The assignment: acceptance

Learning by example

I have a wise and gentle friend, I’ll call him Peter, who is caregiver for his wife. She lives with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis—so advanced she is unable to perform any of the sorts of activities of daily living most of us take for granted. Moving around their lovely condo? Only if someone moves her. Dressing? Only if someone dresses her. Bathing? Only if someone bathes her. Feeding? My friend, who has proudly learned to become a good cook, fills one plate for the two of them at mealtimes, then sits beside her, and tenderly—oh so tenderly—places morsels of food and a straw for sips of beverage into her mouth between bites and sips of his own.

Peter and his wife have help. He works hard at coordinating the caregivers whose costs are covered by the provincial home care system to a level of 55 hours per week.

That kind of help makes a difference. He told me, first, a couple of years ago, and has repeated it since, that his relationship with his wife is in the best place it has ever been. The first time he said so, I remember thinking, “How could that be?”

His beloved, he said, is happy. Contented. It is abundantly clear that he is contented too—even if there is a certain sadness about him.

They have, apparently, arrived at a place of acceptance.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema, Unsplash

I don’t profess to have made it as far on this journey with my husband’s dementia. I still long for the man he was. And there is loneliness in the longing. But Marilyn McEntyre’s book, Word By Word: A Daily Spiritual Practice, is helping me understand how to get closer.

Unpacking the idea that each of us is here, “on assignment, for a purpose, on a mission of sorts,” McEntyre writes that we do not know “the whole of our own deepest purposes, and don’t need to. We’re called to walk in trust every step of the way.”

The journey of trust, she goes on, “begins—and continues—with acceptance.”

“So maybe acceptance is the assignment: accept the terms of the life God gave you, accept what comes, accept the grace that comes with it, accept the limitations that are also the means by which you develop imagination and ingenuity and patience and humor and compassion.”

A wonderful evening

Peter invited Doug and me to their home at Christmas time. We walked through their front door into beauty: a tiny tree with decorations glowing, scented candles lit, and the aroma of dinner in the oven. My friend had prepared stuffed peppers, so delicious that I asked for the recipe. Peter and his wife were both relaxed and happy. As a result, Doug and I were too. Their dog, a small, friendly ball of fluff, curled up beside us for a time. It was a wonderful evening.

Watching Peter and his wife, I concluded that in accepting the limitations and challenges that have come into their lives with her illness, they have also received grace. Grace to cultivate a deep and abiding appreciation for each other, for life in all its fullness, and for the many good gifts from God that are sometimes disguised as the smallest pleasures.

My journal from December testifies that I was still deep in the thick of grief at that point, full of fear for the future and raging at what felt like the injustice of my husband’s illness. But I came home that evening reflecting on all that had transpired.

And the next morning, I wrote that Peter had, perhaps, modelled for me “a way forward.” In showing me what life can look like with acceptance and support, I glimpsed a future I could hope for.

It’s been almost four months. Fear still arises sometimes, but I’m no longer internally raging against the reality of our lives. Is that progress towards acceptance? I think it must be.

*

Afterword: I sent this reflection to “Peter” for his blessing prior to publishing it here. He suggested a couple of corrections and wrote of his wife’s continued decline—she no longer sips through a straw, but must have water spooned into her mouth. A few days ago, she had a couple of mini-seizures, which served as “a stark reminder” for my friend, “of how fragile things can be.”

“I become accustomed to a certain status quo and life goes on hunky dory,” he confessed. “Then something concerning happens and fears of something dire occurring surge to the forefront.”

His update served as a reality check for me.

Now I think, this must be the truth of acceptance: We live. We strive. We struggle. We pray. We hope. We fear. We weep. We trust. We try. We fail. We do our best.

In a way, it feels like we have no choice. We must. Because we love.