The wholeness of our persons in Christ

Recently I encountered two sources on Alzheimer’s that are helpful. The first a book by a past governor of Wisconsin, Marin J. Schreiber. Schreiber writes about his journey with his wife Elaine; his book is My Two Elaines: Learning, Coping, and Surviving as an Alzheimer’s Caregiver. While I ordered the Schreiber’s book intentionally, I also ordered a movie from Netflix’s not realizing that it was partly about a wife who had Alzheimer’s. The movie is based on a true story about a man who is trying to build a home, on his own land, for his sick wife, and is harassed by bureaucrats in his native Canada. The movie, Still Mine, stars James Cromwell and Geneviève Bujold. It is a love story.

The book My Two Elaines is a small book with beautiful pictures of Elaine and some very sound advice such as “Unfamiliar settings such as hotels can be particularly upsetting to people with dementia because they have trouble re-orienting.”

And:

Asking others to help does not mean you’re not strong enough or not trying hard enough.”

But I did think that there was too much emphasis on the two person concept. That is, that those with Alzheimer’s become a different person than they were before they began suffering with the disease. The author wants to see his wife of his past as different from the wife he now is married to. I want to put a Christian perspective on this, but first the movie.

I loved Still Mine partly because it attaches the lives of the two main characters to their past. The husband and wife are the parents of seven grown children although only two of them are in the movie. The husband and wife love each other and they speak about their past with each other. They live on a 2000 acre farm and neither want to leave their land although a daughter tries to persuade them. (And here one needs to know that the husband although in his eighties is healthy and strong.)

But the beauty of the movie is that even with the dementia issue the wife is loved for who she is and will be. She may lose who she is but her husband will love her for her whole self, past, present and future. And isn’t that how God sees and loves us.

 

There are a lot of arguments and conclusions today about identity. But for a Christian, our identity is in Christ. And I believe God gathers, in Christ, all of our being up into a whole forgetting only the sinful part that is lost (thrown away in redemption.)

I believe we must love the whole person even when they have forgotten themselves.

I am trying to apply some of my thoughts in a practical manner.

My husband should not walk anymore by himself. He is legally blind and sometimes he forgets to look when crossing streets—I’m not sure he can see well enough when he does look—but he is now persistent that he must walk. Even on Sunday afternoon when it is 100 degrees outside. Three times this week when we were unable to walk because we missed the cooler mornings he slipped out the back door and walked. Today I saw him and followed. And it was a hundred degrees I reminded him, in a rather loud voice, when we returned home. He wasn’t hot he said.

But this is not just a new Brad, this is the tenacity that has always belonged to Brad. It is too early in the journey to put locks on the inside of the doors. I will simply keep working at finding a better rhythm for our days.

 

 

Saying it hard- the hills go down

On an early trip back to my roots, when our children were small, we visited Pattonsburg, Bethany, McFall, and St Joseph in Northern Missouri. I had forgotten how hilly parts of the landscape were. I had forgotten the sounds and the smells. Standing outside the car on the side of the road I took a deep breath and remembered home. The farm and the house in Pattonsburg. The one room school house, and the brick school in town. Going to the Methodist church in town and marching down the street with the band in St. Joseph. “Here comes a band that is so big they don’t have enough uniforms,” the announcer said during the apple blossom parade. How many times can you sing 99 bottles of beer on the wall going to a basketball game in another town?

Those are memories and they were made like the hills with many ups and downs. But what can you do when you suddenly find that the hill only goes down, down all of the way?

I told a friend that I had expected to hear the news I heard at the doctor’s office on Tuesday, but nonetheless it still stunned me and I had not yet absorbed it. And I still haven’t. Brad has moved from mild cognitive impairment to early stage Alzheimer’s. That means the hill will keep going down—it won’t get better—it won’t level out…..

For my devotions I use Touchstone’s Daily Devotional Guide. I am actually addicted to it. There is usually an Old Testament reading, a Gospel reading, another New Testament reading and one or several Psalms. But the day after receiving the news from the doctor I ended up skipping my reading in Exodus. I started it but somehow reading about how to furnish the tabernacle just wasn’t helping—but yes, the Psalms, always the Psalms—they are, through our union with Christ, our prayers, because they are his.  

