Preparing for the Inevitable

He'll give you hope for tomorrow, joy for your sorrow, strength for everything you go through. Remember he knows, he knows the plans he has for you.

Oh yes he does. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver. I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the show for you as a family caregiver. How you holding up? How you doing?

What's going on with you? And that's what this show is all about is to help you better navigate through these journeys. And that's Gracie Singing from her CD Resilient. You get a copy of that. Go out to hopeforthecaregiver.com.

Hopeforthecaregiver.com. And just click on her CD cover. You can see more about what the CD is about. She's fussing at me, John. She's fussing at me because I haven't loaded her CD up to all the digital streaming services. And I delegated that task to someone.

Did you? To help me with that. I don't want to mention his names, but he's, but he's extremely tall. All right.

And he's the reason that Gracie is picking at you. And rightly so, apparently. So let's schedule a phone call for tomorrow. No, throw me directly on that bus. I will happily take that hit.

I didn't want to cast asparagus at you, aspersions at you. But it's, no, it's, most of it, you can download it as individual songs, but people want to download the whole CD and we're working on that. Bear with me. And I will choose your call tomorrow. We'll get that taken care of. But as folks, if you want to get, if you go out and take a look at her CD, if you get involved with the show and you help us underwrite the show through Donating and Standing with Hope, you know, it's a tax-deductible gift. We'll send you a copy of her CD just as our gift and our thank you for doing this and for being a part of what we're doing.

We're waiting in a moment here. I'm going to be joined with my friend Nancy, who took care of her parents, and then both of them passed away and she's been closing out the house. And so I'm wanting to talk with her about some tips that she learned through that process of, okay, this all kind of fell on her shoulders a bit and to go through the estate sale, all that kind of stuff. Those are hard things.

And she's still grieving over the loss of her parents. Yeah, yeah. We've covered an awful lot on this show over the eight or nine years that we've been doing it. But that's one I don't think we've, we've touched on it, of course, in passing. But I have questions.

Or rather, I don't even know what the questions are. I just want to, you know, I'm just curious. Well, I thought, okay, if she's willing to do this. Now, here's the backstory of Nancy. She was Gracie's roommate in college. And before her wreck, in fact, her parents were the emergency contact individuals for Gracie. Gracie listed her parents as emergency contacts locally.

Gracie's parents lived in Florida, and Gracie was in college in Nashville and Nancy's parents live right down, I mean, just within almost just a couple of miles from the school. And so she's, they were the emergency contacts that the state authorities contacted Nancy's mother first. And so, so we go back a long way.

So I've known her parents for many, many years. And then as I've watched as Nancy's gone through this. So Nancy, thank you for joining us. This is Nancy Commish, Nancy Strode Commish. And I'm glad you're here. Thank you for being prompt, Nancy. And I'm not trying. Wasn't always known for being prompt.

Prompt is the word I'm looking for. No, we go back a long ways with Nancy and Craig. And but you watch this as you and of course, I've had just deep regard for your folks. And as you watch them decline and you knew what was coming, you knew all the things going on, and then you had to step in not only as caregiver, but then you kind of handled the estate of everything. And that can be quite a bit of of headache and heartache at the same time. So if as much as you want to share, I don't feel you got to just bleed all out there if you don't want to. But I think I would love to hear some insights that you've got from it, things that you didn't know, things that you learned about yourself and and some things that maybe you can offer to other folks who find themselves in this situation. So take us down that path.

Well, it began about eight years ago. And my father was a physician. My mother and father were learned people and very educated. And my family had been in medicine. My sisters worked as nurses.

And of course, my husband's in the medical field. And I had always just assumed that everybody understood that aging was a process that no one could escape. And my father being a learned individual, you know, he always gave advice, wonderful advice. His patients loved him dearly. And he gave advice about getting older, don't stop, whatever you do, don't don't stop and sit down.

Make sure you continue to move mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, everything to prepare yourself for the future. And it was very interesting because, you know, you hear physician heal by self, as people quote from the Bible. Is that in the Bible? In a version it is. The Book of Second Opinions 3.19?

Yes, exactly. Well, we also called it Carolyn's version. That was my mother's name. Because she would, she tended to use Scripture in most unique ways.

I'll just leave it at that. Anyway, but the thing was that he just kept assuming he had been through my aunt's husband's death, my uncle. He was like a brother to him, an older brother. Then both my uncles passed, both my aunts became, you know, aged and really were starting to suffer.

My mother was the youngest like I am, but she was the youngest by eight years instead of just three and a half or five. And it ended up, my father was asked, called on by them to take care of some of their financial responsibilities, you know, at the end of life. And, you know, it seemed to go seamlessly.

