My mother-in-law is coming to

My mother-in-law is coming to see us this weekend. She
is flying in on Friday and staying until Monday. R's dad had a stroke 18 months
ago. It has been a struggle for her. When I married R the vows did say "in
sickness and health." I was thinking flu, maybe cancer, but certainly not
long-term impairment such as stroke or alzheimer's. I have seen their
relationship change drastically. While I have had my own struggles in seeing my
father-in-law change, mine are certainly nothing to N's. I have been encouraging
her to go to a psychologist. She needs to be able to tell someone just how
pissed off she is about all of this. Her children and her husband aren't people
she feels like she can say this to. Nor, do I think they are the ones who want
to hear this. I think that we need to be listened to and truly heard, so going
around the corner, hiding behind the closet door, gritting our teeth and saying
"I hate you!" out loud may temporarily make us feel better, but in the long run
we get heart disease and tmj, not resolution. I am concerned for her. Last night
while talking on the phone, I made her promise to ask her doc for a list of
several possibilities. She will be seeing him in January and that's far enough
away to not intimidate her into feeling like a decision has to be made now. I
saw my mother become a widow at 30 years old. I saw this happen to someone who
never thought it would. I began discussing with him early in our marriage about
what I would do if he died and what he should/would do should I before he. He
found it morbid and disturbing to speak about it. I found it relieving and
cathartic. Only when this happened to his dad did we start to discuss long-term
disability, DNR's, living wills, money to pay for it all. A few days after my
mother-in-law brought B home, she mentioned to me that the inheritance that we
were to have might not be much after all this (meaning the care-taking of B). I
knew she was being sardonic, if not a bit truthful, but I was appalled. I could
care less about money. I wanted for them to be able to afford good care for B;
for N to be able to live well after his death. To be well while living well.
Should something happen to N, I wanted B to be in the best of places that made
him comfortable and content. I reassured her of all this. I think she both
needed to say it to me and needed to hear what I said. He had his stroke during
the second service at church on a Father's Day. While they were getting seated,
B started rubbing his right arm. N noticed and asked if he was feeling well. He
replied no and then leaned over onto the arm of the pew. She immediately called
911 on the cell phone. Several parishoners whose professions were in medicine
came over and, thinking he was having a heart attack, tried to offer an aspirin.
By then the EMS workers had arrived and wouldn't allow the aspirin to be
administered. Their insistence saved his life. An aspirin given to someone
having a hemorrhagic stroke will kill them. I think that God reached down, not
in a church, but in the confidence of the EMS worker whose job it was that day
to save my father-in-law's life.