Note: This column appeared in The News Reporter (www.whiteville.com) on Dec. 21, 2013 as a guest feature for "People, Places and Things."
Having
been a bit of a world traveler, I’ve celebrated the holidays in England,
Slovakia and on both coasts of the U.S. From London to Los Angeles, I have
recollections of holiday festivities that always bring a smile to my heart. For
example in England, crackers are often shared… but they are not little edible
things you eat with soup; they are wee gifts and a paper crown wrapped up in a
tube that “cracks” when you unwrap it. Oh, the fun!
In
Slovakia, fried fish (carp) is the holiday meal and it’s eaten on Christmas
Eve. Often on Christmas Day, kapustnica – a sauerkraut soup
with mushrooms and sausages – is eaten and then enjoyed again and again
throughout the holiday week following. In Los Angeles, you can sit on the beach
at Christmas or ride down Rodeo Drive and see the fancy shop windows with all
their expensive holiday décor. Of course, no holiday is delightful if you’re
lonely or sad, as is the case with many people… it doesn’t matter the locale. It’s
important to keep the hurting hearts in our thoughts and prayers during the
holidays.
But this year, in Columbus County, I’m experiencing a
whole different kind of holiday; it’s poignant, even painful…and yet beautiful
at the same time. You see, my beloved father has Alzheimer’s and Vascular
Dementia. This brilliant man, Lionel Todd Sr. – had a brain that could add columns
of figures in his head and a heart that was, and is, full of love and support
for so many people in the community and the world. Yet, now, he is in a season
of life where the aforementioned multi-layered disease process is a thief to
his thoughts. Some days, the demon of dementia angers me more than any other thing
I’ve faced in this life.
Yet, midst it all, God is teaching me something I have
frequently found challenging to do…. To Be In The Moment. In today’s rush-and-run existence, our minds
are often trying to be in several places at once and our bodies’ blood courses
through our veins in a less-than-healthy way. We’re not fully in the present
because we’re making mental lists of what we should be doing, or agonizing over
something we should have done in the past, or worrying about something we’ve
yet to do in the (unguaranteed) future. Many times, we’re doing all those
things in a nearly simultaneous sequence, would you agree?
This last 18 months or so – when a planned two-month visit
after graduation and ordination became a complete relocation from L.A. to Whiteville
– I have chosen to slow down, breathe deep and be more intentional about the
memories I’m making. Dad’s memories continue to disappear from his mind… but
not, I believe, from his spirit… or mine. Christmas is not just another
Hallmark holiday. It’s the celebration of the Incarnation of Christ. I trust that Jesus came so that any and every
human on earth had the opportunity to spiritually spend eternity in the full
presence of the Triune God… if they so choose. Free will is a powerful gift,
often abused, and never to be taken for granted.
In this season of watching my father’s mind and
personality fade, I am ever aware that my choices and the acceptance of the Gift
of God’s Son really matter. So, I choose to sing “old familiars” with Daddy,
even when he can’t remember all the words to the hymns, the carols, or the camp
songs. I choose to dance with him, even when his steps are more shuffling and
his twirling me is less smooth. I choose to allow myself to gain weight, if it
means Dad smiles while we eat sweet potato pies together in the afternoons or
vanilla ice cream cones at night.
All the while, I endeavor to live more and more in the
moment, and to hold tightly to my Savior’s hand while my heart hurts and my
head grieves. But there will be beauty from the ashes of grief. There are many
who are saying the longest goodbye to my father or to their own loved ones in
these days. Yet, we can experience shalom (holistic peace) in knowing that our
goodbye is God’s hello. We can feel His presence even in our pain.
For, I believe, in eternity, if we’ve chosen to accept the
atoning grace of Jesus’ salvific gift… His Holy Spirit will remind our own
individual spirits of the love and the memories we made here on earth. We will
have a different access to the mind of Christ…and that mind will remember the
good in it all… even when our flesh has forgotten.
Do you have an aging loved one? If you do, I encourage you
to spend time with them during the holidays, and beyond. They likely don’t need
many more “things.” Make memories. Even
if they, like my dad, have a mind that can no longer recall everything… they
have a spirit that is eternal, and what you do now will impact them – and you –
for time immortal.
My father & my "Mama P." (Frances Price) at her piano. Music ministers to Dad's soul & spirit.
