Busy Signal

I keep trying to get half an hour or so to write a post, but stuff keeps happening. I've worked several very long days since the first of the month. In addition, my wife's mother has deteriorated rapidly since the passing of her son last fall, and she requires more of our attention every day.

I'd always heard about people who endured some trauma that caused their hair to turn white overnight. It is said that some people die of a broken heart. I never thought much about the truth of those things until I saw what happened to my mother-in-law. Her failure of health could not have been more sudden and extreme if she had fallen off a cliff. Her heart is broken, and her mind is broken. Her body is not far behind. It's been three months, and I doubt that it will be three more.

Right now, it's my wife that needs prayer. She has been the caregiver for the last several years. For most of that time, her mother has enjoyed remarkably good mental and physical health for a person in her eighties. That's no longer the case. She can no longer follow simple instructions. She has trouble feeding herself or going to the bathroom. She has had several rather unpleasant episodes as a result. It's no fun cleaning up, but we do what we have to do.

All that's hard, but it's not the worst. What's really hard is that, in a way, she's already gone. We don't know this person. True, she looks like someone we know. She still has the same name, even if it takes her a while to remember it. But that's where the commonality ends.

We are so much more than our bodies and brains. I never doubted it, and here is certainty. Something essential to who she was has gone. And what follows?