Life Has Been Life-ing

We’re already in June, half of 2026 is gone, just like that. It’s funny how, on the one side, I can feel like these six months have gone by so fast, but, on the other hand, I felt like this school year went so slow. Some days seemed to drag on and counting down the days until the last one seemed to go on forever. Regardless of how fast or slow it might have gone, or how some days seemed longer than others, the bottom line is that life has been life-ing for me and my family, and not in the best ways.

It didn’t happen at the start of this year. I can go back to September of 2025 to see where it all began. My niece left for Florida and her job at Disney in September. That in itself rocked all of our worlds. While I am so incredibly happy for her and proud of her, saying goodbye to her was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I look back on these months now and I can admit that it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. Yes, I miss her terribly, but we text, and Facetime and I see her on her Snapchat every day, living her best life and looking so incredibly happy doing what she always dreamed of doing, so all of that makes it easier.

We all knew that the holidays would be hard not having my niece here with us. But life didn’t think that was enough for us so it had other plans. On December 1^st, my father had a stroke. What we thought was a minor one, upon further testing, it turned out to be a major one. To say we were all shocked would be the understatement of the year. My father has never been truly sick my whole life, with the exception of high blood pressure, which I know is a blessing in itself and I don’t look at that lightly. When it first happened, it didn’t seem to affect him too much. He had a procedure done to remove a clot and he was talking and moving his arms and legs with no problem. But he took a drastic change overnight and by the time we saw him the next day he wasn’t making any sense with his words, he didn’t know who any of us were, and he had no mobility on his entire right side. It was a lot to take in all at once. We heard so many things from so many doctors but they all agreed that he could make a full recovery, it would just take time, some said at least a year, which seems like a lifetime when you hear it. To see my father like that was one of the scariest things I have ever witnessed.

December seems like it went by in a blur. My father was in the ICU for a week or so and then got moved into a room while he waited for a bed to open up in the rehab place. My mother was there every day, as was my sister and I. Our lives were only about going to the hospital and being there for our father and supporting our mother. Everything else got pushed to the side, some things were even forgotten. Sometime in December my daughter and I both got sick and were home bound for over a week, which meant I couldn’t see my father at all, or help my sister do anything for our mother. The brunt of everything unfortunately landed on my sister.

My nephew’s birthday is the middle of December and of course we had a bad snowstorm the night before, so not only would my father not be there to celebrate, but it wasn’t safe enough for my mother to drive over. But the rest of us got together and we made the best of it. My Dad was moved to his first rehab facility in December where he stayed until the middle of February. He wasn’t with us for Christmas Eve or New Year’s but we visited him and spent time together as a family. Again, we made the best of it. During that time in rehab, he made progress but also had setbacks. It was an up and down cycle. Because life didn’t care that he had a stroke, it threw an infection at him too which stopped his rehab progress. But he kept doing the work and in February he moved to his second rehab facility already doing much better than when the stroke first happened. I remember my sister and I saying we couldn’t wait to ring in the New Year and leave this shit behind us, but the reality was that all of this shit we were going through was coming with us. There was no magic spell to make it all disappear.

It was hard for my sister and I. We visited my father most days, if not every day. We both have husbands, and kids and a household to maintain. At times we felt like we were seriously about to lose our minds. It was a lot to take in. Trying to juggle everything caused us mental and emotional stress that no one can understand unless you’ve been through something similar. All of our time went to our parents, our husbands and our kids; we hardly had any time for ourselves. We definitely became withdrawn from everyone and everything that didn’t have to do with what we were going through at any given moment. We couldn’t deal with anything extra or anyone else’s bullshit. Nothing mattered but seeing our father through this ordeal. And we suffered for it, and our families suffered for it. Some days it was too much to handle. And I definitely had more than one breakdown.

Life didn’t care that we were all trying to adjust to my niece not being here, or the fact that my brother-in-law lost his mother in October; it didn’t care that my nephew’s birthday was in December, or that we all had so much to do for the holidays. It didn’t give a shit about any of that and it gave my father a stroke. Just like that. No warnings, no heads up. We were all walking along trying to survive the other things each of us were going through and bam, a giant hole opened up in our path and swallowed us whole. But, that’s life in a nutshell, isn’t it? We all walk along, maybe with nothing going wrong in our lives, maybe with a few minor inconveniences and then life just hits us out of nowhere and we either deal with what’s in front of us or we curl up in a ball and wait for it to be over. These past 7 months I have done both, and the second has probably happened more times than I’d like to admit.

Is life ever easy? I honestly don’t know. There are days that are less stressful than others. There are days that are good and calm and go smoothly without anything major happening. But easy? I don’t think so, and maybe that’s just me. There are people that make it look easy, make it look like they have everything going for them and everything is right in their life. And maybe that’s the truth, and maybe they’re faking it. We never really know. No one walks around with a list of all of their problems written on their forehead. Everyone is going through something. I guess the answer lies within the way you deal with the things that happen in your life. And I can admit that I don’t always deal with them in a good way. I am definitely not a calm person. I lose my shit regularly. I cry at all times when my emotions have been built up too much and they need to come out. I rage over stupid things because I don’t want to admit what’s really bothering me. I shut down and close myself off to people, even my husband, which is never a good thing but is sometimes the only way I can deal with something in that moment. Life is too much sometimes and can seriously get the best of you if you let it. Life might just be a bigger bitch than me.

After months of daily visits and trips back and forth to the hospital and rehab, once my father went home, my sister and I had to make some changes before we completely lost ourselves in everyone else. Our daily visits went down to 3 times a week, then to 2, and now we go once a week to see our father. Some people may think that’s not enough and to them I say a big ‘Fuck You’ because you have no idea what our lives have been like over these months. We’re ok with what we do. If we didn’t make some changes for ourselves then we would be in a bad place personally. And the one thing I have learned through all of this is nothing, outside of myself and my little family, is worth risking my mental health, which was in serious jeopardy at times. So, we go once a week, we bring our parents groceries, pick up prescriptions and have a visit. On the other days we are always texting and checking in to see how our father is doing, and for now, that’s enough.

My father had a setback in April where he ended up in the hospital because of fluid around his heart and in his lungs. He now has to have a procedure to put stents in, because again, life didn’t think the stroke was enough so why not give him heart issues now too? I swear I say ‘what the fuck’ at least ten times a day when I think about everything. After that all cleared up and he went back home his home therapy started up again and he’s been doing very well. His speech has improved tremendously, and he has been taking a lot of steps with his walker when he has physical therapy which is huge. He’s not strong enough to do it on his own, without someone there for support, but I know he’ll get there one day. For now, we take the little victories when we can because anything can happen on any given day.

I’m trying to make changes within myself so I don’t crumble to the ground on a daily basis. The biggest thing is learning to let go of the things I can’t control. I can’t make people do the right thing. I can’t force people to make the choices I would make. I can’t worry about something that might or might not happen, I’ll worry about it if and when it does happen. I’m trying to focus on the present and not worry about next week. I’m taking the wins as they come. I saw my father on Monday and he was talking a lot, and laughing with us. It was a good visit and that’s a win. It would be great if life could pause for a minute or two or even just slow down so that we can catch our breath, but it doesn’t work like that and it never will. None of us know what’s coming next. The best we can do is prepare for the worst, pray for the best and accept everything in between. Make the best out of today and hope tomorrow is a little better. Life is going to do whatever the fuck it wants to us whether we like it or not. That’s both the curse of it, and the beauty of it.