The Lord is With Us

Keep Silent and Pray

It has been nearly two weeks since my mother's funeral, and each day I've felt strongly that now is not the time to address issues regarding various things that are worrying or upsetting me. I am to keep silent and pray.

The experience of laying a loved one to rest triggers deep emotion that, unmonitored, can do harm to the tender hearts of others who may be navigating grief-paths of their own.  Grief can tilt one’s perceptions.  Until I am more certain of the accuracy of my responses (well, especially until then),  I need to keep quiet!  I've made a  list of do's and don'ts to review daily for this time:

• The death of a loved one and the grieving that follows may bring seemingly unrelated emotions to the surface, and worse, can tilt our perceptions toward inaccurate conclusions as we attempt to reconcile the level of pain we are experiencing with our actual circumstances.  We may feel like blaming other people for the hurt.  If you have to field negative words or actions, turn the other cheek and table the issue until later.  Time and prayer are the solutions for any problem that arises; now is not the time to confront issues.  Keep silent and pray.  Entrust your loved ones into the Lord’s hands. 

• Assume the best of one another.  Give each other the benefit of the doubt.  Encourage one another.  When someone acts or speaks in a way that is hurtful, look for the need behind the behavior. You may find a need to belong, to prove oneself, or a desire to be admired or accepted; bear with one another in love.  

• When you are hurt, cry the pain out to Jesus, and not to another human being.  Human beings can’t help you or offer healing.  The Lord can do both.  

• If you feel you are being shortchanged, overlooked, or treated unfairly, look for the Lord’s provision.  In His perfect love and virtuosity, the Lord is able to balance all of our needs and to bless each of us with the outcome. 

A Gentle Unfolding

The photo background of this meme is the lane that led to my mother's childhood home.  We always called a visit to this, my grandparents' farm, "Going down home."   

Walking the path of grief over my mother's death is a complicated process. There are many layers to traverse, not only grief, but also a struggle to assess the changes that have occurred in my life over the years I was Mom's primary caregiver, an assignment which lasted nearly a quarter of my life.

Yesterday I used my iPhone's "Find My Friends" feature to see whether my daughter had arrived home safely from a shopping trip.  I had a brief, humorous urge to look up my own name to see where I am.  There is a sense of needing to gain my bearings as I prepare to move forward to the next phase of my life.

I didn't need to fear this time of grieving as I did.  The Lord's grace has seen me through the funeral and each day since.  And it is so precious that instead of my being bombarded with the full weight of all I have to face, each day another issue, lesson, or grief has been revealed.  In this way I have not been overwhelmed.  I've been allowed time and space to pray  through each "lesson of the day" and have received the Lord's comfort and instruction.

I am grateful for this gentle unfolding.

Today’s lesson is that Mom is at home.  It's wonderful how the Lord made this truth real to me as I looked at a sympathy card with a photo that reminded me so much of the lane that went "down home" to my grandparents' house.  The Lord's presence is more blessed, beautiful and perfect than any earthly home we've known; in Him we are perfectly at home.

