Watching from the green room

The big news on T.V. for this week was the final show for David Letterman. I loaded my computer with this clip and took it to play for Dorris. Marx was invited onto Letterman's show to explain how his stardust sculptures work. It is a great clip of the two of them joking and wondering over music found in unusual objects. I enjoy showing it to my undergrad students when talking about creativity. I manage to fool myself into thinking that this clip somehow makes me seem a bit cooler.

Because her heart is slowing down, I usually find Dorris lying on her couch. On this day, I found her eating a sandwich while lying down. I could not convince her of the need to sit up while eating, but she sat up rather quickly when I told her I wanted to show her something about Marx.

She watched the clip with rapt attention and many exclamations:

"Why haven't I seen this before?"

"Where was I while this was going on?"

"I can't believe I let this happen without me!"

Even though my assurance does not last longer than about 30 seconds, I did manage to convince her that she was in New York with Marx and that she watched this from the backstage green room. 

One of the tough things about losing memories is the way the brain tries to make sense of a senseless world. This has been one of the fascinating things about walking this journey with Dorris.
Last week, her sister-in-law Marie and I ate lunch with her. We were visiting about the man who shot President Reagan and wondering about the wisdom of a judge who wants to release this man into the care of his 90-year-old-mother. These memories made little sense to Dorris. Her brain promptly rewrote things to make more sense:

"Are we all aware that I was shot at in the bathroom?"

"No, you were not shot at!"

"I wasn't? Well, it sure makes a good story."

As a student of thinking processes, both of these stories make me wonder: why do Dorris' responses make better sense to her brain than the reality that she might have forgotten something? This is a question to which every caregiver for a loved one with dementia would love to have an answer.

Regardless of the physical health of our brains, we all live in a state of wanting to protect our imagined reality. It just does not seem possible that our brains could be wrong.

Of course I am right, that is why I think this way. If what I was thinking were wrong, I would change my mind. Why don't my social media friends see things my way?

The answer to my prayer must be the right thing for my life. If it were not, I would be able to see that. Why doesn't God see things my way?

From before birth, our brain helps us to learn and over the years, we learn to trust it to show us reality. But, our brains are probably wrong as often as they are right. Trusting our brains is a mistake.

Our trust should always be in God and His plan:

He leads the humble in what is right,

and teaches the humble his way.

All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,

for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. (Psalm 25: 9-10, ESV) 

This kind of trust requires humility. Not the secular understanding of humility where we degrade ourselves and let others dismiss us. That is not humility -- it is just humiliation.

Humility means trusting that God is right, even when it does not seem like He is. Humility is putting God first because you rest in the assurance that He has taken care of all of our needs -- even our need to be right.

Make me to know your ways, O LORD;

teach me your paths.

Lead me in your truth and teach me,

for you are the God of my salvation;

for you I wait all the day long. (Psalm 25: 4-5, ESV) 

God's teaching begins with my acceptance that my thinking is not His.

God's teaching is truth, it is complete, and it is salvation.

Salt of the Earth

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. 

(Matthew 5: 13-16, ESV)

Our world recently lost someone who was the essence of the phrase "salt of the earth." My dictionary of clichés describes this phrase as applying to an individual "considered to be the best or noblest of his kind." This definition fits Gil better than any other person I have known, both in its secular and Christian sense.

I first met Gil when I began teaching at the same Lutheran Church where his daughter was the music director. The church had just started a school, and the devil was working overtime to close this ministry. It was open season on the teaching staff.

It seemed to me that everything I did was criticized, and I was certainly not alone. People who had never been to our classrooms were accusing us of being bad teachers. People who had never taught before were certain they knew what we should be doing differently. There were false accusations and constant denigration that interfered with teaching and learning. I wondered why I was teaching, at all. 

Some days, when I brought the children outside for recess, I would see Gil’s familiar face. He donated much of his time and talent to the church each week. If I was on the playground and he was finishing a job, he would come over and visit. We would talk about all sorts of things – stories about kids, about the early days of our church (he was a charter member), and stories about people. In this gentle way, he gave me some joy and bolstered my faith in God’s ability to bring good out of His sinful people and the situations we create. 

In this way, Gil was not just being the salt of the earth. He was salt and light. He was shining a light on God’s goodness and helping me to understand that goodness and to preserve it. He continues to influence me as his life reminds me also to go and be salt and light in this same gentle way.

I know when I stop and ask a church worker how things are going -  I know that when I feel the urge to ask, again, and wait for an answer, that I am blessed to use my God-given faith in a way that was modeled by Gil.

I know that when I look for something positive to say or do, in a negative situation, that I am blessed to use my God-given faith in a way that was modeled by Gil.

I know that when God shows me the joy of talking with people who are not in the spotlight, who are feeling lonely, who are feeling depressed, that I am using my God-given faith in a way that was modeled by Gil.

A good friend recently spoke to my Adolescent Development class about the work she does with at risk youth. She talked about the need each young person has for five people in their life who would do nearly anything for them, five people who care about them, who influence them to help them see that their world can be better. I believe this is true for all of us. Gil was definitely one of my "five." In simple, consistent ways, he showed me he cared and he showed me a better way of living my faith.

I am blessed to know him; he will be sorely missed. I thank God for Gil's faith, his gentleness, his service, and that I could know him for almost a third of his 91 years. God is good.

My new favorite thing about Gil will be to look for him in his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. God is good, all the time.

