Last weekend my husband and I attended his mother's family reunion, a huge affair complete with a sign-in book, name tags, an amazing variety and quantity of food, and about 250 people we were supposed to know. There are so many members of this family and they are so prolific that, apart from this biennial reunion, they would completely lose track of one another. Even so, it was common to hear whispered queries of "Who is that?" The children were particularly hard to track. They moved too fast for us to focus upon their name tags, and they tended not to stay with their immediate families!
The M.C. for the program portion of this event was Max, the family's version of David Letterman; complete with sly humor, engaging grin, and witty repartee. This year, however, Max's comments were tinged with sorrow. His father passed away earlier this year, and Max was with him when he died.
As he stood before the crowd, Max shared, "My dad fought death. And even after he was gone, his body continued to fight. I tell you, it's not just an easy 'lights out' like they show you in the movies."
I shuddered. I thought of my own father's death. My husband was with Dad when he died, I was not. John won't answer my questions about the particulars of Dad's passing and I wonder if this is why? Perhaps there was a death struggle. Perhaps it was horrifying for John.
And then I thought of my dread of my own mother's passing. I will probably be by her side. I felt fear, and no small annoyance with Max. "What I did not need here today," I thought, "Was a description of a not-so-peaceful passing followed by rigormortis."
The morning after the reunion I was especially tired. I'd painted the ceiling in one of the little upstairs bedrooms the evening before, and my middle aged muscles were aching. As I lay in bed, I stretched my tired muscles; one of those full length, luxurious, to the tips of your fingers and toes type of stretches ending in one last shuddering, tightening of every single limb and muscle; and then I collapsed into a state of complete relaxation. It was pleasant, there was nothing awful about it; it was just my physical body's response to being overworked the day before.
As I lay there the Lord touched my heart and I saw the correlation you've probably already made. Rigormortis is simply a part of the physical body's release of the spirit. It is not awful. It is not horrifying. It is a tension and release similar to my stretching followed by relaxation.
The Lord has spoken to me about this before. Here is a quote from My Mom Has Alzheimer's: Inspiration and Help for Caregivers:
I saw my body as a fragile shell housing a precious treasure. Our physical bodies are like the alabaster vase that held the nard Mary poured upon the feet of Jesus. The vase was broken to release the perfume. Each of us is headed toward an appointment with physical brokenness because no one escapes physical death. Sometimes the process of death is painful and for just a little while, we are preoccupied with the breaking of the container, but then the fragrance of Christ flows forth as the spirit is released.
Death is not lovely, but though we must walk through the valley of its shadow, there is no need to fear. In just a little while we will see Jesus and no one will take away our joy. Until that day we have the Holy Spirit in our hearts as a deposit; a guarantee of what is to come. We have a promise that will not be broken; grief will turn to joy.
I have been so afraid of what I may have to see and experience as my mother goes through the process of dying. I am beginning to rest in trust in the Lord. If He allows my heart to break, He is able to mend it together again. God is with me. I will not be afraid.
Scripture: “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 16:20b-22).
My mother has lived with us for six years. She is completely dependent on us for all of her basic needs, but is quite content to spend much of each day alone, reading the books we provide and listening to the music we choose for her. Caregiving duties are sometimes oppressive, but what if I change the way I think about these responsibilities? Perhaps my mother has somehow chosen to stay with me for this extended period of time because of her love and concern for me. What if I choose to focus on the blessings of this time we are spending together?
I do know that my mom's illness is blessing me with the time I need to adjust to the fact of her leavetaking.
St. Paul said that it would be far better for him to depart this mortal life and to be at home with the Lord, "...But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live (Philippians 1:23-24, NLT)." On days when I feel so stressed over wondering when and how my mother will finally leave me, it is a comfort to recognize the ways the Lord is blessing me through her extended time with us. In so many ways it has been better for me that she has stayed.
This morning I talked with a friend whose brother has just passed away. She said, "I believe everything happens for a reason. I'm having trouble figuring out the reason for this, but I know there is one." This more positive way of looking at Mom's Alzheimer's disease leads me to a train of thought in which I begin to make conjectures about the Lord's reasons for allowing these circumstances, but the conclusions I draw may be inaccurate. God has His reasons. I won't always be able to understand, in fact, I know that as Hannah Whitall Smith says, my part is to trust, while God's part is to act.
However, today I've been comforted by imagining a conversation between my mom and the Lord that might have gone something like this:
Lord: You know, Anna Ruth, Linda is going to have a terrible time letting you go.
Mom: (With a tear in her eye) Yes, Lord, I know. What can I do?
Lord: Well, there is a solution that will ease her pain and help her to make the transition to life without you, but you may not want to consider it.
Mom: Anything Lord, what is your plan?
Lord: Alzheimer's disease.
Mom: (Scarcely hesitating) If it will help my girl and honor you, well of course, Lord. Let's do it. I know you'll be with me in it, and I've found your yoke easy and your burden light.
Lord: (Smiling) I will be with you.
***************
Thinking about my mom's illness in this way helps me accept the slow loss of the mother I knew and to cope with the behavioral changes that hurt my heart. God is with us.