Steady all the way through, he is there, Jesus is there. Afterwards, at home, Brad prayed for us. Not I, but Brad. And he talked of how we must continue to enjoy our future. It is downhill, but the end is home. The saints in the City of God—those enrolled in heaven. The city full of angels. The City of light. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 

A place for you

We were having our morning coffee when Brad said he woke up thinking of the verse, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” A good morning conversation. I looked up the verse in my New American Standard Bible reading several verses. Jesus said:

“Do not let your heart be troubled, believe in God believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14: 1-4)

Over the last several years, since we found that Brad has mild cognitive impairment, and since he has not been able to work, I have been, probably, over concerned, with our house. It is now one hundred and eleven years old. And it was looking very old indeed! In some places the paint had completely peeled off and we had already experienced the sewage backing up in the downstairs apartment. We got a reverse mortgage and have been slowly repairing and renewing our home. But thinking of the above verses I realized I am too, too concerned about my earthly living space.

As I studied and thought of the verses through the week several phrases and words jumped out at me. The beauty of that place that Jesus has and is preparing is that it is his preparation and his alone. No worries; we rest in him.

Brad is finding it harder and harder to do simple tasks. He wanted to make coffee himself one morning, but he needed me there to show him each step and still it was hard. In that place with Jesus the tasks will be joyful, graceful and once again full of dignity. And dignity will be given with grace because we are in Christ and belong to him.

William Hendriksen in his commentary on John points out that Jesus isn’t just coming to take us somewhere, (heaven), he is taking us to “himself.”  He writes:

“Observe that instead of saying what one might expect him to say, namely, ‘And when I go and prepare a place for you, I come again and will take you to that place,’ Jesus says something that is far more comforting: “I will take you to myself’ (or: to be face to face with me …). So wonderful is Christ’s love for his own that he is not satisfied with the idea of merely bringing them to heaven. He must needs take them into his own embrace.”

I am learning to be still in my soul and body, just sitting and listening and visiting with Brad. We have coffee every morning except Monday when he goes to a small men’s Bible study. With our morning coffee we sit in the kitchen/family room and visit. Morning and evening are the hardest times for Brad to put his thoughts together and remember words and concepts. But he does remember so much of the past. And we talk about the past and people we have known.

Yesterday he asked me where we lived before we lived here. (We have lived in this house for 30 years. Thirty one in August.) I told him, and then he wanted to know which of the children were still at home when we moved here. We talked about all of the people who have lived in our house and in the apartment downstairs. About the different children who have moved back home and then moved out again. About Miles Saunders who lived in our front bedroom for a year, and Gwen Davies who lived in our apartment before going to the mission field. And all of the great granddaughters who have lived down stairs. One was even born down there.

Often in the evening, (Brad usually goes to bed by 8:30), we sit on the front porch and visit. And watch for airplanes. That is something Brad can see because of their flashing lights; we have a small local airport near us so there are low flying planes.

But homes don’t last forever—except—the home that is found in Jesus. Found in him now, and found in him forever.

Watching the signs grow, seeking discerment

For a Christian, discerning the times is important. How do we live in the midst of unbelief or revival? How do we react in a society that has reached the edges of collapse amid the decadence of materialism? Or how do we live during the years of spiritual hunger and intentional seeking after God? The same is true when we consider the lives of our loved ones when they are sick and in need. And part of that discernment is discovering why someone close to us is finding life so difficult. Perhaps why they are reacting in anger, why they do the seemingly strange things they do.

Almost thirty years ago, visiting my father-in-law and his wife, my husband’s step-mother, we laughed about several incidents but then never considered that anything was wrong. My father-in-law, and he could be rather pushy, made a big deal about his wife using instant coffee in the coffee maker. He said this because coffee grounds can look like instant coffee when they have been used, and so not ‘remembering’ that instant coffee would have disappeared if boiling water was poured over it, he lectured my mother-in-law about using the wrong coffee.

