Snapshots of Dementia: Control Freak
I remember the day when I knew I had to make a change in my parenting style. I don’t know that I heard an audible voice, but as I moved from the pantry to the table to count out the animal crackers for my children, God spoke: Stop trying to control everything.
I’m not sure what I was afraid would happen if I didn’t count out the treats—that the kids would eat too many? That we’d run out too quickly?—but that day, I stopped. I poured the animal crackers into their little bowls (or onto their little napkins; I honestly don’t remember). Maybe one bowl had more than the other. Maybe it didn’t.
But from that moment on, I stopped counting. And controlling.
God’s animal cracker instruction served me well as my children matured, because throughout that process, I could control less and less: Their rate of growth. Their emotions. Their likes and dislikes. And ultimately, their choices about their lives.
The realization that I could control little and shouldn’t control much saved our entire family a lot of stress. I learned to, as a friend puts it, go with the flow of the Holy Spirit. And although our family remained imperfect, I believe we were all much healthier and happier as a result.
So tonight, when Tom once again went to bed at 9 p.m., exhausted from trying to function with huge gaps in his thinking, I found myself cleaning, just as I sometimes did when my kids were small and he was out on pastoral visits. For a busy woman, there’s something near-magical about a quiet house with no dishes in the sink, no mess on the counter, and no crumbs on the floor.
But then I realized the source of my satisfaction: control.
In our dementia journey, I have little control over lots of things. I can’t control:
— How many times Tom will interrupt my work to ask for help with his word games; tell me meandering stories about his online golf game; or have me find his glasses, coffee mug, or remote.
— How long he’ll use a walker or if that walker will someday become a wheelchair.
— If he’ll get to play with our coming grandchildren as he has with Lincoln.
— If he’ll remember how to make his coffee tomorrow (he’s forgotten a couple of times in the last few weeks).
— If he’ll make it through a full church service this weekend (we’ve had to leave early the last two Sundays).
— How long he’ll be able to take his own shower and dress himself, both of which he does with increasingly less skill.
— If his words will continue to slow down until he loses them completely.
— If he’ll remain at home always or need more care than I can someday supply.
— If he’ll always remember our children.
— If he’ll always remember me.
I can’t control any of those things or a hundred more that cross my mind nearly every day. And so I clean. And think. And pray.
And as I spend another hour or two alone before I, too, go to bed, I realize again that it’s not wrong to take control over these small areas any more than it’s wrong to have a clean kitchen. It is wrong if taking control becomes a substitute for something I’ve done nearly every day for many years now: surrendering my heart and life to the One who controls it all.
Taped onto the base of my computer monitor is a small prayer that I’ve had for so long I don’t know where I got it:
Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt, send me where Thou wilt, work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever.” — Betty Scott Stam, martyred in China, 1934
(she wrote this in the front of her Bible her sophomore year in college).
When I first prayed this prayer, I had no idea what lay ahead. Almost immediately afterward, our family went through a huge challenge. Had I caused it? Of course not. But my surrendered heart enabled me to accept it—and the rest of the challenges that came our way, including our dementia journey.
Watching your spouse become less and less the person you married and more and more a child is not a journey I would wish on anyone. But I accept it—and all things—as from my Father’s hand. He has prepared me for this, He has equipped me for this, and I will go so far as to say I believe He has chosen me for this. To raise my fist in anger or walk away from my calling would be to deny Him, and by His grace, I refuse to do that.
Still, if you need me late at night, you know where to find me. I’m the one with the broom in my hand.
