While this isn’t true of everyone
in my family, we do have a history of being a people who know how to take care
of one another.
I distinctly remember when we brought my maternal
grandmother into our home to live when she needed continual care. Grandma lived
with us for probably a year. She was bedfast, on oxygen, and needed constant
care, so we welcomed her into our tiny house and my mother cared for her every
need until she died peacefully in the back bedroom of our home. I was just seven
years old, but the sacrifice my parents made for her care made a deep
impression on me.
My other grandmother lived in the same community and we saw
her often. She never needed the kind of continual care that Grandma did, but I
do remember how my dad dropped in every day to check on her. He was a devoted
son and she knew she could depend on him.
When my mother was in her 60s, her older sister required
some extra care and there was no one else to manage it. My parents arranged for
Aunt Velma to have a daytime caregiver, but they checked on her every day for
years. They helped manage her care and her personal business until she died.
My mother began having some significant physical problems in
her late 70s. Although my dad was still working part-time, he eventually quit
his job to be home with her because her doctor appointments and the demands of
keeping a household going required more of his time. She gradually deteriorated
to the point where she could not care for herself, and was unable to do the many
things she had done all of her life.
Mama was always very involved when my sister and I were
growing up, volunteering to be room mother, band booster, PTA officer, Girl
Scout leader, Sunday School teacher, or whatever job needed to be done. She was
an excellent cook and a great housekeeper. But she also loved doing creative
things, and kept busy with sewing and craft projects. Yet after seventy-something years of service to others, Mama had
come to the point that she could hardly do basic things for herself.
Although my
dad was several years her senior, he was a natural caregiver. His father had
been ill when he was just a boy, so he learned how to care for people who
couldn’t care for themselves, and with practiced ease he stepped into that role
of making life more comfortable for his bride. Daddy devoted himself to her
care, which not only meant doing things for her comfort but also managing the
everyday cooking, cleaning, and shopping. I never heard him utter a word of
complaint, and he always seemed to find joy in doing those things for the woman
he loved.
All these memories flooded my mind last week when I learned
that the wife of a cousin had died. When you hear their history, it bears a
close resemblance to stories I already know from my own DNA, tales that are clinging to my own
branch of the family tree.
Harvey’s beautiful wife, Helen, started down the Alzheimer’s
road twelve years ago, and as is often the case, it was a slow, gradually
descending path. I know it must have been heartbreaking for the entire family.
Despite the pain of watching Helen deteriorate, my cousin Harvey became
singularly devoted to his wife . . . not just devoted to Helen’s care, but to HELEN!
He took her out to eat; he took her on trips to the Oregon
coast. He staged family gatherings for her birthday and other occasions. He
took pictures of his beloved wife and posted them on Facebook with captions
like “my beautiful bride”. He pointed out things that would give her pleasure,
such as the beauty of a sunset or a bird fluttering outside her window.
Harvey was under no illusion about the way the disease was
taking her away from him. There was no denial of reality. He simply chose to
make every day a happy one for her; he determined that she would have a safe,
peaceful place, surrounded by happy things, with a minimum of stress and fear.
It was surely a costly choice for him, but it was indeed his choice. And now
that she has gone to be with her Lord (after walking beside Harvey on earth for
sixty years!), she is healed of the ravages of Alzheimer’s, healed of body and mind. And she will now know, in a
way she did not comprehend over the past few years, what a sacrifice of love
Harvey made for her. Harvey is a prime example of how our family cares for one
another.
A dear friend of mine shared with me recently that she is
teetering on the edge of a decision to assume a major portion of the care for
her aging mother. But unlike Harvey’s decision to care for Helen, this one
carries an even heavier burden . . . for this friend expressed that her mother
has not been particularly kind or loving to her all her life. As she related
her plans to me, my friend described how the words of Scripture call her to
this sacrifice: “I am to honor my father and mother, and to give Mom good care
in her later years is not only the humane thing to do, but the Christian thing.
I would want to show kindness and wish good care for anyone else in her
situation who needed it; why not for my own mother?” And that, too, is a legacy
of faithful caregiving.
Many of us are either currently facing this decision, or
will be soon. May God grant us all the grace and mercy to live out the Jesus
principles of caring for one another with love—not simply because it’s our
duty, but because it’s the right thing to do, the loving thing.