This morning my daughter, Melinda, told me of a comment from a friend of hers who is reading my book. Melinda's friend is not new to the concept of caregiving, having nursed her own mother through a lingering illness until her mom passed away. Of this time in her life she said, "I just loved taking care of my mother."
This brought me up short. I love my mother. But I do not love taking care of her. The precious young woman who uttered these words is 25 years my junior, and her day (and night) job consists of taking care of her five month old twins who were born prematurely and have special needs.
I often experience an uncomfortable suspicion that I am not as good or Godly a person as I ought to be, and when I encounter such Holy Spirit fed sweetness as exhibited by Melinda's friend, I become certain of it.
This same young woman went on to say, ""I love your mom already and I haven't even met her. She has such a great way of expressing what she has to say."
In response to this kind comment I wrote the following message to my daughter via an email:
I appreciate your friend's kind words. Thank you for passing them along. I am, of course, more likable via a medium (my writing) in which one doesn't have to live with me from day-to-day. But there truly is a lot of me in the book, and because it was written with a daily prayer that it be for God's glory, the portion of me that is apparent through my writing is the part that will remain when God's refining fire gets done with me. So, your dear friend will recognize me right away when she meets me in Heaven, but stands a good chance of being unpleasantly surprised if she meets me before then! Meantime, it is sweet that she loves the person I will someday be. I love her back."
All of this brought to mind a truth the Lord has been speaking to me for some time; whenever we place our confidence in fellow human beings, we will eventually be disappointed. As a woman of God (sometimes) and a Christian author, I have more than once had the sad experience of seeing disillusionment in the eyes of someone who had admired me or looked to me as a role model. This can happen when I am overheard snapping at my husband, or being flippant, or responding with angry or hurtful words in response to some small hurt; but sometimes it happens through no sin of mine at all, merely as a reaction to the revelation that I am human. We don't like to see our role models fall from their pedestals.
A few years ago I learned that a pastor I overheard speaking harshly to his wife on a Saturday afternoon nevertheless had some Holy Spirit fueled instruction for me from the pulpit on the following Sunday morning. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that the pool of perfect people from which God has to choose contains no members. Once we become legitimate members of the family of God through the forgiveness that is ours in Christ, God begins to use us for His Holy purposes even while He is in the process of burning away the dross. And so it becomes necessary for us to recognize that God can use imperfect people to instruct or to help us, and that He can use us--while we are yet sinners--to help others. We don't have to wait to be perfect to be of use to God, and we don't have to wait for our authority figures and role models to be perfect in order to learn from them. As Christians we are not perfect, we are only in the process of being perfected.
Scripture: "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Ephesians 4:32 NIV).
"Far better to take refuge in God than to trust in people" (Psalm 118:9, The Message).
I am always surprised when the Lord reveals His intimate involvement in the seemingly mundane moments of my seemingly unimportant little life. For example, last week I noticed Queen Anne's lace has burst into bloom along our roadside ditches and in the pastures. I picked a single blossom and placed it in a bud vase on my kitchen table. Intrigued by the intricacy of the stems and the many tiny blooms that make up a single flower, I photographed the blossom from the underside (above).
On Wednesday evening I took a half price off coupon and headed to a little shop near my home that offers items of surprising variety and beauty for a small town store. I found the print pictured below and was delighted to bring it home. I hung it over the mantle in my living room.
I think we underestimate the degree to which God's love and involvement extend to every facet of our lives. I am not, so far as I know, accomplishing great things for the Kingdom of God this summer, but rather I am immersed in the ordinary duties of my ordinary days. I am humbled and thankful to be shown that the Lord is present with me whether I'm picking a wildflower by the roadside or am involved in activities that I would judge as being more important.
Scripture: "...God is with you in everything you do." (Genesis 21:22)
I’ve been suffering a really uncomfortable summer version of the flu, complete with fever, body aches, and stuffy nose. This afternoon I’d taken meds and was laying in bed, near sleep, when I heard Mom’s voice over the monitor. She was singing hymns to herself, and in my half-awake state I had the sensation that the voice belonged to the mother of my childhood; my mama singing to me, focused on me, concerned for me. But then, in the same way one regains awareness of reality when awakening from a dream, I came to the present. In that not-quite-awake place where my conscious mind’s defenses did not reach, grief of loss had found its target. I was surprised by the intensity of the emotion. I felt despair. Resentment, anger, terrible love for my mother, and a sense of having been abandoned by her suffused me.
Miserable physically and hurting in my emotions, I cried out to the Lord. I begged him for refreshment of spirit.
Awhile later I began to chill. I lay huddled in bed awhile and then it occurred to me that just outside my front door the concrete steps were heated to egg frying temperature by the blast of the midday summer sun. I sat on the steps for awhile and then threw a blanket down onto the sun drenched grass. I stretched out and soaked in sunlight until I felt thoroughly warmed.
I got to my feet and wandered about the yard for a bit, then pulled the spigot on the hydrant and refilled the bird bath. I then turned the flow of cold water onto my bare arms to cool them from the sun’s heat. I watered the hosta and admired the beauty of its lavender blossoms, just beginning to unfurl.
