Sermon Illustrations

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

ALZHEIMERS

"Just As You Are"

By Virginia Sheeley Dustin

Since my father’s death two months ago, everything has overwhelmed me. There are so many things to deal with—so many bills, so many decisions, so many feelings. And then there’s my mother.

My mother has Alzheimer's disease. She is growing progressively more confused and unable to take care of herself. My dad devoted the last two years of his life to caring for her. He cooked, cleaned, bathed her, and even saw to it that she got her hair done. Now I have come to Florida to stay with Mama and do these things for her.

But I can’t get used to seeing my 74-year-old mother behave like a three year old. . . .

We are standing at the checkout counter in the supermarket. The clerk is bagging our groceries, and my mother is busily taking a handful of candy bars from the display rack. She shifts restlessly from foot to foot, back and forth.
"Don’t do that, Mama," I say to her, my voice strained. “And please stand still. Everybody’s looking at you."

Suddenly she heads for the exit. “Where are you going now?" I grab her hand and pull her back to my side. “Now stand right here until I finish paying." It’s all I can do not to grab her by the shoulders and shout at her, “Mama! You
know how to behave. Stop acting like a child!"

And then I’m angry at myself. After all, she can’t change her condition by an act of will. As we drive home in the car, my thoughts fasten obsessively on my mother. She won’t do anything I ask. I can’t get her to eat. She naps
all day and wanders about the house all night. I sleep on the couch so as to catch her when she walks by, which means I don’t really sleep, I doze. I give her the tranquilizers the doctor prescribed but feel they should have
been for me. I have even bought megavitamins for her, hoping against hope to bring her memory back by improving her nutrition.

Throughout this time I’ve been impatient, frustrated, and resentful. I’m not accustomed to telling my mother what to do; it doesn’t feel right. Until now she had always been the one in charge. I don’t know how to act anymore—
and so I react. I scold her as if she were a naughty child.

“Don’t go to sleep now, Mama.” “Sit down and eat your lunch.”

“Get up, Mama.”

“Stay awake.”

“Go back to bed.”

What more can I do? I’m doing everything in my power to force her to act as normal as possible.

And then I hear what I’m saying: ”... everything in my power to force her ...” Power, force, coercion, threats: “Do this!” “Don’t do that!” What a picture that makes. And it certainly isn’t working. Even the simplest daily task has turned into a tug-of-war: my will against hers. What am I accomplishing in this power struggle? Can I alter the course of her disease through the sheer force of my will? If not, what is my goal?

What I have been doing has not been much help. It seems, in fact, most unhelpful. I’m cross and oversensitive,
and my mother is constantly on the defensive.

At home I persuade Mama to lie down. I put on one of the tape cassettes of hymns that seem to please her. After
a while I find myself humming along with a hymn from my childhood. Just as I Am. I can’t remember all the words,
but the refrain keeps repeating in my mind: Just as I am. Just as I am. Not “as you’d like me to be.”

“Just as I am.” Right now, not yesterday or last year. “Just as I am.” Here and now.

And suddenly I’m aware that the one thing I haven’t done for my mother is see her, really see her, just as she is.
I’ve been looking at her in the same way that I’ve looked at her since I was a teenager, seeing her as a person who’s strong, capable, hardworking, confident, in control. I’ve been so busy chasing ghosts from the past that I have not made any effort to relate to her just as she is: confused, frightened, alone.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. Mama is standing next to me, a big smile on her face. “Hi, honey,” she says.
“Hi, Mama, what’s up?”
“Just me,” she replies.
“That’s wonderful.” I turn and give her a hug.
“What was that for?” she asks.
“Just for you,” I answer. “Just for you being you.”

“I’m tired now. I think I’ll take a nap.” She walks over to the couch, makes herself comfortable and shuts her eyes.

I know now what I need to do. In order to heal my relationship with my mother, my first priority is to remove the past from our present. It isn’t easy. Many times I find myself. slipping into old patterns, but the results are worth the effort.

I stop trying to get her to admit that she is confused. If she believes that she still does all the cooking and cleaning,
so what? It’s a harmless belief, and it helps her maintain her sense of dignity. When she asks for her mother or someone else long dead, I answer gently, and she looks at me and says, “My mama’s dead, isn’t she?” I nod yes. “I thought so,” she says, shaking her head slowly and returning to her place on the couch.

I let go of my “remembered mother” and begin struggling to see the mother right here in front of me. I drop my
expectations and allow her the freedom to be old and confused. I stop myself from saying or thinking anything that
implies she is not doing her best. She no longer needs to defend herself, and our tugs-of-war over meals and sleep end.

Mother doesn’t change. She doesn’t stop sleeping all day and roaming about the house all night. She doesn’t stop
marching in place whenever she has to stand for more than a second. She doesn’t stop needing constant care and attention. What changes is how I respond to her. I open my heart and my arms, and begin to see not her stubbornness but her innocence, not her confusion but her vulnerability. And I see that she is truly doing her best.

I stop trying to force her to be what she can no longer be. In so doing, I give her the freedom to be wholly who she
can be. And she becomes like a child again: trusting, open, loving, living out her life at peace, just as she is. . . .

I am standing at another checkout counter, putting back the things my mother keeps removing from the display rack. She smiles at me. It has become a game to her. I smile back. She is my mother and I love her.

“Mama, you are a scamp.” I tease her gently.
“I know.” She grins.
“I love you, Mama.”
“I love you, too,” she answers.