A eulogy for a very good man

*This is the eulogy I gave at my father's graveside memorial on Friday in Spokane, Washington. -- BM


Growing up, one of the things the family of the Rev. Robert Mims did a lot of was pack
up and leave places. We moved from one neighborhood to another, from one state to another. 

 By the time I was 11 years old, I had been in 13 different schools.

In each move, something would get lost. Toys. Pictures. Maybe a dish, and on one move there was a loss than made my mother cry: during the move from Spokane to Wilbur, a tiny central Washington farming town with an even smaller church, my parents’ large framed wedding photo was lost.

In the past year, my son, Rob, and I moved Mom and Dad from Lilac Plaza Assisted Living to the Cheney Care Center as their health, and dementia, grew worse. Like all the moves before, this mean some things got donated to charities, others were put in storage, and a few treasured items were lovingly safeguard by family
 
At home in Utah, recently, I finally opened boxes I’d brought back. There were Dad’s collection of several worn Bibles, his notes in the margins of passages of scriptures he’d used in sermons. A pressed flower in the pages of one Bible, and in others, handwritten notes and reminders of events and people long since passed.

Then, in a box Mom had treasured, there was a bundle of letters. Love letters, it turned out, from Dad, written while he was traveling as a banjo-playing evangelist throughout the post-WWII Pacific Northwest. They were handwritten pages filled with endearments, dreams and love for the future they would soon begin as a married couple.

Memories. Memories Mom and Dad lost, temporarily I believe, as their worlds shrank both physically and mentally over these past couple years.

As I have prayed about their situation, seeking wisdom for each decision came about their care and well-being, I wondered what happens to those memories, when we … forget.

“Nothing is lost in Me,” was the thought impressed on my mind. Love is not lost, nor are our loved ones. The ripples of blessing we start with each act of compassion are eternal; so are those comforting touches or embraces we give or receive, the wisdom we gain and share, and certainly the faith we live  and sacrifice for.

Mom and Dad didn’t need that wedding photo, as treasured as it was, to remind them of their love, nor their bond as man and wife, father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, and co-workers for the Kingdom of God.

You don’t need “stuff” to keep those good things of past. We will always have our yesterdays, even when we forget them in this earthly life.

I know this: even if our memories fade with the weakness of age and loss of cognitive function, on that Last Day, Our Lord will restore those memories to perfection – and that will be a perfection that is no longer distorted by the false concepts of past, present and future we wrestle with now.

In the eternal, uncreated light of our Lord, we will have a God’s eye view. Nothing of love is lost. Nothing committed to Christ is ever gone.

So, I know where Dad is today. And, I believe he knows all about us, here, as we honor his earthly years, and we ourselves glimpse Eternity. I pray for him, and he is praying for us.

And Dad today knows as tangible truth what we believe by faith here: The perfect, infinite love of God includes, sustains and restores His children, as the prayer goes, “both now and ever and unto ages of ages.”

In our sentimental memories -- those photos, videos, letters, old Bibles, the contents of cedar chests and dusty boxes -- we have our yesterdays. But in Christ, we also have our tomorrows.

Dad, I love you. We'll meet again in the Light and Love of Our Lord

On Jan. 17, 7:15 a.m. Pacific Time, my father, the Rev. Robert E. Mims Sr., passed away.

The staff at Cheney Care Center had put him next to my mother, who is also at the facility; they were holding hands, both asleep when he passed.

Dad was 96, and had declined rapidly in the past few months due to stroke-induced dementia and congestive heart failure.

He died peacefully, without pain or struggle.

He and Mom, who is in the last stage of Alzheimer's disease, were married 71 years.

I last saw my father in late November. He was unable to carry on conversation of more than short, simple sentences, but he remembered how to hug, and how to say he loved me. And when we prayed together before parting, he cried a little.

His last, halting words, along with expressing his love, were that when alone, he sometimes felt a presence standing next to him. Watching over him, he believed.

In my faith, there are angels. I pray, and also believe, that presence was with him this morning, too, for a journey into the Light and Love of Our Lord.

Dad, your humor, love for music, love for a simple gospel of forgiveness, compassion and personal sacrifice, are what I treasure most. You were a great father, in an age when so many children have none.

We will meet again and embrace where memories are perfect, understanding complete, and Love eternal.

Waiting for God

It’s been a crazy few months.

And I’m not just talking about Trump’s upset victory.

Before Thanksgiving, the sewage system serving our condo unit backed up, resulting in $11,000 damage to our unit. It was supposed to take three weeks; it took more like eight. The work, finally, was completed a week ago.

Then, my 94-year-old father’s condition worsened, his dementia and frailty forcing a move to a 24/7 nursing facility.

It was stressful, emotional time made all the more difficult by timing and distance, that is, it being the depth of winter and 800 miles away.

