I weep for my mother today. She is becoming lost in her dementia, confused and afraid.
At 91, her memories are becoming jumbled and she changes her history as she tells her story, sometimes talking about people who only exist in her mind. Her frustration and loneliness are tangible as she hates the weakness that has become inevitable, that she can do nothing to stop.
Her vulnerability almost makes me forget who she was to me and how it shaped my life. She always liked to refer to herself as a “tough broad,” but she wasn’t. As a little girl, I often sat with her at the kitchen table listening to her cry about how lonely she was or how someone had hurt her. She would always pour her heart out to me and at the same time make me swear to not tell anyone what she was telling me.
It was an almost impossible burden to bear as a ten year old but I took it to heart. It was my responsibility to take care of my mother and in transference bear the responsibility of my younger siblings.
Mom and I have had a complicated relationship. She was a walking dichotomy, a bully who liked to threaten her children carrying out the threats with gusto, and a lonely woman who didn’t like to go to the grocery store alone. It put me on my praying knees over the years, often feeling unfulfilled longings to feel a mother’s embrace, to hear a mother’s laughter, to listen to shared dreams. And yet, I love her totally; she is my mom.
As God starting healing my heart, I begin to pray for sweet moments of grace, that God would see my weaknesses in my relationship with my mom and carry me through with His power. As I prayed, I realized how easy it is to judge those we love when they fail us or don’t live up to our expectations of what they should be.
It is profound and freeing to give God the responsibility for someone else, especially when you have carried a burden that wasn’t yours to carry.
And then, one of those moments came. Sitting in the hospital with her after one of her falls, her familiar anxiety was showing its ugly head. The COPD that she suffers also heightens her terror; she becomes anxious, can’t breathe, and starts the downward spiral. This day, her angst was caused by a nurse putting medicine in her IV. Terrified gasping for air was starting.
Without thought, I took her hand, and gently called her name. Startled, she paused, and I softly spoke to her: “Mom, let me hold your hand.”
As I cradled her hand in mine, I told her: “Just close your eyes and I will hold your hand. Just like when I was a little girl, when I had to get a shot, when I was scared, you would tell me to close my eyes and hold your hand, and everything would be okay.”
Even though I was describing a scene that never happened, I could see on her face that I had given her a sweet memory, maybe the mother that she wasn’t but maybe the mother that she wanted to be. She smiled and grew peaceful. On that day, in that moment, there was no love withheld, no love restrained, just peace.
The working of grace is mysterious. Supernatural love came into the room that day. Grace is a remarkable, unearned supernatural power and gives us the ability to forgive, have empathy, and to love. The Lord sees our weaknesses and will always be willing to carry us through to a place of his power. We need to pray to be able to hear those sweet moments of grace.
Digging Life 