One More Step Through Dementia

Over the weekend I encountered three families that live with dementia. Three good, ordinary people, who’ve lived good ordinary lives, married for many years to good, ordinary spouses, producing good, ordinary children… have minds now that are no longer good or ordinary.

I know each of their three spouses well. This unplanned, unexpected dementia of the one they love is their daily reality. They each get significant loving support from their families, but life for them is unpredictable, tough and a constant challenge.

This morning I read of ‘God’s grace… lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding…’ It’s easy to respond to my friends with some trite cliché about God’s love and purposes, that may be true, but don’t contain the whole truth and aren’t helpful. The text continues with ‘…the mystery of His will…’ The answers to difficult questions remain a mystery to me.

Yesterday I was reminded of the old Sydney Carter song about life’s journey. The lyrics helped in my thoughts, prayers and response to my friends and their families:

As I travel through the bad and good, Keep me travelling the way I should… As I observe, worry about the problems of others, I pray that I’ll travel well myself.

Give me courage when the world is rough, Keep me loving though the world is tough… I pray for courage and love for all whose world is rough and tough

One more step along the world I go… We only travel one step at a time. I pray for strength for today’s step and hope for tomorrow’s.

It’s from the old I travel to the new… We’re always travelling from the old that has happened and I can’t change, to the new that hasn’t happened and I can’t predict.

Keep me travelling along with you… My prayer for my friends and for myself is that whatever the journey’s like, wherever our journey leads us, we shall stay close to the God who wants to travel with us.