Life lessons with Dad
Topic: Carnival entries
I have been in emotional burnout lately, I think. It has been 2 months of revolving emotions, ups and downs. God moved us. We had to leave a church and community we loved deeply (sorrow and mourning), begin ministry in a new church and large city (exciting and draining), and have spent more time with my parents since we live in the same city now. (draining, sorrow, mourning for my dad, who is spiraling down into dementia) You should see the new patch of gray hairs I have to show for my stress.

So if it seems like I’ve slacked on my writing lately, this is why. Times like this can either deplete you or inspire you….guess which it’s been with me? =) So when the Carnival of Beauty was on aging gracefully this week, I didn’t think I had anything to offer. I wrote very, very vaguely yesterday about how our church family is stepping in to help with my dad, to give my mom and sister a small break in caregiving. I wrote vaguely because, to be honest, the details are starting to take their toll on me and I didn’t want to rehash them in my head again.

Then in an instant, God gave me inspiration to write an entry for the carnival and in doing so He also gave me inspiration to keep going in this draining time.

Thank you, God for giving me a little more mental energy…and thank you to whoever chose this week’s Carnival topic….The Beauty of Aging Gracefully, hosted by Carol at She Lives.


My dad had his 81st birthday this past January. Quite a milestone and it has come at quite a price. He was the picture of health up through his 60’s. He always exercised and ate right. He was in a hiking club until 70something and some heart problems forced him to quit anything strenuous, but he still walked each day. In his 70's we watched him go through a lot of physical problems and lots of procedures and surgeries to get to 80! A stent and angioplasty in his early 70's, followed by a pacemaker.... steadily we watched his weakening heart slowing him down to a shuffle. Then prostate cancer and recurring scar tissue from the prostate surgery which made his kidneys shut down for a few days last year. His mind is slowing down as is his body and we have to remind him of things he knew well a year ago. The doctors put him through a year's worth of testing and evaluation to determine if he is getting Alzheimer's disease, as his 2 sisters do. The results were negative, which is a great relief. The diagnosis is dementia, worsened by the kidney failure..…just old age. His body was so strong that it is outlasting his mind it seems.

Everyone knows that your body and mind slow down in old age and that you start needing more medical attention. I knew this was coming as my parents entered their 60's and 70's, but it seemed to happen quickly, like a smack in the face when it happened to my family. It is personal this time.....it hit home....it invaded our lives without permission and it hurts. Shame on me for not being more sympathetic and supportive when friends would talk about their aging parents and how bewildering it is. It is a hard thing to watch your dad lose his ability to go do the things he enjoyed, to watch him spend more and more time in his chair, walking to the kitchen for a cup of coffee becoming a chore. My dad once was an extremely intelligent scientist and project engineer. His job was to be given a problem and to figure out how to solve it and build a machine to make it happen. Amazing....I use to try to listen to him explain scientific or mathematical things and get dizzy!! I just could not think on that level.

He began repeating things he told us several times in one day and needed help thinking of a word to finish his sentences. Then he began talking about things that were complete fantasies (delusions)…..that clients were coming over to lunch for a meeting, that he needed a part or machine and had to go out and get it. Now he doesn’t know my family at times, especially at night, and gets scared and erratic in his behavior, sometimes striking out. One day I spent about a half hour explaining to him ‘how’ to take his vitamins….just how to swallow them. Last week when I went over to take my mom to get her hair done, my dad had fallen and my mom could not get him up. So I went in and saw him lying there on the carpet, my mom had put a pillow under his head,. He was kind of curled into an almost fetal position, and I had to really work with positioning him so that I could hoist him up. (He may look frail, but he is as solid as a rock and about as heavy.) My mom has just gotten approved for some new insurance to help get him into full time care. I could never imagine putting one of my parents into a nursing home…but this is what it has come to. We cannot take care of him anymore like he needs….so another phase of life is about to begin. And while it will be a relief to have him getting the help he needs, it will also be painful to know that we could not keep him home.

When I hear the words ‘aging gracefully’ I think of the Queen of England or of a woman I know at our former church who is 80, yet spunky and just as involved and loving life as she was when she was 40. I do not think of old, shriveled shells of humanity living out their last days in a nursing home. Yet, I have begun to rethink this a little and will more as the days go on, I’m sure. All of us have prayed for my dad, have grieved that he has so little dignity left with his mind being so far gone…and we’ve prayed that God would be merciful and take him home.

Yet, he remains.

As I struggled with that, I came to realize (and actually believe firmly now) that God is leaving my dad here to help us, his family, to grow through this difficult time. To age gracefully, we usually think of the older person aging and doing it with great dignity, but in our case, it is we, the caretakers, who need to deal with age gracefully. We need to learn the lesson God has given us and it is a hard one….especially for the ones who live with him full time and have to deal with his arguing or obsessing on a delusion or being soooooooo slow to understand the most basic of intructions. “Caregiver fatigue” has hit my parents’ home very hard lately.

To speak kindly when he is having a delusional moment (or evening or week), to be gentle when he is being stubborn and combative, to treat him as a person with dignity even though he may not know what is going on, to talk to him kindly, to be patient when he is clumsy, to visit with him, instead of keeping silent and not wanting to ‘get him going’ on some tangent..….these are lessons we’re having to learn.

Hard....hurts....bewildering..... makes you have to grow up in the deepest of ways...and to do it gracefully? But there is a great reward for people in this situation if we will just learn the lesson. We can develop great, deep character, God promises us, if we persevere through trials. And aging can be such a trial.

Romans 5:2-4 And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.