Family Squeeze (16 page)

God does not comfort us to make
us comfortable, but to make us comforters
.

J
OHN
H
ENRY
J
OWETT

O
ne reason a dog is such a comfort in tough times is that he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t second-guess your decisions or write you notes questioning your sanity. And of course there are humans who will encourage you too. Some told us of their own journey, and we took comfort in the knowledge that we were not alone, that others had walked this path before—triumphing with humor and grace. Here are three of their stories.

In 1967, William Crozier’s dad walked out on his wife, his children, and the church he pastored. William didn’t speak to his father for years. But after he married, he knew he must make things right.

“In the early nineties,” writes William, “Dad was run over by a little old lady in a very big car and dragged one hundred feet. Since then he has lived with a brain injury, and I have tried to honor him. Dad and I go out to lunch often. He proposes to every woman in the restaurant on the way in, and on the way out introduces me as his pastor-son who will do the ceremony. We laugh. And people who understand laugh, too.”

William and his wife rented an apartment for his dad in a nearby town, helping him live independently for as long as he could, and when an aunt of nearly eighty was hospitalized with a stroke, they were surprised by the joy they discovered in helping her too.

“She was coached to do exercises involving moving her lips repeatedly and making really rude noises, so that she could regain her speech,” says William. “Her room happened to face the hallway where the elevator doors opened, so we challenged her to pucker up and make noises with great enthusiasm whenever the doors to the elevators opened. Innocent people exiting the elevator were greeted with smooching sounds and even some outstanding raspberries, made all the more hilarious by the fact that she seldom remembered to put her teeth in. How she loved gumming people into hysterics! In fact, it may be part of the reason for her quick recovery.

“More important than her sense of humor was her forgiveness of my father. She saw him at his worst forty years ago when he left and yet was so graceful to him. She wasn’t just content to talk about forgiveness; she allowed him to live in it.”

“When my parents entered the early stages of Alzheimer’s,” recalls Katherine Dutcher, “they failed to recognize that they were in desperate need of assisted-living arrangements. On weekends my siblings and I took turns being there for them. But for five days each week they were alone, and our concern for their safety grew with each visit.

“Hoping to convince them that they needed help, my brother Tom, a very good negotiator, explained home health-care aid and assisted living, showing them brochures and laying out the costs for the different options. Before he could finish, they became so upset he had to quit. Though Tom was the only one to say anything, Dad shook his finger at
my sister and me, stating angrily, ‘You girls are no good. You are trying to kick us out of our own house. Tom is the only good one. You two are out of the will.’

“After we left, my brother Tom teased us: ‘You’re out of the will and I’m not!’

“Since we wanted to respect their wishes to stay in their home, we decided to hire a home health-care aide. But things went from bad to worse. I’ve never been so disappointed in you,’ Dad said, looking at me.

“I felt hopeless and guilty and afraid. Afraid they would hurt themselves or, worse yet, hurt someone else while driving. I began to realize we could not solve this problem ourselves. And so we began to pray.

“One morning at 2:30, the phone rang. It was one of Mom and Dad’s neighbors. Thinking he had bought the neighbor’s truck, Dad found the keys under the floor mat and drove the truck through two neighbors’ yards, over a small tree, and into a ditch. The police were finally able to get him home and settled in for the night, and the gracious neighbor assured me he wasn’t pressing charges.

“Frightened, I called Tom so he could be there by morning. But at 7 a.m. the neighbor called again. This time Dad thought he had bought the man’s backhoe. Unable to get it started, he darted for home when the neighbor began yelling at him.

“Knowing they were in trouble, Mom and Dad packed a suitcase and were backing out of the driveway when the police arrived. The officer seized their car keys and their drivers’ licenses, foiling their great escape.

“God answered our prayers in a surprising way. The day of Mom and Dad’s attempted escape, Tom arrived to find that they couldn’t wait to move out of that dreadful neighborhood. After all, they couldn’t trust the neighbors.

“Within a month we had found an assisted living home near my sisters
house. It came complete with a patio where Mom could feed the birds, and a view of a wooded area where Dad could watch the deer. At last they were safe and happy.”

Jackie Larson calls her father “the product of a poverty-stricken Depression-era home, self-educated and one of the smartest men I ever met.” But lessons learned from his own abusive father and a weakness for drinking wrought destruction in his character. “He lived a self-centered life,” writes Jackie. “Hardheaded, he could be a mean drunk, catastrophically unsuited to the task of stepfather to my half siblings. His only softening influences were his mother, his two daughters, and their children.

“Although he paid for me to attend a Christian school and college, he remained adamant that I not preach to him, and so I kept my mention of God to little cards and notes I sometimes sent him.”

During her final visit with her father, Jackie played the piano and sang for the residents of the nursing home in which he now lived. It was Christmastime, and she played all the carols requested, as well as a few familiar and comforting hymns.

“Are there any final requests?” she asked.

Her father, a lifelong agnostic, frail in his wheelchair, but still vigorous of mind at eighty-three, looked straight at her and said, “‘The Old Rugged Cross.’“

Startled, she played the notes and began to sing:

“As I pushed him back to his room,” Jackie remembers, “I couldn’t help wondering what those words meant to him.

“‘Dad,’ I said, ‘I have a final request for you. For decades, you’ve told me you were agnostic. You’ve said, “Don’t bother me with your religious views.” But now that you’ve had some time to reflect on this, are you willing to consider trust in Christ? I believe we’re all sinners and only Jesus can save us through His death on the cross. I believe that He’s the only way we can be right with God and get to heaven, and that we need to accept that gift and trust in Him. Do you believe that, Dad?’

