As I wake up with a bad taste in my mouth and a song in my head, I wonder what the day will hold?
On this day a funeral service is being held for a woman that most gave up on, but Kristine took a chance on her and took her on as a client.
The woman suffered from severe mental illness that had progressed over the years. The illness had left her a shell of her former self according to friends and family that saw this illness consume her.
When she was a younger woman, she had went to college and graduated from Central Michigan State University with a teaching degree. She went on to teach elementary and secondary school in Michigan, and then later in California. While out west she took more classes at Fresno State before returning to Michigan. She was an accomplished accordion player and loved music. She was also a sports fan and enjoyed watching the Detroit Tigers play baseball.
Then in her late thirties to early forties, she began to break down. She was later diagnosed with mental illness which progressed over the years.
After several years of this woman living on her own, not taking care of her self due to the illness she suffered from, she was placed into the “system” and moved into an adult foster care home. A few years later Kristine took her in like she did with so many other hard cases. You see Kris took in several of the people that nobody else wanted due to the severity of their problems and illnesses.
I have decided to tell you this brief story about this woman so people understand that we are all special, we all have problems in life, some large, some small. This woman, who some described as having a brilliant mind became debilitated by mental illness by no fault of her own. She became part of Kristine’s extended family, which in turn became part of my extended family.
In late August 2008, following a routine medical exam, a large mass was found in her abdomen. It was soon found that she had cancer. This was extremely hard for me after what I had been through this past year.
Within a few days she had surgery, followed with an extended hospital stay. She was then placed in a nursing facility. Following treatment for her cancer she became quite ill, then died last week. She was only 73 year old, which as I become older seems like a very short life.
During her service, several of her childhood friends, several family members and her roommates that I work with came to say goodbye. After the service I walked to the front of the room to see some pictures of this woman. There she was in old black and while photographs looking so young and ready to take on the world. At this point I began to cry.
This year has been so tough on me personally, but also on the people I now take care of. They have not only lost the one person that cared for them all like a mother in Kristine, but now one of them has too fallen?
Regardless of each person’s mental and physical challenges, we have all stuck together. I depend on them to keep me on my toes with taking care of them, as well as they depend on me for their day to day living.
So on this day I think of her memory as the song in my head plays on…a polka that she played from her bedroom on her accordion. I don’t know the name or words to it, but its something she left me.
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