A prayer for those struggling with Alzheimer’s, dementia and other illnesses that rob us of out connection to others:
Understand, my love, I found myself on the tattered edges of memory and expression. They promised our generation endless life, the new forty is fifty, the new fifty is sixty, the future extends endlessly. They didn’t admit that the frontier ahead was frayed and troubled. Bedeviled by the loss of memory and clarity. We will download your memory. Freeze your body and resurrect you in the next century. The tower of Babel, over and over again. A nightmare clothed in the garments of hope. I say this in the presence of the living Lord, the one who makes no shallow promises: remember my love, the moments filled with joy, with passion and care. Remember the days when my memory was clear, my resolve was sure, my love was reliable. These are the gifts that I had to give, and they were yours. My love, my life, my all. The rest is an echo. My last efforts. My failing strength. But they are, like the gifts I first offered, an emblem of my love. Before the one who embraces us across that divide which cannot resist the power of the Resurrection, please – beyond all, above all, in spite of all – hear my pledge: I love you, with all that I have. Amen.
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