My son, Rob, and I trekked north in (what we later learned) was a rented minivan with bald back tires on snowcapped, icy roads from Utah to Spokane, Wash.  Heavy snowstorms closed down first one interstate route and then another, forcing us to make the trip — both there and back — on two-lane roads winding through the mountains of western and central Idaho through the Nez Perce Indian Reservation and then the rolling, barely plowed roads of the Palouse.

White-knuckle driving for my son, who was behind the wheel during a total 30 hours round trip, often at speeds no more than 35 mph.

A couple times, sliding semi-trailer rigs had near collisions just ahead of us, and we saw easily a dozen vehicles off the road due to misjudgment of black ice.

We had prayed for protection, though, and we got it.

We also had prayed my Dad’s move would go well and without a hitch. It ultimately did. Preparation beforehand helped a lot, too.


But it’s always painful to see a parent entered the deepening twilight of life.

We remember them when they were younger, sharper; a hero, and occasionally nemesis to a know-it-all teen or 20-something; clueless or profoundly wise.

More than a year ago, it was my mother — in the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease — who had to be transferred to a “memory care” unit, leaving her husband of close to 70 years behind, alone.
On Jan. 11, Dad joined Mom in the same unit, his room next to her’s.

Nursing staff tells me they both seem at peace. Mom recognizes Dad for a few seconds, but usually know him only vaguely.

But it’s enough for them. Mom can no longer talk, but she listens to Dad’s soft, tender words through the day as they hold hands at meals and activity times.

Dad, once recognized as one of the most talented banjo players in the country, spends the in-between times struggling to complete pure, resonant chords on a ukulele. His sight nearly gone, he sees music with arthritic fingers, tentatively exploring the strings and frets.


Back home in Utah, I went through the boxes of file folders, photos, knickknacks, etc., we brought back with us from Dad's old assisted living room. Bittersweet. Tears fell for what was lost, but also for lives well-lived.


Happy photos of a young couple, just starting out in the late 1940s, their lives stretching ahead of them. Pictures of my sister and I as babies, and kids. Our kids.


But perhaps most precious of all were the love letters. Long, handwritten letters from a 20-year-old Montana girl to her 27-year-old soul mate, professing longing and love. Letters back from Dad to her, from various small towns where he was holding evangelistic meetings, dripping tenderness, punctuated with his silly cartoons.

Letters laden with the innocence of their love and dreams, the strength of their Christian faith that would sustain them through so many heartaches, and a few triumphs, in the years ahead.

So many decades later, their lives have been distilled to a handful of heartbeats, the clasping of gnarled, parched hands, and murmurs of love that, somehow, has survived the loss of so many memories.


The decades have wound down now. Months? Weeks? Days? Hours? What remains for them as they rise to sunlight and yawn toward the dusk of their time.


Then they nap or sleep the nights away, waiting for God.

Going home: Even with Alzheimer's, the heart knows the way

When I was a boy, our preacher's family moved often.

Before I was 11 years old, I had attended a dozen schools in California and then Washington state as Dad and Mom took various pastoral positions, or sought employment between those "callings."

Mom would work as a waitress, sometimes holding down two jobs at once. Dad would take odd jobs ranging from warehouses and grocery store stocking to janitorial work and department store window display.

Always, though, the first thing done when my folks arrived at a new house or apartment was to set up the beds for my sister and me. That, along with Mom and Dad, and the smell of poached eggs and toast to send me off to school in the morning, made it "home."

When I heard the saying, "You can't go home again," I didn't, at first, understand the idea. When I later read Thomas Wolfe's novel, I grasped, though still did not share, the concept.

Home was where my family was, where I was tucked into bed at night with a prayer and a kiss on the forehead, sometimes after a story from Dad.

"Home is where the heart is," Mom would often refrain, fond of such truisms.

She taught that lesson to me decades ago, when as a young boy I both anticipated, and dreaded, going to a new school, fighting new bullies to earn my place as the "preacher's kid," and hopefully making a friend or two before the U-Haul truck reappeared in the driveway.

Time, as it will, has slipped by like an unrelenting river. I'm no longer young, but a grandfather. Yet, my Mom still taught me the Lesson during my trip this past week to visit her and my father in eastern Washington.

Dad is in an assisted living facility now, frail, just recovering from a mild stroke, but at 92 still alert, his memories intact.

Mom is in a 24/7 Alzheimer's facility. At 86, she is physically healthy for her age, but the disease has robbed her, and me, of so much. So very much.

She no longer recognizes me, nor can she speak more than a couple words, and usually nonsensically. 

As I tried to rouse her from a near-catatonic state, caressing her face as she sat in a wheelchair, I watched her breathe. When she finally opened her eyes, there was, for so long . . . nothing.

She stared blankly into space. No response.

