Keep it Real Wednesday
June 8, 2022
Let’s start at the very beginning
THANK YOU for following the Blessing Bike and reading these weekly Keep it Real Wednesdays.
For those of you who have been on the journey with us from the start, this will be a repeat to you. But for those of you who have joined our Blessing Bike family in the last 2 to 3 years, I wanted you to know where these Wednesdays started.
Below is Blog Post Number 1 called “Rosemary’s Baby”. Today is Blog Post 165.
In between week 1 and week 165 was a journey of faith, trust, and love with a lot of laughter, some tears and many memories made. When I said to prepare for raw moments, I just didn’t know how raw those moments would be.
Sharing our lives and stories with you has been a blessing. I am honored to have met so many incredible people through these weekly blogs who are selflessly caring for others and inspire us to do more to help others.
Much love,
Jill
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Keep it Real Wednesday
February 14, 2019
Rosemary’s Baby
When I was in 5th grade, my teacher assigned the class to do an autobiography, which in my case was mostly pictures with some captions. My parents provided me with a shoe box of photos to sort through in the hopes of finding the perfect pictures to tell the story of my 9 years of life.
For days I gathered pictures and pasted them carefully on construction paper. I was pleased with the final project, but I lacked a catchy title. At that time (1969), there was a movie in the theatres titled “Rosemary’s’ Baby” but at 9 years old, I had no idea what it was about. I just thought it would be a snappy title since my mom’s name was Rosemary, so I used the movie title for my autobiography.
When I turned in the assignment on my teacher’s desk, her face turned pale. I didn’t quite understand the reaction until later that day when I showed my parents, and their reaction was the same but this time with a giggle. I still didn’t understand until my older sister told me about the movie Rosemary’s Baby and that Rosemary’s baby was the child of the Devil himself.
Ooops!
Where am I going with this?
I am certainly not claiming to be of the lineage of the Adversary – but I do want to share the somewhat “dark” side of caregiving. What you have seen thus far has been happy, joy filled, adventurous and fun times on the bike and with Rosemary – which encompasses about 75 percent of our time. The other 25 percent is not so pretty – it is the “dark side” of care giving and all the feelings and emotions that accompany caring for someone in their final season of life.
However, it is in the “dark times” what we learn most about ourselves and can help others. It was in the dark times, that we found the Blessing Bike. It is about overcoming the small hurdles and the big hurdles such as the bouts of tears while you are sitting on the floor of the shower not knowing how you can go another day. Caregiving is hard.
My parents named me Jill Mary after the Virgin Mary, the woman every Catholic girl aspired to be like. I was dressed in blue for the first several years of my life to honor the Blessed Virgin and was raised to respect and honor my God and my family. I had big shoes to fill.
Most days, I think I fall smack dab in between good and evil in trying to do my very best while also struggling with all the emotions of helping my mom live her final days with joy and grace. I’m not a saint. I have many moments where I struggle.
Someone reminded me that social media has a way of making people feel that everyone else’s lives are perfect which can make many people feel “less than” when they compare themselves to others. So, I was encouraged to not only share the wonderful adventures my mother and I experience on the bike, but I will also share the underbelly side of caregiving.
So…. Prepare for some raw moments – the good and the bad.
More to follow my friends……
Blessings
