Mom's Very Last Years

Many may question the value of a very aged life, like my Mother’s.  She has memory loss, yet always knows me when I come to visit her, and also knows my name.  She also refers to my husband, although now she can’t remember his name as she did one year ago.  She also vaguely remembers my children.

Now it is also hard to hear her when she speaks.  I have to lean over close to her so that I can understand her garbled words.  Her enthusiasm or happiness  or emphasis about something is sometimes expressed through clapping.  This seems to give a release to her emotions and perhaps the privilege of being a little more energetic, as now she cannot walk alone nor has the strength to use a walker.

And yet through her existence from bed to rocking chair in her room, to puzzle table in the Solarium to dining room and back to bed after supper, I have never heard her complain.  She generally has a ready disposition to be happy.  During my visits I have never seen her sad.  She might get a little disgusted with her pureed food, however, she simply pushes it away without saying anything negative.  

I have been so very blessed by my extended visits to see Mom.  Each time I have taken the trip to be with her, I have come away with a deep sense of peace and joy.  I have felt refreshed and comforted.  Each time I have been tremendously blessed.  

What is the value of the life of a 102 year old Christian, who can no longer “work” for God?  One who can’t “witness,” or do good works, but is utterly dependent on everyone else for help?  Is this life useless, and should it just be done away with because it isn’t much good for anything anymore?  God forbid!

I can hardly believe the way God has used Mom to minister to me during this last year.  With the death of my second husband, a sense of deep loss entered my life, especially as I lived the same so keenly with the death of my first husband twenty years ago in Spain.  I have often felt alone, and noted the hollow emptiness in my home.  

And yet every time I go to visit Mom in the nursing home, I have the sense of going “home.”  In her presence, I don’t have to be something; I don’t have to even necessarily talk; I can totally relax.  Mom and I can be together in her little half-room, and hardly say a word, but there’s a deep sense of contentment because we’re together.  I don’t feel rated, or evaluated, or graded.  I don’t have to be correct or right enough or nice enough.  It is just enough for me to just be in the same little room with her.  

With the sorrow of my loss of two husbands, Mom has been a source of great comfort — not because she says anything about it, but simply because she is “Mom,” and with that comes a deep sense of comfort and peace and belonging.  

Her life in these last years has meant so much to me.  I look forward to every trip to see her, and come away feeling filled with the blessing of God.  

Let us never look on the life of our parents with disdain, no matter how old or incapable they are.  God is still using them to give us the place we so often need — something on earth that still touches the warmth of “going home.”