<\/p>\n
Joni Mitchell was right.\u00a0 <\/span>You don\u2019t know what you got \u2018til it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to take a full deep breath unless you\u2019ve had pneumonia or cracked ribs.\u00a0 <\/span>You don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to move your arms unless you\u2019ve injured yourself in a car accident or had a stroke.\u00a0 <\/span>You don\u2019t know what a blessing a car is until yours has broken down. You don\u2019t realize how wonderful your wife was until she leaves you.\u00a0 <\/span>You don\u2019t appreciate the woods until they\u2019ve been cut down and it\u2019s infinitely hotter without the shade and moisture.\u00a0 <\/span>You don\u2019t know how wonderful fresh, clean water is until it\u2019s been polluted.<\/p>\n One of the things I\u2019ve been appreciating these last few months is the incredible blessing of sleep.\u00a0 <\/span>Although, generally speaking, I am a great sleeper, the last year or so has been difficult in this regard.\u00a0 <\/span>For a year, I was sleeping in an upstairs room and the bathroom was downstairs.\u00a0 <\/span>I had to walk down an unlit staircase and through three doors to get to the toilet.\u00a0 <\/span>If I got up two or three times to go to the bathroom, you can only imagine how disruptive that was to my sleep.\u00a0 <\/span>Complicating matters further, my room was quite chilly in the winter and extremely hot in the summer.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>I didn\u2019t understand, at first, exactly why I was so tired all the time.\u00a0 <\/span>Not until I slept in a great bed in the comfortable, cozy room of a friend, did I realize exactly how compromised my sleep had become.<\/p>\n Finally I moved to another home.\u00a0 <\/span>But it wasn\u2019t any better.\u00a0 <\/span>I was helping out at my parents\u2019.\u00a0 <\/span>They had gotten to the point where they needed someone to be there at night.\u00a0 <\/span>Dad\u2019s Alzheimer\u2019s was accelerating and he was beginning to wander at night.\u00a0 <\/span>Sometimes he would go to the basement and fiddle with the water pump (resulting in unexpected flooding one morning.)\u00a0 <\/span>Other times he would wander outside in his underwear.\u00a0 <\/span>Sometimes he would simply wander around the house turning on lights, talking and confused.\u00a0 <\/span>All of this was extremely upsetting to my mother, who was getting little sleep as a result of Dad\u2019s nocturnal meandering.\u00a0 <\/span>So I moved in and took the burden off my mother.\u00a0 <\/span>As a result, of course, my sleep was often interrupted repeatedly.<\/p>\n Eventually we hired more caregivers and I moved to another state.\u00a0 <\/span>I moved because my spirit was calling me there strongly, but a side benefit was that I did finally have the opportunity to be free of the day-to-day worries and needs of my parents.\u00a0 <\/span>I also moved to a furnished place with a wonderful bed.\u00a0 <\/span>And my nights have been gloriously peaceful.<\/p>\n I am so very, very grateful for stress-free, uninterrupted sleep.\u00a0 <\/span>Sleep is a blessing that cannot be underrated.<\/p>\n May you have a wonderful day and tonight may you rest well and have beautiful dreams.<\/p>\n Abundant blessings to you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Joni Mitchell was right.\u00a0 You don\u2019t know what you got \u2018til it\u2019s gone. You don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to take a full deep breath unless you\u2019ve had pneumonia or cracked ribs.\u00a0 You don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to move your arms unless you\u2019ve injured yourself in a car accident or had a stroke.\u00a0 You…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":553,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,3,56,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alzheimers","category-blessings","category-joni-mitchell","category-sleep"],"yoast_head":"\n