God and I are tight. I’ve devoted my adult life to knowing and serving Him. I love Him, and I’m pretty sure He feels the same way about me! But sometimes I think He tricks me. Meaning, that He asks me to do something, and I say, “Yes! Of course Lord I will do that for you!” And then while doing it, I realize how hard, and horrible it is, and I think “If you had told me up front how hard this would be, I would never have said yes to you!” But by that point, it’s too late, and I’m stuck doing it. I’ve said yes to things that have been beyond difficult to walk through. But the thing is, even though they were hard, I knew I was doing
exactly what God was asking, and there is a security in that. Especially when the end results, in my natural eyes, weren’t what I was hoping for. Like the young man I had in my home for two years. Of course, Lord, I will foster a child! The compassion I have for adolescents aging out of the system – You put that in me – so absolutely yes! Turns out, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done to that point. And I don’t know if I would have said yes to God if I knew that going in. I like to think I would have, but them who am I kidding? And when the fostering didn’t end in adoption, as I had hoped and prayed, I asked God why. Why would you
ask me to do this if you knew it wasn’t going to turn out? God always reminds me I’m not responsible for the results, just to be obedient to what He asks. He alone owns the outcome. I would also like to say that’s a lesson I only needed to learn once… but no.
The same thing happened with mom. Of course, Lord, I will take her in to live with me. She’s my mom. I love her. How hard can it actually be to care for someone with Alzheimer’s?
I. Had. No. Idea.
Understanding things intellectually vs. practically walking them out, are two very different things. I’m a thinker more than a feeler, so I like things to make sense, be neat and tidy, and tied up with a bow. Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s is about as opposite of that as you can get.
I’m a social worker. I’m trained in this stuff. I worked in hospice for many years. I have worked in hospitals. I have cared for plenty of patients with dementia. But that’s the difference. They were patients. This is mom. This is someone for whom I once had an emotional connection which is no longer there. This is so much harder, and seemingly impossible. Social workers, nurses, home care aids, they all get to go home
after their eight hour shift, and return the next day refreshed. That doesn’t happen for the many people caring for someone with Alzheimer’s in their home. The physical exhaustion is one thing; never getting a mental break is another thing altogether.
So the only thing I know to do is to keep plugging away, one foot in front of the other, one frustration at a time, one melt-down at a time – both mom’s and mine! And even though I feel God tricked me on some level :), I continually thank Him for the privilege of caring for my mom and still having her around, something that motherless daughters everywhere may be missing. We all get to do hard in this life – just different kinds of hard.
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