Blog 3024 – 02.10.2024

Falling Slowly

I recall my grandma Lily saying that losing her first son Richard was so difficult because his drowning death was so sudden and unexpected. Many years later she watched my Paw Paw waste away slowly from lung cancer. I wonder if she had cause to realize that the first quick loss was really a mercy.

Having to watch someone you love fall slowly away is the most difficult and painful of partings. As a boy I was taught to believe that God will not put more on us than we can bear but will either give us the strength to bear it or provide a way out. Jesus, one gospel writer wrote, cried tears and sweat like great drops of blood that another way be provided so that he might not have to endure the pain of the cross. And from that cross in agony he cried out, “Father, father, why have you forsaken me.”

Watching my wife Linda Lee slowly fall away as she wars with the demon of dementia is a pain that only those have gone through losing a loved one slowly can understand. In the story of the demon possessed man Jesus casts those demons out and the man’s neighbors marvel at the miracle of seeing the once raving lunatic in his right mind. Everyone one who has a loved one with dementia or some other mental disorder prays for such a miracle. Sadly science and religion both seem to be big on promises and short on miracles.

Watching my wife struggling and arguing with the voices in her head is devastating. A young man about the same age as our son lives the other side of an empty lot next door to us with his parents. Our boys went to elementary school together, were Cub Scouts together, and played baseball at the Y together. Andrew turned inward as a young teenager and none of the doctors, meds, nor religion ever seemed to help much. Almost every night the whole neighborhood can hear him screaming at the top of his lungs, warring with the voices in his head. His parents are Christians and have had to helplessly watch Andrew falling slowly away from them.

If there is a reason for such torture and temptation to doubt the very existence of a loving God, I am sure I do not know what it is. Today’s song says, “Take this sinking boat and point it home, we’ve still got time.” Maybe that is not the comfort we are looking for, but sometimes especially when we are drowning it is the only hope of escape left to us.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19NGYWwAuxkrP7z-HdU89QDmvA-ssOf6p/view?usp=drivesdk

Falling Slowly