Finally, my wife, Barbara, and I rose to leave. But before we did, as has always been the practice upon parting in the Preacher's family, we prayed.

I prayed for her peace.

What else was there to petition the heavens for? 

Wasn't the unspoken prayer that, with so much of her gone, the rest of that flicker of a once sharp, articulate and life-loving woman could also depart?

A final time, I bent down, kissed her softly on the forehead, as she had so often done to me.

 "I love you, Mom," I said, then began to move away, fighting the hot tears welling in my eyes.

There was a murmur, almost a whisper. "Me . . . too."

I looked back at her, but too late. Her gaze was locked on some invisible realm I did not share.

But, for an instant, I was home.

How my children, their spouses and grandkids saved Christmas

Children and grandkids save the holidays.

Without them, my Christmas 2013 would have gone down as one of the most dismal, personally, in my six decades on this planet.

Approaching 92, my father is frail and just plain tired; his telephone conversations with me from an assisted care center in Spokane, Washington, have degenerated over the past year.

Where once he showed interest in our lives in Utah, and told me corny jokes, now he dwells in the negative.

I don't mean it as a criticism. I understand, and in his shoes, would likely share the sentiment.

But when you are trying everything you can think of to provide care and security from 800 miles away, the dark conversations can wear one down.

For me, the doses of old age depression come twice a week: that's how often I call, usually once early in the week and again on the weekend.

I've grown to dread these calls. Sometimes, it takes me several hours to work up to the 15-20 minutes of complaints, confusion, anger I hear. 

By this Christmas, I'm afraid, the weight of being upbeat and encouraging had morphed from being a loving gift to an emotionally draining act fueled by guilt and duty.

Again, I don't for a second forget it is worse for my father and mother. He is still alert, albeit depressed (I have asked the nursing staff to explore antidepressants for him); my 86-year-old mother, with her rapidly worsening Alzheimer's disease, is forgetting everything and everyone -- except frustrations over her confusion and the paranoia of dementia.

My heart breaks for them, and the tears do come.

But it is not just my parents. There has always been, overshadowing our lives as a family, my sister. Cerebral Palsy and brain damage in the womb left her the eternally crippled 5 year old. . . three years older than me, yet always the little sister.

The wild mood swings, from giddy happiness to rage in the blink of an eye, finally made it impossible for my parents to care for her. When I was 11, she entered institutional residency, and now lives in a group home.

I have always called the folks and her for the holidays though. Merry Christmas? My father, understandably, wasn't feeling it this year. Mom, who can no longer communicate in anything but gibberish, would not even take the phone. I admit, part of me was relieved.

When I called my sister, the irony hit me: For the first time I could remember, she not only could communicate better than my mother, but seemed the only one in our nuclear family to be happy.

So, there is the overly long prelude to my opening statement.

Suffice it to say, I was feeling especially down, worn out, spiritually depleted when my wife, Barbara, and I went over for a Christmas dinner at my son Rob's house. Our daughter-in-law, Rachel, had prepared a vegetarian feast. Warm hugs, conversation, and playing with their two dogs was a welcome respite, along with a group phone call from our grandson, Josh.

Then, we Skyped with our daughter, Brenda, and son-in-law Idal, granddaughter Lela and new grandson Gabriel. Seeing and hearing the joy of the children, Lela, at 6, opening our presents; Gabriel taking a bottle from his parents, cooing and smiling -- and crying a bit, too -- provided perspective, and not a little joy.

Belatedly, it reminded me of my own childhood Christmases. More than a few of them were magical, I now recall. 

I remembered the smiles, when they were witty and happy and healthy, of my parents; my sister's always childlike laughter with a new doll or stuffed animal; my own gifts from the folks, with the realization that they sacrificed much to make the moments happen . . . that they loved me, and that we were -- however unique -- a family.

For me, the best part as a child would be Christmas Eves. I would sneak out of my bedroom after the folks and sis were asleep, curl up on the couch and just watch the lights blink and shine on the tinsel of the Christmas tree.

The pine scent filled the house, and the essence of peace, love and safety would eventually send me, yawning, back beneath the covers.

Thanks, kids, and grandkids, for reminding me.

Of Alzheimer's and "tough love"

Unpleasant duties ahead this week. Have I mentioned how much I hate Alzheimer's? It not only robs your loved ones of their memories of you . . . but taints and buries your fondest memories of them, with the pain and rejection of the confused, occasionally angry, bitter people they have become.

Tough love is supposed to be what you, as parents, give your children -- those times when you bear the pain of their anger and seeming loss of their love BECAUSE you love them that much. If you would die for them, you should be willing to bear that, too.

I have known that; I have had to practice that.

I never, ever thought that role would be reversed, where I, the child, would have to experience the same pain doing what is right, but painful, for my own parents.