When I came back inside I felt well enough to do a few household chores, and then I retreated to the couch to rest. I felt so much better. The Lord had answered my prayer.
As caregivers, I believe our most difficult and vulnerable moments occur when we feel weak or infirm. This is especially true if the care recipient is someone who once provided nurture and support that is no longer present. A time of need will cause emotions of grief over the loss of that relationship to surface. Illness, even a temporary case of the flu like mine, will cause childlike emotions; and today I longed for my mother's support.
God is so good. He heard my childlike cry and soothed my aching body and my troubled spirit with sunshine and simple beauty. Tonight, though my flu symptoms are still present, I feel peace.
Scripture: "...turn to God...that times of refreshing may come from the Lord" (Acts 3:19).
My Mom has lived with us for nearly six years. This has worked for us because Mom has her own space, a three room apartment adjoining our home. Over the years she's learned to think of her apartment as her "house," and her Alzheimer's has not yet progressed to the point that she habitually dispenses with deeply ingrained social rules. For example, she still understands that she should not enter someone else's house and roam around at will! Oh there have been times when, like Goldilocks, Mom has entered our part of the house when we weren't at home; but she is generally happier and more at ease in her own familiar space. And so, we have our space, and she has hers; and in this way we've all survived quite nicely.
I take good care of my mother. I bring her three meals and two snacks a day, empty her trash cans, do all of her shopping and assist with much of her personal care. I've negotiated the transition from the role of dependent daughter to dependable caregiver quite nicely, thank you.
However, a side effect of keeping too strict a perspective as caregiver is that I suffer an unfortunate tendency to detach from the emotional connection I shared with my mother in the days that I interacted with her as a daughter. I always said that my mom was my best friend, and in those days I would call and beg her to come to spend time with me, or I would show up unannounced at her house. In short, I enjoyed her company. As I transitioned to the role of caregiver I grieved over the loss of this kind of connection with my mom, and for the most part it was easier and somehow safer emotionally simply to detach. This is sad, but grief is a portion of the burden of being either a caregiver or a care recipient.
This afternoon, as a part of my caregiving duties, I sat down with my mom in her apartment. Our respite care provider is on vacation and I knew Mom needed the stimulation of conversation. She was entertaining herself by singing snatches of old hymns, and so I rummaged through a box and found the hymnal she'd used as a child at Union Church in the Ozark Hills of Missouri. About twenty minutes later I suddenly realized that I was no longer interacting with Mom in my role as caregiver, but was myself receiving nurture from my mother's voice, the familiar hymns, and undoubtedly from the presence of the Holy Spirit.
My relationship with mom will never again be what it once was, but I pray for the ability to continue to find ways to enjoy her for the person she has become, and not just as someone who needs my caregiving services.
An unanticipated caregiving challenge has been the necessity of adjusting my life to serve not only my mother's needs, but those of her cat. It isn't that I don't like cats, it's just that this particular animal, dubbed "Kitty" by my mother, does not particularly like me. I feed this cat, groom her, and talk sweetly to her to no avail. Kitty treats me with disdain.
To make matters worse, a sort of sibling rivalry has developed between Kitty and me. If ever I make an even faintly critical remark about cat hair on the couch or claw marks on the woodwork, Mom defends her pet vigorously and chastises me for my complaints. "She's just being a cat," Mom says, "And she's a wonderful pet."
The only time Kitty is accepting of my presence in Mom's apartment is first thing in the morning, when she perhaps feels lonely because Mom has been asleep. At night Kitty must miss the steady dose of endearments and admiration that Mom lavishes on her pet during the day. And so, when I appear early in the morning, I find a higher level of feline acceptance than at any other time. I take this opportunity to stroke Kitty's soft fur, and have found that if I take a strip of duct tape and run it lightly down her back that I can remove a lot of hair that otherwise would end up on the furniture. The animal seems to enjoy this process, arching her back and purring.
But this morning Kitty was distracted by a goldfinch that landed in Mom's feeder just outside the window, and made a sudden and unexpected turn just as I stroked down her back and tail with my strip of tape. Somehow the two ends of the tape stuck to one another around her tail. I quickly attempted to disentangle it but succeeded only in pulling it tighter. Alarmed at the tugging going on at her back end, Kitty let out a yowl and lept from the window seat. She ran under Mom's bed and I could hear her thrashing and meowing as she attempted to pull the tape from her tail with her teeth.
There ensued a fifteen minute rodeo as husband John and I chased the cat around Mom's apartment. Poor Mother was still in bed and asked, "Now, what's the problem here?" As I ran past brandishing a large bath towel with the intent of wrapping the cat in order to avoid being clawed, I tried to explain. Mom closed her eyes tightly and appeared to be praying--probably for the cat.
I finally captured Kitty who, to her credit, neither bit nor scratched me. I handled her swaddled form to John, extracted the tail, and used fingernail scissors to free her of the sticky tape.
Somehow I think that my early morning quality time with Kitty has come to an end.