His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ (Matthew 25:21, ESV)

Finding familiarity

Paul received a message from the hospice nurse that Dorris was agitated. His text asked me to go over and see her after class.

I decided to bring one of our cats for a “cat therapy” visit. In an unusual demonstration of empathy, Natalia settled down into Dorris' lap and purred her enjoyment of the scratches and petting. Dorris settled in quite nicely, too.

I began to dig through her closet to find some clothes to wear for her trip to our house for Easter. I found a jacket and asked her if she would like to wear it.

“Yes,” she said, “it has a bit of magnificence about it.”

It is interesting to me how quickly the Dorris I know and love can seemingly leave and then return. In the thirty years I have known her, until her Alzheimer’s, Dorris never, ever gave the impression that she was lost, or somehow not in control of all that was happening around her. I loved that constant assurance.

She is now at the stage where nothing is familiar for more than a few seconds at a time. When I visit with the cat, I must tell her over and over, that the cat does not live in this room, that the cat came to visit Dorris – not the other way around. I must constantly answer her question with the assurance that this room is where she lives and that it is not my house.

Today, I responded to the familiar questions by asking her if she recognized the furniture, pictures, and sculpture in the room.

“Well, they do look familiar -  like I have seen them somewhere before.”

Imagine living in a world where things looked vaguely familiar, but not like home. Then, imagine rediscovering this about every 10-15 seconds. 

It is little wonder that she gets agitated. It is more of a wonder why she isn’t agitated all of the time.

But a nine-pound cat can make all the difference. A cat doesn’t have to be familiar. It doesn’t have to belong. Once it snuggles in and starts purring, that is enough familiarity to keep anyone happy.

Thank you, God, for pets.

On the days leading up to Good Friday, Jesus tried to warn the disciples that change was in the works. His behavior must have been unfamiliar to his followers. Jesus raged in the temple, rode a donkey, washed feet, and allowed His capture.

Jesus’ death meant that, even though, the world was full of familiar things – nothing was, or ever would be, the same again. 

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

(I John 4: 9-10, ESV)

The fact that our sin could only be appeased by the death and resurrection of God’s Son should be a source of constant agitation, and guilt, and humiliation. Instead, Jesus took these emotions as a burden along with our sins.

Our sin prevents us from making heaven a familiar home. 

God’s love creates the home where we will live, forever, in His most familiar love and care.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 

(I John 4: 13-14, ESV)

Life

I drove Dorris home after church today. We took the usual route, and she asked the usual questions about where we were and where she lived.

Dorris: Why don’t I recognize where we are? Did I hit my head?

Kim: No, you did not hit your head. You have Alzheimer’s.

Dorris: I don’t like that word “Alzheimer’s.” It is often bandied about and used where it doesn’t belong. Now I guess I will have to accept that it belongs to me.

We were unusually quiet the rest of the drive.

Dementia is cruel. It leaves its victim in a constant state of anxious confusion. Thankfully, my mother-in-law, is comfortable with asking important questions over and over, again. I answer them as if I have never heard them before because I know that this will reduce her anxiety -  if even just for a moment. Sometimes she will inform me that she will probably ask me the same question more times before she’s done. I always reassure her that repeating a question is just fine as long as it is a question I can answer. We laugh and I make her promise not to ask me about string theory, which inevitably makes her ask “what is string theory?”

Dementia takes away memories; it takes away the comfort of knowing where you are, where you are going, and who is taking you there. Dementia takes so much, but it often leaves behind the realization that the disease is present. Dorris doesn’t remember that she cannot balance when she walks, but she remembers what Alzheimer’s is and what it means for her future.

I gave a children’s message at church today on the topic of life. We discussed several pictures to determine which was “alive” and which was “not alive.” We agreed about the snowman,

 

but there was some discussion about the picture of Olaf.

I showed them a picture of a baby in the womb.

 

We talked about how babies get food before they are born and then had to stop ourselves from lifting up our shirts and dresses to see our belly buttons.

I shared the sad news that some people do not see the baby in the womb as being “alive.” Science tells us that this baby has life, but many do not count this life as having value.

What about Dorris’ life? Does her life have value? In some countries, she could be euthanized at her request. Physician aided death is legal in five states here in the U.S. In Belgium, it is legal to end the life of a terminally ill child. That is, so long as the parents show they are capable of making a good decision regarding the life of their child.

Yes, the world is full of pain and misery and we want to see this pain end. How is death a good decision?

If it is acceptable to end the life of an unwanted unborn child, how long will it be until we use the same rationalization to end the life of a born child? Or, the life of a severely injured adult? Or, the life of someone in emotional pain and misery? When will we start to feel comfortable ending the life of people like Dorris who can no longer remember or make sense of their world?

This is the verse we read for the children’s message: 

And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life. (I John 2:25, ESV)

God loves life. He loves the life of a newborn baby. He loves the life of an elderly person lost in her memories. He loves the life of a terminally ill child, parent, or sibling. He loves a long healthy life. He loves a long life of pain and misery, because He loves those who suffer. He loves the joyful and He loves the dejected and depressed.

God does not want misery for His children. He wants life.

He grants us eternal life through the saving work of His Son, and through the faith given us by the Spirit. We will live forever with Him in heaven.

But, eternal life goes both ways. God loved us before we were born. From before the beginning of Earthly time, God knew us, and loved us.