Later, on Sunday morning, Amy called me into their bedroom to help her convince her husband Jack, that he was dressed strangely. His plaid shirt did not match his checkered pants. Jack had always been a very sharp dresser and she didn’t understand why he insisted on dressing that way for church. (She outflanked him in pushiness.) I don’t remember who won that battle, but I carefully stayed out of it.

I am sure that Amy, experienced many other dilemmas before they both discovered what was wrong, Alzheimer’s.

Watching a loved one, especially a spouse slowly lose parts of themselves, is devastating, to say the least. It is called the long goodbye.   

My husband Brad was at one time the main Steinway piano tuner in Sacramento.  He tuned for both individuals and concerts including the University of California at Davis, and the Mondovi Center. It was a wonderful career, an honored career. And I enjoyed the fruits of his labors in many ways including attending many concerts. Our experiences together were so fun: back stage at ‘Governor’ Ronald Reagan’s first inauguration concert which included Jack Benny, back stage at a Johnny Cash concert, backstage at a Garrison Keillor show where we were invited to sit with the performers as they waited for their turns on stage. What a gift.

He made chili for Ursula Oppens at the Bear Valley Music Festival, shared dinner with Russian pianist Olga Kern, at the same festival, and tuned pianos for Kathleen Battle and Wynton Marsalis concerts.

And the friends, so many. Piano teachers, concert pianist, families, churches—God has blessed us both through these many friends.

And then Brad kept forgetting tunings he had for the university on Sunday afternoons. He forgot to pencil them into his appointment book. And that became one of the final problems—over about a three year period—he slowly lost the ability to schedule the Sunday appointments and after he lost the person who made his weekly appointments he couldn’t do that job himself. I heard him on the phone telling old customers how glad he was to hear from them and that he would gladly tune their piano, but he never made the appointment or called them back. I took over the job. At the end he couldn’t drive and one of his son’s drove him on his days off. And then he couldn’t tune—partly his eyes—partly his inability to sequence—and I am sure just loss of memory.

There were earlier clues. They started slowly but finally came fast and furious. An inability to follow rules and sequences in games, our two favorites, cribbage and scrabble. I put them away out of my sight several months ago. An inability to take care of money or business issues. But it happens slowly at first. The questions come. Why didn’t that bill get paid? Why is it that every time he takes checks to the bank he makes a mistake on the deposit slip?

And now the loss of language, and the loss of memory of recent events. (But not all!)

What I am trying to show here is that there are early clues and awareness is a friend although painful. The doctor gives a small test, checks everything else out, and then if needed sends the patient to a neurologist, who gives further tests and does Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain.  

And all of this is so important, because how else to understand the person you love and their loss and yours. I find myself trying, praying, to put away the demand sound in my voice when I ask why are you doing that? What are you looking for? I already told you we are going …! How now shall we live, Francis Schaeffer asks in his timely book. Indeed, how shall I, or any of us without the love and promises and presence of Jesus Christ in the midst of our sorrow.

Today Brad went for a walk, he does that safely for now, although he does get lost trying to use his bike. He told me, when he returned, how he had met a man in the park who was a Jehovah Witness and who had also spent time “in the big house.” Brad used to do prison ministry. He sat and talked with the man about Jesus. Perhaps in the end God turns us from what seems like great events toward his better events—witnessing to the lost about Jesus.

 

The crown of glory ... and some dirty clothes

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked out of the fire?” Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel. He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying “Remove the filthy garments from him.” Again he said to him, “See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes.” Then I [Zechariah] said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments while the angel of the Lord was standing by. (Zechariah 3:1-5)

My husband has tucked away among his keepsakes a shirt his mother made him when he was a little boy. It is covered with pictures of trains and train items. It is so old it is starting to fall apart. Clothes and memories are often intertwined. Brad has always loved steam engines. When he sees the shirt he is probably thinking of his mother and his many experiences with trains.

The Bible sometimes uses clothes as metaphors which embrace the promises of God. Sometimes clothes are a picture of our sinfulness and our repentance. People have an interesting relationship with clothes. The good wife of Proverbs clothed her family in scarlet. Jacob gave his favorite son Joseph a coat of many colors.  The armies of heaven are clothed in white.

