NOTE: This is the first time I’m writing about why my current life is “bi-coastal.” I haven’t wanted to write about it until now, because words on paper made it more concrete, and the day-to-day living of it was hard enough. But, it’s time to start taking the path of sharing what I believe many others have, or will, experience similarly. Silence is not always golden. Sometimes, it’s suffocating.
Though this path is not easy, often is not pretty, and seldom is not shadowed… it still is a path where I, and we, are not walking Alone. Even in the grey, God is there.
I’ll write more as the Spirit leads…
The Season ‘Tis
“Tis the season”… it makes you think of the holidays, yes? For me, this time in my life – and in the life of my family – is not all about “jolly” and “fa-la-la-la-lah’s.” In fact, it’s a time when – while worshipping our Savior and remembering His birth – we mourn my daddy’s disease and remember the life he had… while ever adjusting to the life he – and we – now have in this season.
My father has Alzheimer’s. He also has vascular dementia. One of those damned diseases is enough. Two of them just slam into his mind and our hearts like a freight train ready to wrought its destruction. When one who is beloved is besieged, there's such a plethora of emotions...
I remember the day the disease made its defined debut in my life: August 1, 2011. I had been looking at empty shelves and empty bank accounts for a good while and then had the provisional blessing of enough money to pay rent (and then some) arrive within days and hours of “rent being due.” I was about to deposit the funds into my financial dessert so I could buy groceries, textbooks and such… when the call came.
“The tests say, 'Dad has Alzheimer’s,'” my sister stated as she continued to read the reports gathered from finally getting Dad to take tests that would quantify all the qualitative changes we’d been seeing in him for a number of years. She continued to read, but I don’t remember the words. I just remember later sitting in the bank parking lot and sobbing.
Here I’d been so aware of how hard it was to have to live with no money, and I knew my father was likely destined to have to live with no memories. And I just wanted to throw things, roll back the clock, find a cure, curse at God and various and sundry other responses.
Yes, that’s right, curse at God. Me. A Seminary Student. On the path to ordination…. And I wanted to tell the Creator of the Universe where He could stuff it. If you wondered about all that lightning striking in the parking lot of the North Hollywood Ralph’s on a clear blue LA day… I caused it, with my authentic agony as Alzheimer’s got given its name in my family.
No, really, there was no lightning. And actually, even while the intense inner ache reverberated through my soul, I knew God knew I was not cursing at Him but at the reality that the world He created had such evil entities in it as Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia. (Later tests would show the frontal lobe of my dad’s brain impacted by vascular dementia as well.)
There’s much to say about the days and months that followed. When I graduated and after I was ordained, I didn’t stay in L.A. to develop the media and ministry interests I thought I’d take a year or two to pursue. Instead, I accepted the call to be in N.C. with my family and to help during this time of transition. It’s an honor and a privilege to be a part of caring for those who’ve cared for me so well and for so long. It’s my turn to give a small portion back from the large portion bestowed on me in love for all my life.
However, it’s also a season of pain within years of sorrow. There’s a beauty midst all the changes that my Dad and family are experiencing. A beauty that happens because God does redeem even the most awful ashes of the fires that burn through the brains and bodies of disease. You see, redemption doesn’t always come in cures….
It comes in just taking it day-by-day and trusting in the Divine and His promise that earth is not the end and restoration and eternity walk hand and hand. My family holds onto to that and other promises from our Triune God…
… even when the season… ‘tis One that breaks our hearts.
