Attempting to explore my new path in life is very difficult. When Meredith’s journey with MSA started in 2013, all relationships with friends and family started to change. Contact with her friends became strained, less frequent, awkward, and for the last twelve months interaction ceased to exist. Meredith had become the person in the mirror we all know one day will be us. Nobody likes to see the real future. Meredith and I went from being in the parade of life to being on the sidewalk, silent and invisible observers. With the progression of the disease, Meredith had to have 24/7 care. With the need of this care and the logistics involved, the dinner invitations or “let’s get together” invitations had to be declined. Our standard excuses of the location is not handicapped accessible, would keep us out too late, or as the disease progressed, Meredith is on a special diet, so the invitations ceased to be offered. One pain Meredith had was the deep loneliness felt by the abandonment of her friends not changing their routine to just drop by the house and say hello. But her deepest pain was caused by being ignored by her Church. Meredith never missed church. She loved the music, liturgy and the message. She sang in the choir, served on Church and Synod councils, played and directed hand bells and worked on various committees. But when her time of trial arrived she came to realize how Jesus felt when Peter denied Him. But I digress.
I am starting a new journey. I have not walked with those around me for four years. This part of the journey reminds me of when I was growing up. I was an “Army Brat”. My family would trot off to a far away land for a few years. Swing by home for thirty or so days until the new location had been secured and then disappear for another stretch of time. When my father retired from the Army and we settled in Atlanta, I was thirteen years old I had lived close to six years out of country, and only eleven months in the Atlanta area. Every Sunday we would make the drive out to my mothers parents for Sunday meal. And then we moved to Louisville, Kentucky. By the time I came back to Atlanta I was eighteen, nobody in my family knew me or anything about me. Today I find myself in the same situation. After what amounts to four years of not being involved in any activities of those around me, I am back in the fish bowl.