Keep changing. When you’re
through changing, you’re through.

BRUCE FAIRCHILD BARTON

My mother, a homemaker and author, seamstress and personal chef for five, is taking her leave of this earth in a bedroom twenty feet from ours in the suite we built during easier times. Beyond her window lies the eastern sky, from which numerous preachers promised Christ would return one glad morning.

“I never thought I’d live to be this old,” she whispers as I rub her feet—feet that are colder and smaller than I remember them. Dying people have no reason to be less than honest. And she insists she is dying, that she doesn’t want to go on, that she simply won’t stand for it.

“We were told the Rapture would happen during the war,” she frowns. “Then they said we wouldn’t live to have children. That the end of the world was near. That we’d never see the year 2000. Now I wonder what was true and what wasn’t.”

I smile and shake my head. I must have missed the Bible college class when they told us what to do when your aging mother embraces agnosticism. Mom was forever the woman of faith. Quick with a Bible verse. She was the one who brought Old Testament stories to life for me, soothing my insomnia with promises of God that I’ve clung to in some dark hours. And she spanked me. Yes, she certainly did. But her heart was never entirely in it. Her spankings were more like apologies. When she said it hurt her more than me, I believed her. And I loved her for it. I caress her hands now and wonder how they ever held the leather tightly enough to administer those timid doses. I grew up listening to these hands tickle the piano, while her soft voice sang hymns that still comfort me.

The last few months I’ve needed that comfort. With increasing frequency, Dad has been asking questions he has always known the answers for, and Mom has been concerned about him. A few days ago in the middle of the night, she fell, leaving dark bruises on her forehead and ribs. I don’t know if she passed out, but somehow, despite the pain, she stubbornly managed to find her way through the laundry room and into our bedroom where she flipped on the light and announced that the end of the world was nigh. It was three in the morning, and it was like the angel Gabriel himself had opened the door, held a trumpet to his lips, and blasted a high C. After I ruled out the angel, I thought it was Dad playing one of his practical jokes, but there was nothing practical about it.

“She needs to take these, and she needs bed rest,” a busy doctor told us a few hours later, his voice filled with optimism. “She should be fine.” But as the days pass, we realize that she is far from fine. Her speech has slurred, her thoughts are jumbled. It may be the medication, but whatever it is, Mom has taken a bad turn, not knowing up from down.

And just like that, we are facing the fact that a chapter is ending, that both Mom and Dad need more care than we are capable of giving them. For a time, we hired a home-care nurse, but the folks now require twenty-four-hour care. We need to keep track of their medication, pay their bills, cook meals, and do the laundry.

Sometimes the door is left open in the night when the temperature is below freezing. Dad is confused much of the time. One morning he tapped on my study door, though it was already open. In his hand he held a blank check. “You fill it in,” he said. “I’ll pay whatever you want to stay here.” I blinked and swallowed, wondering what to say.

My brothers and sister and I huddled together, seeking wise medical, financial, and spiritual counsel. We’ve prayed so many times that the ending would be easier than this, that we wouldn’t have to pry the dog from Dad’s lap and put him in a home. But I’ve also been praying each time I travel that the house would be standing when we return. That the stove and microwave and gas fireplace would be off.

One night I had quite an angry talk with God on my evening walk, informing Him of some things I was quite certain He had not thought of yet. It ended with me explaining that He couldn’t possibly know what it was like to shoulder the responsibilities of having to care for an aging parent, and suddenly I was silenced by the realization that Jesus was no stranger to my situation.

What was He doing while in agony on the cross? John, the “disciple Jesus loved,” humbly tells us in chapter 19 of his gospel:

When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved, he said to her, “Woman, he is your son.” And he said to this disciple, “She is your mother.” And from then on this disciple took her into his home, (NLT)

As I rubbed Mom’s feet, these thoughts swirled through my mind again. While in horrible agony, Jesus was thinking of, caring for, and honoring His mother.

Honoring our aging parents means not despising them for the “inconvenience” their age and fading health brings us. It means respecting their difficulties and shouldering their burdens. It means treasuring them and helping them and getting them a drink, as they did for us when we were whiny little kids. And sometimes it means putting them in the care of others.

One of the most difficult things I have ever done was take the car keys from Dad. Something inside me died that day. I took the dog from his lap and wished I could go somewhere and cry for about a week.

When I was twelve or thirteen I saw my parents wrestle through these same questions with my grandfather. In the end, I watched Dad carry his fathers small suitcase to the car and drive Grandpa to his last earthly residence: a small seniors home.

Today a chapter ends and a new one begins, as I find myself doing the same.