The Lord is so good to us.  Blessed be His Name.

~~~

My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.  

Exodus 33:14

Dying Pain Placed Into Perspective: Joy Just Ahead

My mother has just passed away following a nearly 16 year journey through Alzheimer's disease.  I offer the following account of her passing in order to share the comfort I have received.

The day before Mom died, she was so comfortable and peaceful.  She kept saying “Peace, peace, it is so beautiful.”  She repeated this in various ways throughout our visit; “It is so beautiful!  So peaceful!” 

She was not looking at me, but through me, or upwards, toward the corner of her room where wall met ceiling.  At one point she exclaimed, “Look at that beautiful face!  Just perfect!  So beautiful!” 

I made a quick check of where she was gazing to see whether the veil might have lifted for me as well, but no.  I asked, “Is it Jesus?” 

She hesitated and then answered, “I think so.” 

That she answered a direct question at that point was kind of astounding as she had not been responding to me or seeing me.   

Mom was comfortable up until her last 24 hours.  If there had not been a delay in getting her started on the 15-minute interval doses of medicine that hospice gives for dying pain, I don’t think she’d have had that hour of extreme struggle. Well, it seemed extreme to me and it may not have lasted more than a few minutes; time telescoped into a form that what seemed like hours may only have been minutes.  It was distressing to see her labored breathing, so reminiscent of someone suffering labor pains to bring forth a child. 

That thought of the similarity to what Mom was enduring to the labor of childbirth was comforting to me.  I had positioned myself beside Mom on her narrow bed and wrapped my arms around her, praying for her, so that her suffering was my suffering.  At first I thought I couldn’t bear the intensity of her anguish, but then the thought of how we all embrace labor and childbirth for the sake of the joy that follows put her suffering into perspective for me; she was heading to the joy of Jesus’ presence. 

Some time later (5 minutes?  30 minutes?) two nurses appeared to reposition her and I was so cramped and nearly frozen into position that I had to do a kind of gymnastics move to get out of the bed—both nurses thought I was falling and moved toward me to catch me.  I landed awkwardly on my feet, straightened up, gave a sheepish smile.  They quickly and professionally returned to the task at hand. 

My husband, John, was visibly shaken and gave forth the information that my father had gone through the same thing that last day of his life (while I was at my job teaching children to read, this dear man had supported my mother in helping her to see my dad through his final days of life).  

I said, “You know it’s just like laboring in childbirth, so similar to having a baby.” 

John shook his head vigorously and said, “No, no, it isn’t.” 

And I said, “Honey, you never had a baby.” 

I was illuminated by the thought that Mom did not appear to be suffering the level of pain I felt myself to have survived in order to bring my children into the world.  It was a profound shift in understanding; I had gone willingly into a second pregnancy despite the fairly traumatic suffering of my first pregnancy and childbirth experience.  Why?  Because of the surpassing joy of holding that new baby in my arms. 

I think the difference in our perceptions between laboring in childbirth and laboring to achieve separation of body from spirit is that as observers, we don’t see with human eyes the great joy at the end of the dying labor.  But we can receive it on faith.    

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning,” (Psalm 30:5).

^“ Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.  A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.  So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy” (John 16:20-22).

Hope of Heaven and Home

My precious mom passed away today after a nearly 16 year battle with Alzheimer's disease.  The past 24 hours have been difficult, and I'm a little bit in shock.  This frozen feeling begins to thaw in the light of the Lord's love; He is guiding us through each step of this busy, preparing for the funeral, time.

I don't have anything profound to say during this solemn, sad, sometimes almost comical time except that I am grateful for the Lord's guiding presence.  I sure do appreciate Him.

Our hope of heaven sustains us and keeps us from grieving like those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Blessed be His Name.

Our Times Are in His Hands

Dementia-related Combativeness

The background of this meme is a detail from one of my mother's oil paintings.

My poor mother is currently suffering dementia-related perceptions that she in danger.  I felt so sad and upset with her during our visit yesterday as she threatened to spit in my eye and to kick me in the backside. She responded in anger as I attempted to give her a sip of orange juice.  She flailed her fists in front of her face in an attempt to fend me off.  

My exasperated thoughts were along these lines: where is her Christian perseverance and love?  Why does she think even now it is ok to respond in such a mean way to anybody at all, much less her loyal and loving daughter?  

And then last evening, I lost my temper with someone who had done something they ought not to have done.  After the situation had been handled, the thought came, "What if your perceptions were canted so that you only thought this person had committed a wrong, but in fact, no wrongdoing had occurred?  How would your response have been different?"  

Of course the answer is that my response would not have differed at all.  We respond to our perceptions of what is true.  Mom's most recent misperception is that the sound made by the rattly congestion in her chest is the angry growling of a vicious dog.  She feels threatened, and responds with anger.  She talks about what she is going to do to that dog. She then forgets about the dog and only remembers she is  being threatened. And that is when she responds with aggression toward people around her.   

Mom is responding to a demented version of truth, and her combativeness is understandable from her perspective.  Our kind hospice workers have ordered meds that may help her congestion and ease her anxiety.  She also responds positively when I sing praise songs to her.  

It's hard to watch Mom suffering these delusions, but it is a blessing to know that her struggles are almost over.  As the physical body dies and our perceptions become increasingly compromised, there are sometimes responses that aren't pleasant to experience or for others to watch.  But I'm feeling strongly that I don't need to be overly upset about these things.  They are a part of the dying process for Mom, and are analogous to suffering through a rocky labor to bring forth a child.  At the end of this labor there will be peace, and a sweet release into new life. 

I wish it were an easier transition for my mom.  But the Lord is with us, and there are moments of peace and beauty that I wouldn't trade.  Yesterday morning the dementia fell away for a few seconds, and as I took her hand Mom looked into my eyes and said, "I love you."  For that moment she knew what was real.  And that is what I'm going to keep.  Love remains.