And he advised, of course, he advised them before they passed, you know, in dealing with their financials and preparing and insurance and gathering all the materials and all that. And then, I'm going to say a very southern thing, bless their little hearts. Bless their hearts. Bless their hearts. They really did not think that time would march on for themselves.

And though they did do well in investing and such, they really did not prepare their preparers. Now, meaning they didn't really prepare me. They didn't let me in. Oh, we'll let you know. We'll let you know when it's time. Okay, Daddy, you're 85 years old. You've had a stroke already. Everybody else, you know, that's older than you is struggling in their health and they're starting to decline.

And mother's already started to show some dementia. Oh, but it's not time yet. Not time yet.

Not time yet. And that's, I mean, it is understood though, that is, it is, that's something that, you know, my mother has already has already passed away. But that was something she went, you know, she told me, like, you know, when I moved out of the house. Hey, here's all here's all the financial stuff.

Here's all everything you need is is in this this box in this closet. Oh, John, what a gift. Yeah, it was it was really amazing. And, you know, I my my stepfather still lives in that house and everything, so I didn't have to do what you had to go through. But but that was that's something that I want to encourage everybody to to do, because it's a tremendous peace of mind. Yeah. Well, you know, it's kind of funny.

I should have said this to begin with. I basically lived a tale of two axes. I had a mother-in-law.

They were in the ministry and I had a mother-in-law, my husband's an only child, and they were amazingly prepared. She literally at six months before she passed, before she started having difficulty or real difficulties, you know, with many strokes. She literally could give you with I really truly within ten dollars of what her worth was, where her bills were. Well, I give you ten dollars where my worth is, but that's not much of a stretch. I could do it at five. Now, do you remember?

Yes. Ninety at this point. She was nine zero.

No, she was nine for ninety four at this point in her life. And she had always been super organized. And unfortunately organized is not a name that or a or a characteristic that he would probably go to immediately. Not one of your particular spiritual gifts is the gift of organization.

Is that what you're trying to tell me? Right now, if there's chaos and calamity, be sure that at some point Nancy has been there. Now, if there's chaos and calamity, you could be sure that I've been there, too.

So, yeah, I'm tracking with you. Well, let me ask you let me ask you a question. This is rather personal. So feel free to just hang up and don't answer it. But when after they passed and you went over to the house.

And this is the house you grew up in and you went to the house for the first time and you saw the volume of work that you're going to have to do to get this thing ready to do all the things. How did you handle that? First and foremost, there are two things. My dear friend, who was only a text away. His name is Peter. Oh, I texted him and I said, Oh, dear Lord, I am losing my mind. She didn't call me Lord, John, I just want you to know, in case you were concerned, she was not calling me Lord.

She's called me other things, but not Lord. And somebody calling you and saying, I'm losing my mind. And that's like that's that's the blind leading the blind, man.

I don't know. It reminds me of the old story of Ray Charles leading Ronnie Milsap through the backstage of something. That's a true story. We'll get into that another time. But that happened at the Grand Ole Opry one time.

That's a true story. But no, well, you're very kind because it is it was a pleasure to to offer what I could. But you were going into areas that I haven't been. And and I. So I could just sense the weight on you. And so as you walked in the house for the first time. Well, I began to weep. That's the first reaction because I realized and I apologize, I may sound a little emotional and I realized the weight that this all had already fallen on me. We did not have a great communication between my parents, my two sisters and myself.

We all fell in different camps when it came to certain things about end of life. And I, of course, as I said, had been modeled. It had been modeled to me in such an incredible manner by my mother in law and my father in law, Lucille and Alan.

And they had actually begun in their ministry to sit down and counsel people to do this well and to begin early. And one of the things that they said to me, and I'll never forget the one of the things that Lucille said to me sitting across the table from me. She said, Nancy. I'm going to die.

And of course, I started welling up. And she's 92 at this point, 92, 93 years old. And she's still driving. She's still taking her stuff. She's still cooking. She's still having people over and calling the little ladies, the little old ladies that are in my Sunday school. I'm having them over for lunch. That's what she used to say about her Sunday school.

So she looked at me and she said, Nancy, I'm going to die. And Craig is going to need your help to help him through this. And you will need to be strong. But I am going to provide you with the greatest thing that I can do for you, which is a plan. A plan that I began many years ago knowing that Craig would not have a sibling to rely on. But he would have to depend on and partner with his life partner, his wife, to go through this most traumatic, difficult time for. Yet this is even more important, an only adopted child who had no siblings, whose, you know, cousins were far away.