But how clothes are worn and treated can be a symptom of disease.  In practical terms people experiencing mild cognitive impairment and different forms of dementia have a problem with clothes. And a problem with cleanliness. No one knows why they don’t like showers or bathing. But many do not. No one knows why they don’t like to change into clean clothes.

Thinking about this I thought of the verses I have placed above from the prophet Zechariah. And while I have at times not had the tolerance I should have, about not showering or changing clothes, God truly blessed me with promises that these verses and the rest of the chapter provided. But first the biblical context.

Joshua, as high priest after the Babylon captivity, represents the people gathered from their exile. Satan wants to accuse them of their past sin, but God wants to redeem and does redeem them. Joshua does not change his own dirty clothes, it is God’s command and God’s doing.[1] And there is a promise at the end of the chapter of the coming Branch, the servant of God. The Messiah.

Sometimes I think we, me, as caregivers get a bit snobbish. About cleanliness. But this person who loves to stay in the same clothes day after day, and generally would if allowed—has that sweeter disposition—it’s the people who he cares about, it’s the books he wants to share and the conversations he hopes for. His is a heart transformed in the middle of a reluctance to conform to my expectations. So, as some expert I read, I can’t recall who, stated, two or three showers a week is enough. And if necessary lay out the clean clothes. And you might add, it is going to be hot today you might want to wear a short sleeve shirt, or I think it is rather cold outside why don’t you take your jacket.

And now the blessing. As usual the biblical text is speaking of a particular time in Jewish history. After the exile, while the temple is being rebuilt. But the text is also a promise of God’s work in his people’s lives and a promise about a coming savior.

Thomas Edward McComiskey in his commentary on the text writes of Joshua receiving a clean turban and points out that this replaced the shame the people felt because of their past sin and exile. As he puts it, the turban “crowns the high priest’s glory.” McComiskey goes on to remind his readers of a crown in the New Testament. He writes:

“The New Testament speaks of the “crown of glory” that completes the believer’s process of glorification: ‘And when the chief shepherd appears, you will win the crown of glory that never fades away (1 Peter 5:4; see 2 Tim.4:8; James 1:12; Rev. 2:10).’ As Joshua stands before the heavenly assemblage in this vision, he symbolizes his nation, but he foreshadows as well the experience of the believer under the new covenant.”

The image I am left with is of a Savior who will clothe all of our brokenness with a clean turban, a crown of holiness, which is his and his alone. I will see him, Brad, in the cleanest of clothes that will shine with the righteousness of Jesus. And because of that I see him different now—glorified with the love of Christ.

---

[1] For good commentary see, Joyce G. Baldwin, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, in Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries & Thomas Edward McComiskey, “Zechariah,” in The Minor Prophets: An Exegetical & Expository Commentary. Vol. 3 (Baker).

Tacos, hospitality & dementias

 

So why Tacos With Grace? I wanted to have grace in the name and when I went looking through the post I had written, the taco part just jumped out at me. As a family we have experienced many taco meals. They used to be big family events, first at my husband’s home and then after we were married and had children at ours. My husband’s grandmother, Mary Curd, was partly Native American, a great cook, who had her own Mexican recipes. She taught her daughter, my husband’s mother to make tacos and she taught me how to make enchiladas.  There were a lot of Louisiana relatives who gathered with my husband’s Oklahoma, New York and California family to enjoy the feast.

Yes, grandma and her family belonged to the great exodus of families who traveled to California out of the great dust storms of the plains. Finally, settled in Pacific Grove, Mary worked in the canneries of Monterey.

But this is about gatherings, feasting, enjoying hospitality alongside mild cognitive impairment, dementia and Alzheimer’s.  

Large gatherings, even family gatherings, are hard for those with various dementias and mild cognitive impairment. My husband tends to sit off by himself and can be very quiet. He loves to see all of the great granddaughters—yes they are all girls. He likes to play with the children but sometimes there is just too much noise. Here are the problems:

Noise: (Most people with these disorders have trouble with noise. When I am putting dishes away in the kitchen Brad is always asking me if I broke something.)

