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.

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.