They were mostly in Georgia, but still they were not emotionally close or really physically close. And that to me, when she looked at me and said, I have a plan for after my death. I relaxed and I thought, OK, this is going to work. I'm going to be OK. What a great gift. Oh, what a great gift.

The most tremendous, tremendous gift. We're talking with my friend Nancy Commish. I've known her for a lifetime and she and Gracie were roommates in college and they're just dear friends. She and her husband, Craig, and their family.

And she went through this trauma with on both sides of the family almost at the same time. And she learned a few things with it and is willing to open up her heart and share it with us. And I appreciate that.

Don't go away. We got more to go. This is hope for the care. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers.

Part of being healthy is planning. Have you ever struggled to trust God when lousy things happen to you? I have. I'm Gracie Rosenberger. And in 1983, I experienced a horrific car accident leading to 80 surgeries and both legs amputated. I questioned why God allowed something so brutal to happen to me.

But over time, my questions changed and I discovered courage to trust God. That understanding, along with an appreciation for quality prosthetic limbs, led me to establish Standing with Hope. For more than a dozen years, we've been working with the government of Ghana and West Africa, equipping and training local workers to build and maintain quality prosthetic limbs for their own people. On a regular basis, we purchase and ship equipment and supplies.

And with the help of inmates in a Tennessee prison, we also recycle parts from donated limbs. All of this is to point others to Christ, the source of my hope and strength. Please visit standingwithhope.com to learn more and participate in lifting others up. That's standingwithhope.com. I'm Gracie, and I am standing with hope.

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Mycompanion247.com. He will be strong to deliver me safe. The joy of the Lord is my strength. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Welcome back to Hope for the Caregiver.

I am Peter Rosenberger. This is the nation's largest show for you as a family caregiver. The number one show for family caregivers is this show, and we're glad that you're part of it. That was Gracie and Russ Taft singing the joy of the Lord.

By the way, Nancy, I'm talking with my friend Nancy Kamish here on the show, and she's a lifelong friend of Gracie and mine, and she and Gracie were roommates in college. And I looked it up, Luke 4-23. That's where it says, Physician healed myself.

It's in the Gospel book. I stand correct, John. I'm ashamed. As you should on those apostropetic shoes, yes.

Okay. I'm ashamed, John. I bow my head in grief and sorrow and lament loudly.

I should have known this, but I am ashamed. But we're talking about the journey of closing out the estate, closing out the home, closing out the closure of emotionally and physically and fiscally of all the things that are involved, and where do you even start with something like that? And I've struggled in times like that because I don't think anybody, when Gracie had her wreck, I don't think anybody expected her to live. Nancy, I don't think you expect her to live through the night when you found out about it, and much less lived to see her grandchildren. And now I'm trying to think of what kind of world I'm going to leave for Gracie, Keith Richards, and Betty White.

What do I do? But this was a particularly difficult situation. You had to step into leadership on multiple levels, and you went in there.

And if you were talking to other folks, well, you are talking to other folks, and people just now starting to dip their toes into that particular stream, what would be the first place that you would have them start? You know, before the break, I was talking about how Lucille had set us up for success. And that was your mother-in-law?

Yes, my mother-in-law, Lucille Comish. Her story is remarkable. She became the adult in the room when her father passed when she was 14 years old. And she started doing the books for all of the businesses that he was in charge of. And the story is phenomenal about how she never really learned to cook. My father-in-law taught her to cook.

She was all about the financials and investing in banking and paying bills and paying, you know, sharecroppers and paying employees and et cetera. And the story, again, that's off subject, but the thing remains, she was prepared for this. She had been preparing a lifetime for her child because she knew that being an only child, he would need someone strong to help him through this. We all need someone strong.

I don't mean that dismissively. We all need someone strong because when we become an orphan, it is traumatic. And when you, especially for him, they knew all of his story being adopted and it was a closed adoption.

They knew all of his story. So the fact that she had everything written down, things that we would have never known if she hadn't told us and written it down, all of those things right now as a 56-year-old woman, I am beginning to realize I need to be writing these things down. I need to have someone now as a 56-year-old woman prepared to help me go through not just an attorney but someone who can tell me the ugly truth and be in love about, hey, this is something you need to prepare for your child, for your children. I have two sons. I have, you know, we basically have two onlys. We have one that's 26 and we have one that's just turned 17. And you talk about difference.

You know, I mean, one could with help manage at the moment. We have one that we haven't even gotten out of the house out of high school. Yeah, but that's y'all's fault and I told you that. We won't go there.

