Putting your life on hold while helping someone you love has its own trials that you need to deal with each day. You are someone else's cheerleader, counselor, cook, and all around helper. Being the caregiver for a parent offers another dimension to it all.

A normal visit to my Mom's is about two weeks, once a year. While here, I am treated like I am twelve. There are very wonderful sides to that and not so wonderful ones. The positive is I never have to cook when visiting.

To say I'm under a bit of stress would be an understatement but life goes on and you do what you know your parent would do for you. They probably, if you are over eighteen, have already done for you for years and years. My way of dealing with all that has happened so far is to just not think about it. There is nothing I can do right now but to help Mom on her road to independence. All she needs is time. Broken bones heal.

---

---

Somedays though get pretty rough. The day my Aunt called to tell me about my cousin was one of those days.

---

---

After getting off the phone with my Aunt I knew I needed to get out of the house for a few minutes. Any change of scenery was needed. I decided walking out to the mailbox way too early in the day was my best option.

The mail gets delivered between the hours of 2 and 6 pm, it seems. There has not been a day that I have walked out there and the mail has been in the box waiting. My 'mail plan' now is to just wait until morning. When I go out to get the morning paper I grab yesterdays mail. This way I conserve as much energy as I can for when it's needed most.

With really no prospect of the mail being in the mailbox I walked outside to breathe. While breathing in the hot, humid December air of Florida I looked across the street at the mailbox trying to use my X-ray vision to see if it was worth going out into the direct sun to find nothing in the mailbox.

Curiosity has killed a cat or two I have been told. It also made me walk across the street to take a peek inside. For the first time since I have been here, there was mail inside. I chuckled. While walking back to the house I spotted an envelope with my name on it!! I saw that it had come all the way from Canada, sent by the beautiful and lovely @Katrina-Ariel.

Here I will admit that I had forgotten all about the letter she had said she would be sending. For anyone that really knows me will know how not right that is! Coming back into the house I handed over the rest of the mail to Mom. Sounding like a twelve-year-old I then proceeded to wave, in the air, the envelope with my name on it.

I might have sung "I gotttttttt Maillllll, Doda Do dadoootaaaaaaaa."

Might. Maybe... Okay, I did. 😜

After all that had happened that day I wasn't up to sharing with anyone my surprise. I went to the back porch and slowly, very slowly, inch by 1/2 inch, took the card out of the envelope wondering all the while what was in there that could have made a Hallmark envelope rip!

---

---

I told you I forgot! 😁

---

---

Taking a deep breath I finally opened the card and promptly started crying. Happy tears to be sure. While being my Moms caregiver I have become...the only way I can explain it is, you start to feel like a ghost. A ghost people talk to but a ghost just the same.

When in my own home I am along at least twelve hours a day and have never had this feeling. I love being alone. I love quiet. I miss those things while being here so it's not about being the center of attention by any means.

What it's more about is becoming a non-person. All focus, as it should be, is on the person you are taking care of. All your activities, in my case, are to do with helping Mom get better. Because I am not in my world, but hers, you start to lose your identity, slowly at first. I didn't realize how much this was bothering me until I slowly opened the letter @Katrina-Ariel has sent and I saw my name written, by hand, inside the card.

Never in my life have I opened a card or present so slowly. I am a ripper of the present paper and hate waiting. This day I could not go slow enough. I didn't want 'My Time' to end.

---

Once the tiny package was open and I held both crystals in my hands the love flowed through my body like nothing I had ever witnessed before. Those two crystals radiate so much love and joy it is not possible for me to explain.

I found myself holding a crystal in each hand, arms crossed over my chest as I spun in circles on the back porch while tears of joy fell down my face. Taking deep breaths I slowly grabbed the card, laying the two crystals on top in the sun and proceeded to take the photo you see below.

The photo doesn't do them justice.

As soon as I took the last photo I was called to go back and help. Walking into my bedroom I laid them side by side on the dresser to be safe. When the ghost feeling comes over me now I go get the two crystals and hold them in my hand. I stand very still while all that love and joy flow back into me again. I carefully place them back again in their, for now, home. Knowing I have a secret weapon when the ghosting gets too bad is a relief.

Thank You so much Katrina-Ariel for being YOU and taking the time to write your beautiful note and sending priceless gifts to me. I am forever in your debt.

---