My Mom Will Get Her Brain Back: A Reflection on Ash Wednesday

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Ash Wednesday is a time for reflecting on our mortality. We are dust, we are ashes. We came from the ground, we will go back to it. 

I’m thinking about my mom a lot today. She has entered the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, is a neurodegenerative disease. This means that my mom’s brain cells are progressively dying. As the cells die, her brain literally shrinks.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

My mom was diagnosed years ago with early onset dementia. This means that, while the rest of her body was healthy, her brain would start to decay. Little protein clumps would insert themselves within her brain tissue, causing a buildup of “plaques” and “tangles”  between her cells and neurons.

Most people are aware of what Alzheimer’s does. Among the many horrible symptoms, it causes (eventually) the loss of both short and long-term memory, it makes decision making and problem solving extremely difficult, it causes the loss of awareness of one’s surroundings, creates difficulty in speaking and communication, and causes difficulty with spatial recognition (things we usually take for granted, like eating or even sitting on a chair become extremely difficult). For those who have loved ones with dementia, they know that this description is something of the tip of the iceberg. It is impossible to describe the emotional and relational challenges that come with it–for those who have the disease and for their caregivers.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

As I think about my mom today, I also think about the Christian belief in the resurrection in a new way. We are dust, and to dust we return. But…we will get our bodies back. The Christian hope in resurrection is stated in the Nicene Creed, which ends with this line:

We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

This resurrection is no disembodied, ethereal, existence, but is a resurrection of the body. It is physical, though it is impossible to say what that means, exactly. It is a resurrected physicality, a spiritual corporeality. It is new and eternal life–but it is an embodied life.

There are many expressions of hope in many religions. I do not disparage any of those expressions nor do I criticize any source of hope. But I do find that the Christian source of hope in a physical, bodily, resurrection (based in the resurrection of Christ as the “first-fruits”) is a ray of light in a dark world, a source of hope in life, for we who are dying. When I think about my mom–and I realize that her brain is decaying and shrinking, her brain cells are dying, I remember that “we are dust, and to dust we shall return.” But I also believe that my mom will get her body back. She will get her brain back someday. And her memories, too.