Honor

 I was raised that if a person does not have honor and integrity, then that person has nothing.  I was raised by 2 USMC from WWII, and had the influence from a great-grandfather from Massachusetts, who was Baptist. Not much hope for me not to learn this lesson.  The interesting fact is that my brothers were also raised that way, but left at 16,17 and 18, going into the military, and yet they forgot this lesson.  So when I took care of my mother during the last two years of her life, I had to fight for her honor and dignity, and had to do it with integrity because these were her sons. That turned out to be a nightmare, because my mother was so bullied by her sons that she was terrified most of the last two years of her life.  She told me numerous times that she would just agree to what they wanted because two of them would be on the phone at the same time nagging her.  Now the important part of this is that she had congestive heart failure and was on oxygen. She had been in the hospital or rehab 16 times in 18 months.  They would bully her when she was ill and on medications, and then attack me by email or phone.  What they did was because of money - my mother's.  My mother was so devastated when she found out that she had been talked into a trust while she was in rehab, coming out of a critical near-death experience (she had coded, and was resuscitated) and spent a month and a half in the rehab center.  She had signed a power of attorney for one brother, not realizing that he was pulling things on her.  She had me as her medical advocate, but did not know her son was not allowing that to happen. He thought he could control things from out of state.  The rub is, I was the one that was called in the middle of the night to rush to the hospital, and to stay sometimes 28 hours while she was being stabilized.  I was the one who had to give her IV's when she was released from the hospital dying from MRSA.

Doing things honorably is never the easiest way to go but is the most satisfying for me.  It is the way I do things.

According to the dictionary this the some of the definitions of honor :

honor, homage, reverence, deference mean respect and esteem shown to another. honor may apply to the recognition of one's right to great respect or to any expression of such recognition <the nomination is an honor>.

Synonyms: honesty, integrity, probity, rectitude, righteousness, uprightness

 

I hope to continue acting this way.  So many of my dreams lately have had to change, but I am making new ones.

 

I was talking with my friend Anna, who is a Navy veteran, and we were discussing my clean out of all my yarn.  I told her about the Army Sgt. who I was told did not have a family, only the military, and he was dying of stage 4 cancer at Walter Reed Hospital.  His friend had sent out an appeal for some cards for him to perk him up. ( I at the time was in a major polio flare and not able to get out of bed much, but felt  that maybe I could make him something and asked if I could make him an afghan...the answer was yes.)  The Sgt. so love his afghan that he asked if he could be buried with it, so his friend contacted me and I said that I have never had such an honor and that I was glad it comforted him.  Some day I hope to go to Arlington to his grave and say "Thank You.

 

Anna and I talked about a lady that was in front of me at a local store and was being complimented on her hat and scarf.  The clerk asked her if she made it and she said no, that an angel had made them for the shelter she was in and had put a note in it  telling whoever got this set to feel beautiful.  I gasped because I knew that I had made it. The lady told the clerk that she knew she was homeless but she felt beautiful.  I did not want her to know I made it, but I felt so happy that it gave her a lift.  See, I have been homeless and know how horrible one can feel.

 

Al reminds me of the hundreds of hats, scarves, afghans and other items I have made and donated, so he says I have always tried to make sure no one feels obligated to say "Thank you".  I don't do it for that reason, I do it because I can't help out with money, or homes, or cars or other things, but I can "or could" use my hands and eyes.  Now I will hopefully pass this on to others.