You might think this post is about Carole Griffitts’ family reunion. Well … it is, and it isn’t.
My family recently had a reunion. But when I was there, I could NOT do what I really wanted to. That often happens to people with serious limitations. So, what do we do?
FJ and I just returned from a week of happy/sad events with my family. We traveled seven hours to our son, Tom’s, home, which we used as home base. Three days later, we traveled four more hours to reach the first of the happy/sad events. We had a celebration of my brother John’s college graduation Monday night, a happy time. Tuesday night, we had the final celebration of his wife, Lynn’s, life. They had been married thirty-nine years. This constituted the only sad event of the week.
We returned to Tom’s home. On Saturday, we attended a family reunion with thirty people in attendance. All three of my brothers were there, including a second brother whose wife, Evelyn, passed away last year. My third brother and his wife traveled from New York to the West Coast. Nieces, nephews, and grands were also there. As were several cousins and my ninety-year-old uncle who I had not seen for decades. So much joy and laughter and catching up occurred that day.
This comprised the happy/sad events of the week. So, what could go wrong? If you are invisibly disabled, as I am, you know your answer. For me, first, traveling is quite tiring. Second, on Friday, an unanticipated time of unexpected fatigue occurred.
Okay. Now, what? When you consider a specific activity to be super-important and not to be missed, but you unexpectedly have tremendous difficulty doing it, what can you do?
Anticipate
- Plan in Advance.
- Consider what will be involved.
- Think about your abilities.
- Acknowledge what you might have trouble with.
- Study possibilities.
- Arrange for viable alternatives.
Evaluate
- Keep track of how your body is functioning.
- Realize when you need to make changes.
Compensate
- Hopefully, you made contingency plans.
- If not, figure out realistic changes you can make.
- Adapt your original plans and implement the adaptations.
- Relax, stay calm, and enjoy yourself.
Especially remember to have fun. In the case of Carole Griffitts’ family reunion, everyone there was aware of her problems. And I knew they loved me anyway, so there was no pressure to perform. It is true that I could not do what I wished to do, but I had fun anyway.
That’s where acceptance comes in. And ACCEPTANCE is the name of the game when you are unable to do what seems super-important to you.
Share with us
Can you share a time you needed to make changes so you could enjoy a super-important time?
Investigate further
If you need help managing your challenges. Or you want to learn more about how a friend can manage their challenges, check this out.
Read tributes to Lynn and Evelyn.
Read more about my challenges in chapter 5 of our book.
