Ken's Memories

COUNT IT A PRIVILEGE

In the early 1960’s when our children were small and our income was low, we bought a home hair-cutting kit at Sears so Betty could cut my hair & the kids’ to save money. One Saturday evening she was cutting my hair & saying I should go to a barber because she wasn’t good at this and didn’t want to do it. Right then the Lord spoke to her and said, “Count it a Privilege”, that is, a privilege to serve me in this way. Her attitude changed immediately.

Fast forward to 2007-2009 when Betty had multiple medical problems and I was increasingly her care-giver until she died May 18, 2009. Due to a lung condition called bronchiectasis, Alzheimer’s disease, & half a dozen other ailments, Betty was physically weak, had difficulty walking, and suffered partial memory loss. In her last year being her full-time care-giver included helping her wash, dress, walk, & so on.

The amount of work involved was sometimes all that I could handle, because in addition there was cooking, house work, grocery shopping, yard work, home repairs, doctor visits, etc. Betty had gradually gone from being my partner to being my patient. I could easily have become angry about the whole situation which instead of improving only got worse. But two things prevented that.

First, I remembered the words the Lord had spoken to Betty back in Brighton, Illinois about serving me. They were so real He might as well have spoken them to me. “Count it a Privilege” became my attitude in taking care of Betty, and saved me from becoming frustrated and resentful about the endless work in serving her.

The second thing that helped was love. The love and appreciation God had given me for my wife at the beginning of our marriage was still very real at the end 51 years later. That enabled me to take care of her here at home with compassion and a good spirit up until 8 days before she died, when severe lower back pain from vertebral compression fractures required hospitalization, then hospice care.


SHE’S WITH ME

In October 1987 our granddaughter Heidi (Miriam & John’s first child) died at Lansing General Hospital one day after being born, an apparently healthy, full-term baby. That loss sent me into 3 weeks of serious grief with frequent sobbing. During that time the Lord said to Betty, “She’s with Me”, meaning Heidi, the infant who had died. So we had God’s comfort and assurance.

Years later, when my wife Betty died May 18, 2009 at Eaton Community Hospice, grief hit me again. At first I didn’t experience the full impact of the loss, and was able to make the funeral arrangements, and take care of legal and financial obligations quite well, being partially numb to the shock of my wife being gone from this world and from my life, after 51 years of marriage.

But when the flurry of activity following her death subsided, reality set in. Her chair at the table was empty; her side of the bed was vacant. There was no one to talk to. The love of my life had departed permanently. My heart felt like it was breaking, and the painful ache of grief dominated my emotions. Loneliness filled my days, even when I was with other people, or working on some project, an on-going reminder that I’d suffered a major loss.

In those early weeks I lost my appetite and couldn’t sleep. Life almost seemed not worth living. Then I decided I had to focus on recovering from grief and becoming emotionally healthy again. I read a series of books on grief recovery, and attended a Survivors Support Group. Soon my prayer life revitalized and I began to thank God for Betty, all she had meant to me, and the good life we’d had together.

And I remembered those words, “She’s with Me”. My beloved wife was home safe with Jesus, free from pain, happier than she’d ever been. If those words, which agree with Philippians 1:23 and 2 Corinthians 5:8, were true for Heidi, they were true also for Betty, a born-again believer. There was reason to rejoice; all was not lost. Betty has gone on to her new life in heaven; now I must go on with my life in the Lord here on earth.