Lest We Forget
January 26, 2014 | Patty Friesen

In the opening scenes of the movie Bourne Identity, Jason Bourne is fished unconscious out of the Mediterranean Sea onto a Greek boat. “I don’t know who I am,” are his first words when he awakes and the quest for his memory drives the plot of the whole thrilling Bourne trilogy. In Still Mine, a movie of a New Brunswick farming couple, the daughter asks the father if he has had his wife’s memory checked at the doctor. “I forgot,” he replies. The movie, Still Mine, and the popular fiction book, Still Alice, and the book on dementia called, I’m Still Here, tell us by their titles that despite the huge changes due to memory loss, there are still constants that remain. What are those constants that will help us survive the rise of dementia, what the Alzheimer Society calls the Silver Tsunami? What are the core strengths and values and identity that still keep us who we are even when we cannot remember who we are!

The Apostle Paul uses remembering, reminding or knowing six times in his first twelve verses of 1 Thessalonians. However irritating, proud and scolding Paul is in his other letters, he is at his pastoral and nurturing best in 1 Thessalonians. It is believed to be his first letter ever written. It is more heartfelt and less theological than Romans, less argumentative than Galatians, less judgemental than Corinthians. I think 1 Thessalonians is Paul’s best letter, and provides a powerful framework for how we make sense of dementia.
Paul begins his letter, “to the church in Thessalonika, which is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul reminds the Thessalonians of their value as children who were created by God a loving parent and esteemed enough by God to be given new life in Christ. The beginning point of dementia is always our value as people created and loved by God. That never changes, despite our change in memory, abilities, personality and even faith. It doesn’t matter what happens on our side of things, “nothing separates us from the love of God.”

Dementia does not separate us from Christ even though it threatens to separate us from ourselves and our loved ones. The changes brought on by dementia are tough even for us who work with it daily at the Mennonite Nursing Home in Rosthern. We have a lovely grandpa who has suddenly gotten mean. His family is in despair and tempted to avoid him. I force myself to remember this grandpa for who he was and continue treating him with the same kindness as I did when he was happy and fun to be around. He’s been nice all his life, so maybe it’s OK to get mean now. I hope when I have dementia that I can been as grouchy as I like and people will still treat me kindly.

Paul reminds the Thessalonians that they were created in the love of God to express love and encouragement to each other. Paul uses faith, and love eighteen times, lest we forget the point of Paul’s message. Paul pairs faith and love together in his opening greeting in verse 3, “you have shown your faith in action, and worked for love in Jesus Christ.” In the middle of the letter, chapter 3:6, Paul reiterates, “Timothy has given us good news of your faith and love.” And Paul concludes his message in chapter 5:6, “let us put on faith and love for whether we are alive or dead (and I would add) or have dementia, we are still united to Christ.”

We are created in relationship to our families, friends and community and these relationships give us our ongoing meaning and value even when we can’t remember them. These relationships are strained in the midst of illness but they dare not break. Not all is lost with dementia. It is a journey from one state of relating to anther and presents new opportunities for relating. The way of relating can be hidden from us as in the case of the mean grandfather but the challenge is for us to grow as people who do not always need to get something out of a relationship or conversation. We visit people with dementia because we love them and remember them, not for the love and memory they can give us.

The lessons of dementia will be the hardest of our lives. We have to learn extreme patience. We have to learn to be comfortable with silence or complete nonsense without constantly trying to correct our loved ones. We have to grow as family and community members. It becomes our responsibility to do the remembering for our loved ones and to never forget who they were despite the dementia that may last decades.

In the book Still Alice, Alice functions through her day with the help of her Blackberry reminding her of her life. With dementia, we need to be each other’s Blackberry. If society’s most macho hero, Jason Bourne can have dementia and have his enemies remind him who he is, how much more can we remind our family and friends who they are.

Apostle Paul gives good advice for us living with dementia in the last verses of 1 Thessalonians, “Be at peace, give courage, care for the weak, be patient with everyone. Think of what is best for the community. Be happy, pray constantly and in all things, give thanks to God.” When memory loss strips everything from us, we are left with living in the moment, thankful for whatever hope or humour we can find in the day.

The dementia unit is my favourite at the Mennonite Nursing Home for the unexpected humour that resides there. When the fire alarms went off last weekend, one of the elders calmly came out of his room in his bathrobe and said, “Well, someone could put out the fire.” When at devotions, I noted that the hymn had five flats, an elder responded, “Well, that’s more than my car’s got!”

Besides humour, the dementia unit at the Mennonite Nursing Home is holy ground. It sometimes feels like the other place, but when the elders begin to sing or pray or recite scripture, there is something preserved in the recesses of mind and spirit that comes forth. Elders who cannot remember where their room is or what their wife’s name is, pray aloud with such profound power, it settles the other restless residents around them and leaves staff in tears. I have no other explanation than the presence of God is nearer to us on the East Wing, that dementia creates a thin place where in the midst of the confusion and vulnerability, God’s love and spirit bursts though.

We need those visions of God’s presence in the midst of dementia because otherwise it feels like a complete wasteland of loss and confusion and grief. It is the diagnosis we fear worse than cancer. We need to know God is with us in the midst of it or there is no hope in God at all. “Nothing is lost on the breath of God, nothing is lost forever,” promises our closing hymn. “Does a woman forget her baby at the best or fail to cherish the child of her womb? Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you” (Isaiah 49:14).

We must visit one another – spend time together and offer friendship, respite, relief, listening and loving presence to both sufferers and caregivers. We must give people with dementia the benefit of the doubt and not allow behaviour to prevent us from seeing the face of Jesus in these struggling ones. As we do these things, we come to see God more clearly and act more faithfully. Heaven is truly in our hearts, even when our hearts are afflicted and broken. Every time we hold someone’s hand and remind them we love them, even in the midst of deep forgetting, our souls collide with Jesus’ promise, “Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the age” (Dementia, John Swinton, p. 286).

Let’s sing Great is Thy Faithfulness from memory if we are able. It’s #327 in the blue hymnal if we need a little help.