“He looked at me with steady blue eyes. ‘More and more, kid,’ he said. ‘More and more.’

“Dad drifted off to sleep, and the moment ended. His condition worsened rapidly, and he died not long after our visit.

“I do not know for sure the condition of his soul. But I can’t help thinking of the day I discovered—tucked safely away in his box of chess pieces—all the Christian cards and notes I ever wrote him. And I do know that Jesus came looking for lost sheep. Perhaps He found another one in that nursing home. Perhaps this tired old lamb, weary of a life lived without communion with the Great Shepherd, approached heaven’s gate with a final request and was welcomed home.”

The worst thing in your life may contain seeds
us of the best. When you can see crisis as an opportunity,
your life becomes not easier, more satisfying
.

J
OE
K
OGEL

F
or his eighty-second birthday I gave my father a rather expensive maple pool cue. The irony of the gift was not lost on any of us.

Back in the 1930s, Ying’s Pool Hall was the favorite hangout for teenagers in the riverside hamlet of Elora, Ontario, Canada. There my dad learned to smoke, drink, swear, chew, and hit a spittoon. Cold winter nights of my childhood were warmed by his stories of those days. Of winning a few bucks betting on billiards. Of cheating the blind owner out of small change.

One dark and memorable Halloween, Dad and a few cronies moved the pool hall outhouse back a few feet—much to the surprise of some dear inebriated soul and drawing the attention of the local constable. When he told me this story, my admiration grew as wide as my smile. Through the years I’ve attempted a little mischief myself, but I’m sorry to report that I never truly mastered it as Dad did.

Twenty-one years before I was born, God put an arm around my father and refused to let go. “I sipped my last beer and took a final drag
from a cigarette,” he liked to say. “I threw the pack into the fireplace and slammed the door on the pool hall, never to return.”

One summer night at a hot-dog roast, Dad first set eyes on a shy brunette by the name of Bernice. She would become my mother, but as far as I know it was not something they discussed that evening. Instead, they sat and watched the clouds gather, knowing that Adolf Hitler was ransacking Europe, that Dad would soon join the troops and set out to chase him home.

Dad never did find Adolf, but he chased down my mother, and after the Allied victory parade, the two climbed aboard a train bound for western Canada to study for the ministry.

After poring over books of theology for several winters, he was ordained by the Evangelical Free Church. Following several brief forays with small congregations, he returned to the Bible school where he had studied and joined its staff. The regulations were strict there. Your hair could not touch your ears (unless you were a girl), and sleeves must end below the elbows (unless you were a boy). There were clear guidelines for abstaining from Sunday afternoon football, playing pool, listening to rock music, smoking, drinking, chewing, and the purchasing of spittoons.

I loved my childhood. Mischief was never far away. You didn’t need to steal a car or graffiti a building to get the attention of grownups. Winking at your girlfriend would do the trick.

Though Dad didn’t always agree with the rules, he was careful to keep one of them. When we visited friends with pool tables, Dad stood off to one side, enjoying the smiles on our faces as we played, but never picking a cue up himself. For him it characterized his old life, and he wanted no part of it. “You play pool, you play the fool,” he sometimes said.

When he and Mom moved into the Golden Hills Lodge, peers begged him to join in their pool games, which went on most evenings until someone fell asleep—sometimes on the table.

Dad told them he hadn’t picked up a cue in about sixty years. They couldn’t believe it. They stopped asking, perhaps reasoning that anyone this rusty wouldn’t be much fun to beat anyway.

One night while I sat eating from a candy dish he kept well stocked for the grandkids, Dad confided in me that he still experienced an uneasy feeling about the game. I asked him if they were placing wagers or cheating each other. He didn’t think so. I told him we could baptize the pool table, get it saved. He laughed.

And so it was that I presented him with his birthday gift and watched his face light up like he had just received a bike for his sixth birthday. “It’s left-handed, like you,” I said. That just added to his excitement.

Next thing I knew he was lining up shots and mowing down surprised opponents. And he was smoking again. And swearing. And drinking beer like a fish. I’m kidding. But the old guy was good.

At the age of eighty-two he would bend over that table, sight in the eightball, and take it down hard. Dad couldn’t remember his name sometimes, but he could play pool. My sons and I tried to beat him. We seldom succeeded. The years had been kind to his aim, and he smiled as he played. It was one thing he could do well, one card he could still play.

Dad smiled about other things too. For the most part, he enjoyed his new surroundings not far from our house. Some of the residents were friends he hadn’t talked to in years. I noticed as the days turned into months that he was afforded a more noticeable gentleness, and I’m convinced that it was grace once again. I guess God’s grace is there whatever the season; it has no expiration date, no statute of limitations.

Soon, however, Dad’s health and memory deteriorated further. A nurse sat me down to explain why we would have to move my parents to the long-term-care wing of a hospital. As she talked, the most amazing thing happened. She began to cry. “I’ll miss him,” she said. “He’s been so kind.”

If there is any blessing in Alzheimer’s, perhaps it is this: Sometimes you’re a little confused by the sorrow of others. Your children drive you to your new home a little farther away, and you point out the window at wheat fields and cows and elephants in the clouds, wondering why your child doesn’t share your enthusiasm during this Sunday afternoon drive on a Wednesday. You’ve got a pool cue in the backseat. It’s a great day to be alive.