Confusion with so many people: (comprehension is hard and with many people talking comprehension is impossible.)

Confusion with a table full of food: (Brad has trouble with sequences—he will just stand there looking unable to make food choices or even understand that he should pick up a plate first. I usually guide him or do it for him.)

Too long a time is tiring: If the gathering is at our house, I suggest that when everything is too much Brad just go in the bedroom and read or lie down. If we are somewhere else with a lot of people I try not to stay too long.

Hospitality is a Christian gift and blessing but it must be approached differently for people with brain disorders. My sense of care for the other has now to be mostly focused on Brad. One of the great ways hospitality happens in our family is when a son and his wife comes and takes us out to eat and brings a movie to watch. Or a daughter brings food and her family and we eat together. Or old friends, just a couple, invite us for dinner, so only four of us eat together and share conversation. Or maybe just one family member or friend comes and sits, drinks coffee, and talks.

We are called to be kind and full of love like our Lord. This is sometimes hard because it feels like isolation when ministry goes from many to one—but God cares for the one as much as the many. Psalms 136: 23 “Who remembered us in our low estate, for His lovingkindness is everlasting.” He remembers us even when we are forgetting many events and people. He loves us through Christ our Lord.

The video below is for all of those suffering:

 

There are those days and times when reality comes unglued.

by Viola Larson


There are those days and times when reality comes unglued. The shattered reality then gets scattered all over my sense of security. We are watching, at home, a movie, sitting side by side. He keeps looking behind him for something. “What is it I say?” “I am looking for you, I want to sit by you he says.” I am stunned but it doesn’t happen again. Not yet.

We put the groceries away in the back of the car and, as he always has, he takes the cart to put it away.  I wait and then I see him return with the cart, open the back of the car and start to reach for the groceries. I ask him what he is doing and he says he is putting the groceries away.

We are having tacos for dinner. He actually makes the salad, while I cook the tacos and grate the cheese. And then he dumps his very hot, hot sauce all over the salad instead of putting it into his taco. I yell, “Stop” grab a large serving spoon and remove the top part of the salad with the hot sauce and put it on a separate plate.

It isn’t, as some think, just memory loss. It is confusion, loss in many ways. This is mild cognitive impairment which we were told may get better, stay the same or progress into some type of dementia such as Alzheimer’s, a disease his father died with—probably his grandfather also. The grandfather’s death certificate says died of insanity. When we obtained it, almost thirty years ago, we had no idea what that meant.

My husband’s younger sister has now been diagnosed with early dementia.   

But here is something good. He loves to read. He loves to visit and will start a conversation with strangers, well, just because they smiled at him. He does, after all, look like Mark Twain. Just a week ago a lady stopped us in the grocery store. She asked me, “Has anyone ever told you your husband looks like Mark Twain?” Both my husband and I laughed. Strangers have walked up to him on the street to tell him they know who he is.

And he looks for an opening, to tell the stranger, about Jesus.

Brad is so sweet now—will yes—sometimes when I can’t understand him, or he can’t understand me, he gets loud. (And I have gotten loud, thinking he can’t hear me when actually he isn’t comprehending what I am saying.) But this is my time for learning patience. I am not a patient person and I too often forget that something is wrong. I have spent too many years enjoying the fun (yes, fun) of sparring with him over intellectual ideas. Our two ideal games, scrabble and cribbage, we can no longer play.

God is giving me his grace and insistently pulling away, here and there, my very rough edges. And he is teaching me to trust in ways and places I have-not experienced before.  Everything, is now my responsibility and so I am learning to hand it all back to the Lord I have walked with for so many years. Without the Lord Jesus Christ, ... But now, instead, while there is grief there is a great deal of joy, even fun. Yes, again, fun.

I will use this blog to write about our journey through this awful disease. Many do not understand it or think of it as only memory loss. Too many caregivers have been deserted by both friends and family (Not me!). I want to share what this journey means from a Christian point of view. It is an exploration for me as well as others.

Here is a book I recommend: Second Forgetting: Remembering the Power of the Gospel During Alzheimer's Disease by Dr. Benjamin Mast