The Lord and His Reasons

The matriarch asked me this morning why the Lord has left her so long on this earth.  She figures she has something to do...her life has some unknown reason or task she must fulfill.  Because I am not in a good mood, I asked her if maybe God was punishing me.  Never a good question.

The mother-in-law has outlived her whole family, most of her nieces and nephews on her side and is now beginning to outlive them on her husband's side.  Fate has a weird way of working; the matriarch has always measured people in terms of their worth to her.  So, now, she has no one to measure and she wonders why she is still alive.  I pointed out she still has her son and she has some worth to him; but, apparently, despite providing grandchildren, a home, chauffeur service, medical care and all round whatever you want whenever you want kind of care, my husband is of no worth to her.  How do you point out that maybe this is the lesson she is supposed to learn?  I don't think selfish people think in these kind of terms.

Anyhow, the cold is almost gone and my mother-in-law certainly sounds a lot better; today, we go to the eye specialist.  It is purely for on-going care and pain management, the sight is never going to come back in the eye.  But, I think, my mother-in-law hopes it will.  Ironically, last night, I went out with some very good friends for dinner and had a lovely time.  The restaurant was young for us, kind of swanky and the food was good.  In the midst of the eye discussion, the matriarch asked me if she would like the restaurant to which I had gone.  It was one of those questions with hidden implications: I think she would have liked to have come with me.  It was a night out celebrating birthdays in a way and absence from our worries; it was not a family event nor did the restaurant strike me as a family friendly place.  I think the mother-in-law would have been completely blind in the environment; also, I didn't want her to come.  Isn't that awful?  How do you tell a 98 year old with little time to live (unless, of course, she lives forever) that her presence wasn't wanted?  And, why do I feel guily for a night out?  The mother-in-law goes for lunch, twice a week.  Now, she wants dinner out--okay, maybe I am extrapolating too much.  But there is this fear that she is encroaching on more and more of my life,  maybe it is a punishment....