“I never knew it was going to be like this”, mom said, referring to the dementia and problems, including breaking her hip a week ago, which have come into her life with Alzheimer’s. “No, we don’t know what is going to happen to us, and it is probably a good thing”, I replied truthfully. I know from personal experience you don’t want to know some things unless you have to. That trouble is enough for that day; no sense in living in worried anticipation of it.

We certainly had not anticipated the sickness and pain, both emotional and physical, that has entered my mother’s life in the last few years, she who has been quite healthy for most of her nearly 82 years. I’ve said for some time, ‘anyone can get anything at any time’. Meaning, none of us is immune to sickness, disease, troubles of all kinds, any more than we are immune to sin in ourselves. In fact, it is all related, that is, pain and suffering are part and parcel of sin in the world, this wonderful yet fallen world. The world of nature groans and so do we.

I ponder these things as I sit with my big laptop computer on my knees, next to my mother’s bed in the nursing/rehab facility she was transported to Thursday. Now she is once again in a strange place with new faces, here to get physical and occupational therapy so she can eventually go back home. Or will it be home this time? Hard questions we must deal with. As the Alzheimer’s takes leaps forward with every traumatic event, what level of cognitive and physical ability will she be when she leaves here? Can the family care for mom at home, our first and most desirable choice?

This person, this gentle lady, who even now tries to make a joke with you, but can’t find the right words to speak, so frail and confused; she is the one who bore me and my brothers and sister. She took care of us from our birth through childhood (and has helped us immeasurably time and again in our adulthood). She kissed our boo-boos and prayed with us at night when she tucked us into bed. It was to her I went when I was afraid that when I die I might not go to heaven; she explained what it meant to trust in Jesus for my salvation; she prayed with me to ask God to forgive my sins…by word and deed she led me to the Lord.

Her prayers carried me through the roughest parts of my growing up years. I am convinced that it was the prayers of godly people, in concert with my mom’s, that moved heaven to keep me alive when I should have died. Not without cost; that cost is the call of God on my life; absolute commitment to the King of Kings. Maybe even Mom didn’t realize what it would mean when she prayed for me. We rarely do, don’t you think? We are not our own; we are bought with a price…the blood ransom of Jesus Christ. Would that we’d all realize we are under obligation to give our whole lives to Jesus Christ when we come to Him for salvation. “A life for a life”, to quote a dear man of God I know.

When Mom gets upset and doesn’t understand what is going on, feels the pain of her recent hip surgery when an aid tries to move her, and resists the therapists’ efforts to work with her, I try to reassure her that she is in good hands, the hands of all these strangers; nurses, aids, therapists. I calmly speak to her about what is going on and why and what she needs to do to help others help her. She must go through pain for a time but the more she cooperates in therapy the less the pain will be. But if she doesn’t cooperate and work hard at therapy, she may never walk again and will live with pain because her joints will lock up (good layman’s terminology) and her muscles will lose strength. And we don’t want that to happen.

But will she remember that in the morning when they come to take her to therapy?

With all the comforting words I use to calm her, one of the most significant reminders I can give my mom is that even when we aren’t there with her, Jesus is always with her. She looks at me and nods assent. She knows. She knows.

But the valley is still dark.

Thank you for caring and praying for my mother, Peg Rickett. And for holding our “hands” by your prayers and encouragement, as we, her family, struggle one day at a time through this new dark valley.

Jacque