jealousy

I am half way through reading Tears in God's Bottle by Wayne Ewing. I would recommend it to any spiritually minded person who is dealing with Alzheimer's disease.

Wayne's wife Ann has Alzheimer's disease. In the third chapter Wayne talks about Divine Jealousy. He was angry, hateful, and jealous whenever he saw other couples; "joyful lovers" he calls them.

I too was feeling full of angry jealousy last week. I have a mother, but I don't. We SHOULD be going to the Museum of Fine Arts and enjoying a day in Boston together. We SHOULD be making Christmas wreaths together. We should be ... but we're not. All this jealously erupted at my caregiver's support meeting last week, I completely lost it, I yelled and cried.

I am also full of shame, ashamed for these feelings. I've had my mother for 50+ years. It's been a pretty good run, for the most part. But, my lovely daughter-in-law, lost her mother a long time ago. Here I am complaining of ONLY 50 years together, when she had barely a handful of years with hers.

Just as Wayne has to rethink his jealously, to rise above the negativity and despair that hits us all. I am trying to do that too. He writes of the sacredness of jealously. Now when he sees couples, he rejoices that they too have found love, love like he and his wife Ann once knew.

I must remember to cherish all mother-daughter relationships. The one with my own sweet and supportive mother-in-law; and the growing mother-daughter relationship with my own daughter-in-law.

I will try, to rejoice, when I next see a mother and daughter together, and be happy that they too have this precious relationship that I once had.