{"id":13316,"date":"2023-10-21T16:03:43","date_gmt":"2023-10-21T20:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=13316"},"modified":"2025-08-17T16:14:42","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T20:14:42","slug":"a-psalm-for-alzheimers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=13316","title":{"rendered":"A Psalm for Alzheimer’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week, my friend Darlene and I traveled to California for our friend Ruth’s 60th birthday. It was a lovely trip. We had a great time together.<\/p>\n

But Ruth has early-onset Alzheimer’s, and I am all torn up inside about it.<\/p>\n

Explanation for this post: I have written a book, Praying with the Psalmists: Open Your Heart to God Using Patterns from Psalms in Your Prayers.<\/em> This book is not yet published. But the premise is that we can use patterns from Psalms in prayer to open our hearts to God when things trouble us.<\/p>\n

The book may or may not ever get published, but I’m trying to model praying with the psalmists in my own prayers when things are heavy on my heart. [You can follow along with the blog series “Praying with the Psalmists<\/a>.”] At this time, Alzheimer’s is so heavy on my heart.<\/p>\n

At first, I thought I’d write a lament, as I did in “Lament for Leukemia<\/a>.” But despite the situation, Laments generally are more for prayer requests — bad situations where you are asking God to come through. My friend’s Alzheimer’s is a horrible situation out there in the world, and I can’t help wondering how God allows it. Why is this happening to someone who loves God? I just hate it. So this is a situation for a Wisdom Psalm.<\/p>\n

Now, the trouble with writing a wisdom psalm myself is that I don’t particularly think I have wisdom. So I think of the ones we laypeople write as Pep Talk Psalms — reminding ourselves what we know about God, reminding ourselves that it’s worth it to follow God, reminding ourselves that we actually do trust God. Some Wisdom Psalms in Scripture that I love are Psalm 1, Psalm 34, Psalm 37, and Psalm 73.<\/p>\n

In my book, I cover five key concepts from the biblical Wisdom Psalms: Blessings, Teachings, Consequences, Oversight, and Perspective. But maybe you’ll get the idea from the example and the biblical examples. I’m going to attempt to use parallelism and dive in and write a psalm about this. I’m going to start with the situation, but then remind myself what I know.<\/p>\n

A Psalm for Alzheimer’s<\/strong><\/p>\n

Father, I hate Alzheimer’s
\nwith every fiber of my being.<\/p>\n

First, my mother had it,
\nstarting in her early sixties.
\nIt started kind of cute:
\nholding hands with Dad in new situations,
\nnot understanding mirrors,
\nproud of getting a puzzle piece in,
\ntelling my Dad they should get married.<\/p>\n

But every time I saw her,
\nshe was much worse than the time before.
\nI just got a memory on Facebook about the time
\nmore than a year before her death,
\nalready on hospice,
\nwhen she fell out of her wheelchair
\nbroke her nose, cut her forehead,
\nand had to remain bedridden
\nfor the last year of her life.<\/p>\n

When I saw her two months before her death
\nat my Dad’s funeral,
\nshe couldn’t talk,
\ncouldn’t smile,
\ncouldn’t sit up,
\ncouldn’t feed herself.
\nPeople asked if she knew me,
\nbut how would I even know if she did?<\/p>\n

I really hate Alzheimer’s.<\/p>\n

So now my friend Ruth has it,
\nabout ten years younger than my Mom started.
\nYes, she knows me.
\nYes, she can still talk,
\nwith a little trouble putting thoughts into words.
\nHer frequent “Yeah, uh huh…” reminded me so much
\nof my mother for a while saying constantly “okay… okay…”,
\nthough Ruth is working to engage in conversation
\nat least in that way.<\/p>\n

She’s happy!
\nShe laughs a lot.
\nHer husband does a wonderful job
\nof keeping things light,
\nlaughing with her,
\nmaking her failings foibles.
\nShe’s got grandbabies nearby,
\nliving in both homes where she spends her time.
\nShe’s not thinking about the future
\nand what it will hold for her.
\nShe’s enjoying the present.<\/p>\n

She did hike with us,
\nher husband leading her by the hand.
\nI tried — and failed to get her past the spot
\nwhere she needed to put her foot just there —
\nbecause she’s not looking at her feet.<\/p>\n

We looked at pictures
\nfrom junior high and high school.
\nShe knew who people were
\n(or at least said she did)
\nwhen we could get her to look at the TV
\nwhere they were showing.<\/p>\n

