Sunday, November 01, 2009

My Life Has Changed

I hope you're not tired of hearing me repeat myself in my reports/updates about how much my life has changed since I brought my father home to Israel.

One thing which is more difficult is my exercise. I haven't been able to get to a pool, not that I went all that much the past winter.  But I hope to go when my husband is home with my father now that I won't be working.  Even if I just get out and walk a couple of kilometers here in Shiloh during the day, it'll be an improvement.  Now, my daytime walking is limited to what my father can handle. He does very well for a man of 89, but I need more exercise.  I try to get out most evenings/nights after dinner when my husband is home.

I'm eating too much.  I'm still on my modified low carb don't call it diet way of eating, but I've been having much more fruit and even nuts.  The nuts are substituting for the regular cow yogurt I had been eating as part of my snacks.  I still have cows milk with my morning coffee and goats yogurt as a snack.  I had been suffering from a "localized itch" for a couple of years, which stopped when I stopped eating the yogurt.  Some of my kids are allergic to cows milk.  They feel it in their "kishkes," digestive system.  I suspect the industrial powdered milk added to all sorts of foods is the dairy I'm allergic to.

I stopped teaching, but I still have tons of work to catch up on, grading papers and recording the grades and attendence in the internet site the school uses.  That's a big part of the reason I couldn't continue teaching.  The hours out of the house weren't the big difficulty, but all the teacher homework was.  People don't realize how much out of the classroom work teachers are required to do.

I also don't get to "doven in shul," pray in the synagogue on Shabbat, since I have to be home with my father.  Going to synagogue was never his routine, and that's the hour he slowly gets ready for breakfast.  G-d willing, some day I'll return.

Of course I can't study what I planned for this year.

But I'm getting to know my father.  It's the first time in my life that I've actually spent any time with him.

5 comments:

RivkA with a capital A said...

Enjoy your time together!!

There is nothing more valuable than spending time with family.

Want some real advice: record the stories he tells you!!

I lived with my grandmother for three months before I made Aliyah. While we were living together, she shared all sorts of wonderful stories with me.

She passed away, all of a sudden, just before I made aliyah. Now, I can barely remember the stories and I am so sorry I did not write them down!

Mimi said...

Batya, I have lived with that frustration. But now I cherish the memories of every moment I spent taking care of my frail, elderly Dad and my Mom. You'll be so glad later that you gave up time and freedom to do this.

Batya said...

RivkA, you must have had quite a grandmother, no doubt. My father was never a great story teller, and now it's harder.

Mimi, thanks for the support. I'm doing my best.

RivkA with a capital A said...

Actually, for most of my life, my grandmother refused to tell me stories about her life.

"Why would you want to know about these things?" She would ask me, honestly perplexed.

During the months I lived with her, she really opened up to me.

In hindsight, I realize she was really telling herself these stories, as a way of summing up her life and affirming that she really did accomplish things along the way.

I think she realized, on some intuitive level, that her health was failing.

Batya said...

RivkA, at least you had that special time. Telling stories wasn't common in most families. I never heard anything from my grandmother, but we almost never had any time together for it. So not long ago I asked my cousin who grew up with her. I wondered why I had no desire to see the place in Europe (Rogotshov, Belarusia White Russia) which was the town where both my grandmothers grew up. My cousin said that her attitude was: "good riddence!"