When Purgatory Beckons

I’ve always heard about the road to hell being paved with good intentions and, have more recently discovered that another’s good intention can bring severe dis-ease to the one being benefited by their deed. The past few weeks have not been easy for me to cope with, the aftermath of my minor stroke and that of my step-daughter’s accident, the latter needing my beloved’s assistance to dress and shower herself.

Over many years I learned to live both in communal houses and alone, much of the time at peace with myself. In more recent years I have lived in relative peace and harmony solely alongside my beloved OH. As I’ve mentioned before, since the onset of my chronic illness I have become increasingly tetchy, even over apparently trivial matters.

This morning my semi-invalided step-daughter suggested that the dust in our (that of mine and my OH) bedroom  was rather un-healthy and, decided with her one (currently) usable arm to take the vacuum cleaner upstairs to do the cleaning. You can only imagine, or maybe not, my dismay at being told, by a young lady who has four cats romping about in and out of all rooms, that our bedroom was unhealthy! I had already been made to feel guilty at my relative inactivity when a person with one arm immobilised, and purportedly in intense pain, could manage domestic duties of a kind which my physical and emotional stamina levels require that I ration.

The final hump-breaking straw was her decision to mop the floor using a pot pourri scented thick disinfectant, as a result of which I later had to struggle to regain my balance as I took a slipper shod slide across part of the bedroom floor! Fortunately that struggle ended successfully but, it was yet a further warning that a good deed, if ill considered, is certainly a step into purgatory.