We will not visit that conversation. We have grandchildren and y'all still got one in high school. Y'all just figure it out. But no, I'm just kidding. You have two outstanding sons and I hear your pain on that, that, okay, is, you know, your youngest one.

I mean, he's not out of the house and that is a scary place. And I, you know, these are hard things, but I think writing it down. I mean, I love that.

Just start writing it down. Just have that box in the closet kind of thing. And have that one person you can absolutely, not everybody has this person. If you're blessed to have a spouse, that's one thing.

But if you are not blessed or your spouse has passed or whatever the condition of your life is that you find yourself, oh my gosh, bam, I'm in the middle of this disaster that could be a disaster if I don't get my hands wrapped around it and my mind wrapped around it. I must have someone that I can trust to tell me the truth about, hey, this little detail of life, this little detail of what's left behind or whatever, you can't drop this because it's going to be way bigger afterwards. Or, hey honey, let that slide.

Let that slide. And I'm a perfectionist, Peter. You know me.

I'm a perfectionist and oh my word. Not in your choice of friends, but we'll let that one slide too. Hey, you came along with the package. Not in that much choice.

That's true, yeah. I was kind of thrust upon the situation. What were you going to say, John? Well, no, just that I think that that is very important and I think both of those deserve, you know, it's hard to pick which one is more important and I don't think they are. I think that they both deserve equal emphasis, that for somebody to be able to, you know, look you right in the eye and know that this is not going to affect the relationship or anything like that, that everybody's still going to be friends or family after this conversation happens.

But to have somebody who can tell you, hey, this is really important and also when you start obsessing over something or you just get wrapped all up in the need for this thing to be right or whatever. Just no, this is the small stuff. Don't sweat it, you know. This is the subject we're going to have to revisit more than one time and Nancy, I'm going to have you back on another time with this and I may have you on with Gracie at the same time. Get ready, John and I will get some coffee and let you two have it.

But it's something that I love that write it down, start writing it down and then have that friend who can freely speak truth to power, quote unquote, that will get in your face and tell you, hey, this is the way, this is the way. And I will throw one other thing in there, Peter. Your book, you have to have it.

You have to have it. Both of them. Very, very nice and very gracious. Well, listen, this is Hope for the Caregiver. I'm Peter Rosenberger. That's Nancy Kmish and I thank you. Healthy caregivers make better caregivers.

We'll see you next week. This is John Butler and I produce Hope for the Caregiver with Peter Rosenberger. Some of you know the remarkable story of Peter's wife, Gracie, and recently Peter talked to Gracie about all the wonderful things that have emerged from her difficult journey. Take a listen. Gracie, when you envision doing a prosthetic limb outreach, did you ever think that inmates would help you do that?

Not in a million years. When you go to the facility run by CoreCivic and you see the faces of these inmates that are working on prosthetic limbs that you have helped collect from all over the country that you put out the plea for and they're disassembling, you see all these legs, like what you have, your own prosthetic legs. And arms.

And arms. When you see all this, what does that do to you? Makes me cry because I see the smiles on their faces. And I know, I know what it is to be locked someplace where you can't get out without somebody else allowing you to get out. Of course, being in the hospital so much and so long.

And so these men are so glad that they get to be doing, as one band said, something good finally with my hands. Did you know before you became an amputee that parts of prosthetic limbs could be recycled? No, I had no idea. You know, I thought of peg leg. I thought of wooden legs. I never thought of titanium and carbon legs and flex feet and sea legs and all that. I never thought about that. As you watch these inmates participate in something like this, knowing that they're helping other people now walk, they're providing the means for the supplies to get over there.

What does that do to you just on a heart level? I wish I could explain to the world what I see in there. And I wish that I could be able to go and say, this guy right here, he needs to go to Africa with us. I never not feel that way.

Every time, you know, you always make me have to leave. I don't want to leave them. I feel like I'm at home with them. And I feel like that we have a common bond that I would have never expected that only God could put together. Now that you've had an experience with it, what do you think of the faith based programs that CoreCivic offers?

I think they're just absolutely awesome. And I think every prison out there should have faith based programs like this because the return rate of the men that are involved in this particular faith based program and the other ones like it. But I know about this one is just an amazingly low rate compared to those who don't have them.

And I think that that says so much. That doesn't have anything to do with me. It just has something to do with God using somebody broken to help other broken people.

If people want to donate a used prosthetic limbs, whether from a loved one who passed away or, you know, somebody who outgrew them, you've donated some of your own for them to do. How do they do that? Please go to standingwithhope.com slash recycle standingwithhope.com slash recycle. Thanks, Gracie. One of our generous sponsors here at the Truth Network has come under fire.

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