Saturday, January 3, 2009

I guess I am in the thick of it

Ombudsman is some type of mediator I think?
Or so I was told.

Actually, below is the definition from Merriam Webster Dictionary:

Main Entry: om•buds•man
Function: noun
Pronunciation: 'äm-"budz-m&n, 'o m-, -b&dz-, -"man; äm-'budz-, o m-
Inflected Form(s): plural om•buds•men /-m&n/
Etymology: Swedish, literally, representative, from Old Norse umbothsmathr, from umboth commission + mathr man
1 : a government official (as in Sweden or New Zealand) appointed to receive and investigate complaints made by individuals against abuses or capricious acts of public officials
2 : one that investigates reported complaints (as from students or consumers), reports findings, and helps to achieve equitable settlements
- om•buds•man•ship /-"ship/ noun

Normally when I give the definition it is to explain something that I am totally unfamiliar with but this time I think it best explains my desire to make peace within my husband’s family, not me or he with them ( I do believe we are in good standing at this time, but who really knows) but my mother-in-law and her daughter that which is an epic in it’s issues and length of time that they in the 40 plus years that I have known both of them has been going on and they do not appear to or have ever told me to butt out of these on again off again disagreements; in fact they have more than once requested my intervening in calling the other.
And I do when I can and that alone makes me feel necessary.
You see they can be ever so slightly stubborn; who are we kidding they are both very STUBBORN!
So when they argue not unlike when they were both much younger and had all the time in the world to solve these disagreements in slow mo or one half the time. You see unconditional love always has prevailed in spite of this wasted time.
But now they are much, much older and it’s ridiculous to let anything go on for weeks or months! It was then too, but they would never listen, at least now they seem willing.
For me it’s a challenge since they live five miles from one another, and we live over 1400 miles away; I believe.
Out of all her children, which is three my Mother-in-law chose to live the closest to her daughter, her other son lives in Washington state and we live, as you know, in Florida, and the disputers live in Bucks County Pennsylvania. As you can see we are quite spread out.
Today I do feel I made some progress.
I explained to each of them that they want the same things but don’t hear each other, laughingly, Mom at almost 88, has stated that she does need a hearing aide and I told my sister-in-law that, that may very well be why she doesn’t hear her. Grumpiness has also been discussed I do know that many who cannot hear well get frustrated and angry with everyone around them as well as themselves.

So I told the daughter to help the Mom to get to the hearing aide store and maybe now they will have one less problem to conquer, TA DA! I truly hope.

I am not that distant from my roots, really, because when I was a credit manager I was often called upon to settle monetary disputes.
Not unlike my Mom and Dad who also felt the necessity to help my husband and my self in our early marital days to resolve our newlywed disputes. Early on we almost threw in the towel and few times, but they reasoned with our immature brains and made us realize the ridiculousness of our complaints.
My parents were great at that, and some days I wish they were still here refereeing our now occasional silly arguments.

Good night to all and to all try and solve loved ones difficulties if you can

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