This past week, anticipating -- dreading, really -- the next stage of care needed for my mother, I have deliberately tried to remember the way she was, not that long ago. The laughter, the twinkle in her eyes, the feisty courage of a 5-2 Scots-Irish heroine who taught me how to fight, ride a bike, throw a ball, the conditionless love and support, the hours at night spent helping me pass math, ace spelling tests . . . the times when I was sick, her cool hand on my brow, the soft prayers.

Now, that woman is . . . gone. What is left has slipped into the cloudiness, confusion, paranoia and anger of the disease. So, my heart goes out to all of my generation dealing with parents suffering from this horrible disease.

My mother is gone. What is left is a shell, and the love we give her is unreturned. Not out of spite, but out of inability to understand it. I know that.

But I cannot just let this go.

I know, the rest of what is left of my mother will some day, and if there is mercy, soon, join what has already passed on. But I will find a way to honor her -- and my father, also in his final days. There will be some way I can fight Alzheimer's, some way to comfort others suffering from, and with this disease.

I will find it.

Alzheimer's and Mom: Of the living and the breathing dead

I made one of my two weekly calls to my folks today and realized, belatedly, that my last meaningful, even understandable conversation with my mother was sometime in the past.

Truth be told, it probably was a couple years ago.

My folks are in Assisted Living in Spokane, Washington. Mom has Alzheimer's disease, a form that has rapidly deteriorated her ability to reason, understand or even speak without referring to every noun as "that place" or "that thing." 

 

Half the time, she has to think hard to remember who I am, her only son. The other half of the time, she thinks I am her grandson, or her brother, John.

She has forgotten how to use the phone, and as her vocabulary has evaporated along with her ability to think, the conversations have disappeared.

Two years ago, Mom could talk your ear off. If I called home, I knew I needed to have emptied the bladder beforehand, because 45 minutes was a short conversation.

She was articulate, interested, sharp. This is the woman who got me through math in high school, for crying out loud.

Now, she doesn't know the difference between $100 bills and a quarter, she has forgotten how to use a washer, or the TV remote; she gets lost in the hallways of their facility, and floods their unit regularly when she tries to wash clothes in the sink . . . and leaves the water running.

All that is left for her are emotions, and a resolute stubbornness. That stubbornness got her through a childhood that saw her going to work at 15 to help support a Montana preacher's family of 14. . . and raise her own family during times of hardship and too little joy.

And now with Mom 85, my 62-year-old developmentally disabled big sister -- who has the mental faculties of a 4-5 year old and lives in a group home -- has more on the ball.

I hate Alzheimer's. It has robbed me of my mother, while leaving behind a poor, fading reflection of her.

In all the ways that matter, my mother -- the vibrant, optimistic, natively intelligent person she was -- has not-so-gradually passed away. All that is left in a breathing, emaciated shell of a confused woman, a shadow, a wraith that bears her name.

All that is left is to love her, on an increasingly primal level. Even her ability to return love is fading, as her world continues to implode, retreating back to . . . what? A psychic womb? A spiritual ovum?

Where has she gone? How do I find her?

No answers. Just faith that what is Katherine Powell Mims is being safeguarded in the arms of the Eternal, to live again.

2012: Yes, that is my steel-toed boot in your rear

So long, 2012.
Don't let the door hit you on the arse on the way out . . . because it will be my metaphorical steel-toed boot you feel crushing your nether regions as you tumble yelping into the mists of Time!
Seriously, a friend remarked today that I have had a "terrible" year. Perspective is all, though.
Yes, had to put the folks, suffering Alzheimer's, into an assisted living facility. Yes, had open-heart surgery and now am a Bionic Bob, thanks to a new aortic heart valve.
Yes, survived rounds of layoffs and shuffling at the newspaper where I work. But there it is: SURVIVED.
Neitzsche famously wrote, "That which doesn't kill me, makes me stronger." That, or a version of it, has been a pop music and rap lyric of late, too.
All right, people perhaps conveniently forget that ol' Frederich ended his life nuts, either from syphilis, or perhaps manic-depressive illness that gave way to full-blown psychosis.
This also is the guy who declared God had died, called himself anti-Christ, proposed the idea of Ubermenchen (i.e. Super Men, an idea appropriated by Hitler with rather cataclysmic results).
Frederich also said this, perhaps in honest introspection: "The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others."
So, OK. I survived. Stronger? Time will tell.
Anxious to make the symbolic leap into a new, hopefully better year? Oh, yes. Happy to be alive, absolutely.
Blessed? Well, that's how I choose to look at it.
And, it is a choice, my friends.
Happy New Year!

Addendum: A hoot of celebration will accompany that boot . . . doctor just called to say I do NOT have lymphoma. Since a swollen lymph node was found two weeks ago, had been waiting on the results of blood and CT scan.  Thanks, Lord.