My head is swimming right now… I have been doing some research for my sermon on the Holy Spirit… coordinating some materials for the teaching sessions on Beloved Community… trying to locate appropriate Scriptures for the Praying of the Hours for the Good Friday Vigil… working on Sunday’s prayer list… making pastoral phone calls to those I know are needing to be reminded of God’s love… on and on and on… and now doing my blog on Thursday… all because I will be away next week visiting my mom. I know my obsession with this preparation prior to departure is because I don’t want to come back and say, “I wish I had not gone.” I want to visit mom and be in the moment with her and not wishing I was here in NYC doing the work I love.
I wish I could say, “I’m looking forward to being with my mom.” But I can’t, not honestly. My mom has dementia—a disease from which she will never be healed; each visit there is less and less of ‘my’ mom and more and more of this other person who has no short term memory and the long term memory is fading fast. It makes me sad and angry that this once proud, articulate, wise and well-mannered woman is disintegrating before my eyes and I can’t do anything about it.
I pray a lot. I pray that God will open my heart and teach me what I need to learn from this experience. As mom vacates this world in which I live, I choose to believe that she is moving more and more into God’s realm. This is a very painful journey I am on with my mom. This journey is not of my choosing. Mom doesn’t realize her loss of mental capacity; she believes that she is functioning as she always has.
You may be asking right about now—then why go if it gives you such grief? “I need to go”—would be my response. I need to know in my soul that I have done everything I could to protect her, encourage her, and, I need to hug her. I need to look into those vacant eyes and say, “I love you.” Maybe that is what makes life so dear and sweet… loving one another—not because of what they can do or not do—but only because we need to love. |