Rooster or Tiger?

The word humility has been buzzing around my head like an annoying fly. For the last two weeks I have come across this word through my readings and in the sermons at church. God must be sending me a message. And like most of my messages from God, it takes more than one "mailing" to get through to me. God, I hear you – humility….now I have to decipher the code. As everyone knows, Jesus spoke in code, aka parables, so why would his Father be any different???

Humility is defined as absence of pride or self-assertion, according to Webster’s. Well there’s a double whammy. While I am not a boastful person, I do have a strong sense of pride. My pride is bundle together with my possessions, one of which is the my house. I never realized, until I moved in with my folks, how much value I placed on my house. Just as a job is one facet of my identity, so is my house. I had supported myself and my girls in my house for seven years. I had made improvements to the house. Many more were needed, but college tuition was looming over the house, causing me to shift priorities.

Yet, I was proud of the home I created for my girls and myself. It was our house. And now, I don’t have a house – well, as soon as it is sold, anyway. I would have been the first person to say that I don’t attach emotions to my house. But I do! Pride is in the front of the emotion line.

While I am not homeless, I find it necessary to tell people that my parents asked me to move in with them. This is quickly followed by: my mother has Alzheimer’s; my dad has spent seven of his nine lives; they need help with dinner, shopping, dr. appointments, yada, yada, yada…. I am clever in how I do this, weaving this "confession" into the conversation, making it nearly impossible to detect any boasting or pride. After all, I don’t want people to think that I am one of those single moms who has to move back home with her parents to support her kids. No, not me!! And the nod of sympathy for me, is just a little extra built-in perk. I am such a fraud!

I assert my pride at every opportunity. Oh yea, did you catch the "assert" in that statement? Part two of humility is the lack of self-assertion. This lack is not referring to allowing people to take your rights or not speaking up for yourself. No, this is a matter of puffing out your feathers like a rooster strutting in front hens.

Now that I have figured out how un-humble I am, how does this tie in with taking care of Mom???

I have been gnawing on this for a while, looking at it from different angles. Growing old, with or without dementia, just plain sucks, at times. Aging can be a limiting process where one can not drive at night, arthritis may stiffen the limbs or fingers, movement is restricted, aches and pains once ignored are now a constant reminder of an old injury. I know there are benefits from aging, too: wisdom, inner peace, joy of grand parenting, retirement. At this point, Mom’s joys are diminished by her dementia.

This is where humility, on my part, comes in. The verb form, humiliate, is a hungry tiger ready to pounce at any opportunity. When your mind no longer performs as it should, humiliation can occur on a regular basis. It is hard, oh so hard, not to scream when Mom asks me for the zillionth time about dinner, or where one of the girls is staying for the night, or when I am coming to the beach this summer, or any other item that pops into her head.

To scream at her, to remind her how she has asked the same question over and over, is a form of humiliation. Mom’s core spirit is humiliated if I hold up the dementia mirror to her. That is not loving. That is not honoring her. That is revenge for taking care of her. And that is not where my heart is. Or rather that is not where I want my heart to be. If I go to that place on a regular basis, then I will not like who I see when I turn the mirror on myself.

I have read books where people take care of others with debilitating conditions. In each case, the author writes how he/she has become a more humble person because of the experience. I am beginning to see how this happens. Watching Mom struggle with the loss of cognition, memory, and some day, basic functions is humbling in and of itself. How I love her while she travels down the path of Alzheimer’s is my ongoing lesson in humility.

Humility….Well God, is this the message? Or part of the message? Or am I completely missing Your message? Well if I have missed the mark, I have no doubt that there will be several more encores on "humility". One thing I have learned about God is that He never gives up. He just keeps knocking, until I finally open the door.

Peace,

JaneEllen