Reflecting

Last night, while standing on the steps of the altar in the church that I've been a member of for the past twenty-one years, I looked out and saw the most beautiful faces radiating back at me as I spoke about the challenges and gifts in caregiving. Most of the people listening had, at some point, been caregivers, and many had been cared for. Mary, our minister, had just spent the day traveling between two very sick parishioners. She was exhausted, but there she sat, listening, smiling at me, and reassuring me with her eyes. Several women I have known for over a decade nodded their heads as I spoke. Paul, my fellow Sunday School teacher and dear friend, sat intently listening.

There's a feeling I tried to capture in my book, and it's nearly impossible to render in words, but I was graced with that feeling once again as I spoke last night. I wrote a passage once to express this particular feeling. Here is a small part of it:

The gift of the human spirit is its ability to connect to others--a desire to help, a prayer, a positive common energy that combines to form a physical thing--a force that becomes a pair of strong, invisible arms lifting you above the pain. Messages sent verbally, in writing, through acts of kindness, in thoughtful glances, and exchanged looks of fervent hope, create a clairvoyant healing energy. It is real, it is powerful, and it is beautiful.

Thank you, Church of the Epiphany, for sending me and my family your prayers over the years.
They have been received.

The Challenges & Gifts of Caregiving

 

I’ll be speaking at my church this Tuesday night on the Challenges and Gifts of Caregiving and focusing on many different issues. But the one that plagued me most as a caregiver was being too hard on myself with negative self-talk. My mind raced constantly and more often than necessary, it went to the what-ifs or the I can’ts.

Negative self-talk presents a huge problem to the caregiver and is detrimental to the person he or she cares for, because nothing positive comes out of self-doubt or self-loathing.  

The parallel gift to this challenge is the opportunity
to be more self-aware. Here's how, and it always works for me:

First notice that you are engaging in negative self-talk, and then redirect it. Imagine someone you know who loves you, and imagine what they would say to you if they heard your negative self-talk: Here’s an example of the voice I hear when I say to myself, “I cant’ do this.” In this scene in Learning by Accident, Hugh was still in the ICU.

Seeing my mother on the couch in her soft flowered robe, fingers wrapped around a mug of coffee in the morning, fills me with security. As a small child, I recited her full name with fascination: Julia Margaret Mary Flaherty Healey—the longest name in the world. Reflecting on her name I ask, “Didn’t Pop’s father used to call you, “My Jewel?”

“Yes,” she says smiling. “He was such a sentimental man.”

“Mom, I hope I can handle this,” I say to her. She covers my hand with her own. “I have no doubt you can handle it, Rosemary. You just have to go day by day. It’s not going to be easy, though. Dad and I are here if you need us.”

My parents are both gone now….Pop died in 2007 and my mother passed away just last year. She wanted desperately for me to publish my book and told me to self publish it if I had to. She believed in the story and she believed in me.

So when you find yourself questioning your own goodness, ability, or limits, reflect on those who love you and the way they see you, and listen to them in your heart, and believe them.

The Challenges & Gifts of Caregiving

A Free Event Open to the Public

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

7 pm - 9 pm

Church of the Epiphany

8000 Hermitage Road

Richmond, VA 23228

National Rehabilitation Awareness Week

Meet Rosemary Rawlins, author
Learning by Accident

Join us for a book reading/signing and reception to celebrate National Rehabilitation Awareness Week and the release of Rosemary’s inspirational memoir. 

This is the heading of the flyer HealthSouth is advertising for my first major public event with the book, and it's heady stuff for me. Hugh and his parents will attend the HealthSouth event with me this coming Wednesday as I give my first talk and read from my book for the first time to a public audience. The place and reason for this talk could not be more important to me. HealthSouth is the hospital I chose for Hugh 33 days after he was discharged from the hospital, having travelled through the ICU, the med/surge floor, and the acute brain injury ward within a month's time. He had progressed, but he was still seriously ill, extremely impaired and barely able to perform activities of daily living with prompting. 

Well planned, well-delivered, continuing rehabilitation is an absolute necessity after a brain injury. The doctor, nurses, therapists and social worker we met at HealthSouth contributed daily to Hugh's recovery, a recovery that not only helped him heal, but helped him reclaim his life.

So if you have ever visited a rehab center or hospital, take a moment this week to acknowledge and appreciate the life-changing therapist in your own story--the person or persons who, with compassion,  knowledge, and a bit of athletic grit, helped you dig deep into the well of your own strength so you could return to your life in better health.

Please join me this week, if you can, and don't forget to register by phone:

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

3:30pm-6pm
Formal presentation begins at 4:15pm

HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital of Virginia
5700 Fitzhugh Ave Richmond, VA 23226

Books will be available for purchase at the event
RSVP to Tonya Ferguson at 804-673-4503; tonya.ferguson@healthsouth.com

First book signing - Success!

I felt a shiver up my spine when I saw the store event sign for the first time with my name on it bearing a picture of my book cover that looked larger than life.

"Can I get you a drink from the cafe? Is there anything more you need?"a staff member
asked. I felt so significant, even a tiny bit important (certainly not a feeling I'm used to)-- different than myself, different than the "me" I feel like every other day--wonderfully different. Friends approached the table with huge smiles lighting their faces, prompting me to run around the table for a hug. So much excitement and so many good wishes. It's a foreign feeling, people treating me like I'm special, but a delicious one. It made me pause. I wanted to write a meaningful verse in each person's book, but my mind felt a bit fuzzy, unable to find that place where all the right words just flow. Maybe it was the rushing in and out of patrons, the background noise, or the pounding of my own heart, but many of

my signatures felt a bit generic to me. I hope each and every person that asked me to sign a book knows how very much I appreciate his or her willingness to enter my world for just a short while. Within the first hour, I sold every book Barnes and Noble had available to sell. (It wasn't that many) Luckily, I brought a few extras along, so we didn't run out. But I have to say, running out of the store's supply made my day! Thank you again, Barnes & Noble, and all you faithful readers out there!

My book in the bookstore, a beautiful sight!

Add caption