeared in Miracles Weekly #326, Mar. 3 2022)
Send CMC a tax-deductible donation via PayPal or your Credit Card to support this work. "Thank you!"