In the old pictures, in every single set
\nthere’d be a picture of Ruth
\nperched atop a swingset or boulder or castle wall or tree.
\nShe can’t climb any more,
\nand I hate that.
\nIn fact, she has trouble sitting down
\nin an ordinary chair.<\/p>\n

And I hate it.<\/p>\n

I know it’s only going to get worse.
\nThough Ruth isn’t thinking about that.
\nShe’s enjoying her husband’s care,
\nher children and grandchildren,
\nand wherever she finds herself.
\nShe enjoyed our visit,
\nand I’m so glad we got to be there for her.<\/p>\n

But I hate Alzheimer’s.<\/p>\n

[Crying break.]
\nLord, why did this have to happen
\nto someone so vibrant, so alive,
\nso sharp, so kind,
\nso always full of mischief,
\nalways literally climbing on boundaries?<\/p>\n

Now I’m home,
\nno longer putting on a brave face so Ruth won’t see my distress,
\nand my 7-year-old niece is getting
\na stem cell transplant for leukemia.
\nA high school friend’s husband, a pastor,
\njust passed away from a brain tumor.
\nThousands of innocents were recently murdered
\nin terror and war, both Israelis and Palestinians.<\/p>\n

And, Lord, it all seems so hard.<\/p>\n

But whom have I in heaven but you, Lord?
\nI’m not going to decide you don’t exist
\nbecause terrible things happen in the world.
\nI’m not God,
\nand that’s a good thing.
\nBut I don’t understand.
\nAnd that’s okay. I’m human.<\/p>\n

What do I believe?
\nI believe you bring good even out of terrible things.
\nI believe that mankind is fallen,
\nbut that you redeem.<\/p>\n

I believe that my mother is in heaven now,
\nand all her suffering is not even worth comparing to the glory she now faces.<\/p>\n

I believe that my father shone so brightly while he cared for her,
\nas Ruth’s husband is beginning to shine now.
\n[I still don’t think it even comes close to outweighing the evil of Alzheimer’s,
\nbut, yes, good comes out of it.]<\/p>\n

I believe that because Alzheimer’s and leukemia exist,
\nhumans are exercising their ingenuity and brilliance
\nand discovering cures.
\nThe stem cell transplant is a much simpler process
\nthan the old bone marrow transplant.
\nImmunotherapy shows great promise
\nfor many kinds of cancer,
\nand research for Alzheimer’s treatments
\nis making great strides.
\nWe have come so far in medical science!
\nMay it continue, may lives continue to be saved and prolonged.<\/p>\n

And Lord, above all,
\nI believe you are with us.
\nYou became a human,
\nEmmanuel, God with us.
\nYou took up our infirmities
\nand carried our diseases.
\nI believe you know our suffering
\nand carry us.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you calm the storm
\nand sometimes you guide us through the storm.
\nYou love Ruth, your precious child.<\/p>\n

Thank you for her life,
\nthank you for her friendship,
\nthank you for her laughter,
\nthank you for her love.
\nThank you that you are always with her.
\nThank you that she’s been my friend
\nfor almost 50 years.<\/p>\n

Thank you that despite awful things,
\nthere is still joy in this world.<\/p>\n

Thank you that we were able to bring some of that joy
\nto our friend Ruth.<\/p>\n

Grant her husband and children
\ngrace and perseverance.
\nBe with them all on the journey that follows.
\nBut thank you that Ruth herself is living in the moment,
\nstill trusting you.<\/p>\n

And you are faithful.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ruth and Darlene in 2014.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Okay. That’s my psalm. I think it helped. The fact is, I still believe that God is good. I don’t claim to know higher meaning for Alzheimer’s. But I choose to believe that God is good and God is loving. And God brings good out of even this.<\/p>\n

Hey, anyone reading this — I’d love it if you tried writing your own psalms, too. You can tell by my example that they don’t have to be very good! But use the comments if you want to share.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ruth in 1975.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, my friend Darlene and I traveled to California for our friend Ruth’s 60th birthday. It was a lovely trip. We had a great time together. But Ruth has early-onset Alzheimer’s, and I am all torn up inside about it. Explanation for this post: I have written a book, Praying with the Psalmists: Open […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-praying-with-the-psalmists","category-wisdom-psalms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13316"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13322,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13316\/revisions\/13322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}