Another step towards the grave

Where do I begin, to tell the story of how great a love can be...

Today I learnt that my mother has slid down another rung (or few) on the Alzheimer’s ladder.

This photo was taken of us just more than 20 years ago. This is the woman I remember. She was fiercely independent, because she had to be. She was so very competent at everything she attempted. When faced with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, she found a way around it, or through it, or to move it. She loved her gardening, and her pets. She had her vices (wine and cigarettes), but her virtues far outshone those. She was always in my corner, but she took no prisoners when I was in the wrong. She made sacrifice after sacrifice to provide for me. 

I remember one year, when I was going on a school camp in winter, she didn’t have money to buy me a jacket or a suitable jersey, so she knitted me one, even though she HATED knitting. That jersey was one of my favorites until it was  eventually too small for me. When my parents separated, she twisted her boss’ arm to let her work from home so I never had to come home to an empty house. She made my school lunches till I matriculated, always ham sandwiches, because her love language was deeds/ actions.

My step-sister sent this photo to me this past week. She was going through an old album and saw it. I posted it on Facebook, saying that this is how I want to remember my mother, not as who she has become as a result of her disease. My step-father showed it to her over the weekend... and although she remembered that I was her daughter, but couldn’t remember my name.

My head tells me that this was just the next step in her deterioration; not to take it personally. My heart hasn’t processed this yet - that my own mother can’t remember my name. It’ll happen, in time, I know. I hate this disease, that is taking her from me, one horrible step at a time.

Mother's Day is pain for some

Mother's Day, like so many other celebrations, can be a fabulous day, or a torment, depending on one's position and perspective. For those who have children, it's usually a good day, but for those who long for children, it can be a torment. For those of us who have a foot in each camp though, it is a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, we are eternally grateful for the children we have, for the blessing they are in our lives. On the other hand though, Mother's Day only serves to highlight the lack in our lives - the missing children; the ones we have lost to death, the ones we long to have but can't.

Sitting in church on Sunday morning, I was struck by the fact that most of life is lived between two camps. 

A friend adopted a beautiful girl several years ago. For her, Mother's Day is a day to celebrate the fact that she has this beautiful child n her life, but it is also a day of great sadness, thinking about the tragedy that made it necessary for the birth mother to give her child up for adoption. It is also a day of sadness for her, being aced, yet again, with her own inability to be pregnant and give birth.

Another friend is single, and longs for a husband and children of her own. She celebrated the gift her own mother is to her, but weeps that (as yet) God has not chosen to bless her with children of her own.

Then there is the mother whose adult son, a member of our congregation, was tragically shot and killed in a mugging over the weekend. For her, Mother's Day will always be linked to her son's murder....

There is my own story, of nearly losing one child, and then losing the next one, because of a disease I didn't know I had, until it was too late. As a child, I also have two mothers - my birth mother, who raised me and loves me and is an awesome woman; and my step-mother, who loves me despite the fact that for years I thought she was the cause of my parents' divorce. 

For all of us, and for so many more, life is this dichotomy, joy and pain, laughter and tears, celebration and mourning. Yet, in the midst of it all, there is God. 

Losing my child was the most difficult road I have ever had to walk. Those of you who have followed my blog will know the story, the deep questions I had about God, and for God. As I emerged on the other side of grief though, I discovered that through it all, God had been holding me in his hands. Wile I had let go of him, he never let go of me. I learnt that it is possible to praise God in the midst of pain, not FOR the pain, but despite it. 

The tears still fall. The hole in my life is still there. My daughter is still dead. YET will I praise him. I praise him for the gift of motherhood, of children, even though this gift has come with large doses of tears. Love involves grief, it cannot be otherwise, this side of heaven.

Thus, I am always on the look-out for songs that, as the Psalms do, express something of this dichotomy. I often feel that our western style of worship ignores the lament, the worship given in the place of deepest sorrow, because we live in a culture where pain is medicated away, or surgically fixed, and therefore we don't know how to handle the pain of a soul, which cannot be treated so easily.

I recently re-discovered Tim Hughes' song "When the silence falls", popularly known as 'When the tears fall', which is exactly this kind of song. I found two versions on YouTube that I like, for different reasons. Watch them both, and decide for yourself which one you prefer.

Video 1:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWUimGv_xrU

Video 2: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=64uVGQ7EcjI