He came out of the shop and stood there... too long... scanning the car park.  He caught my eye, and with a shrug took off for a small sedan in the second row of cars.

So?  Big deal!  We all forget at times where we parked our car.  That’s happened to me more than once... usually because I’m preoccupied with my mental shopping list.  Okay, but sometimes it’s a little more serious.

A parishioner once phoned the police from the shops to report his car stolen.  He gave them his rego details and took a taxi home.  The next morning a police car took him to his car at the shopping centre, right where he had parked it.  And then there’s that story of the chap who, after reporting his car stolen, went back into the mall and comforted himself with a coffee.  When he’d finished he rang his wife to tell her the car had been stolen.  She replied, “What do you mean, ‘stolen’?  You didn’t take the car; I dropped you off this morning.”  Sheepishly he asked her to come and pick him up.  She replied, “I’ll do that as soon as I get rid of these police who’ve just pulled me up for driving a stolen car.”

I’m a little sensitive to such stories.  My paternal grandfather ended his days in a nursing home with dementia.  On one occasion he ‘escaped’ and the police had to find him.  My father also ended his days in a special home for dementia patients.  So if dementia is hereditary then I’m a prime candidate.  I console myself with the reminder that I also have the genes of my maternal grandfather.  He lived to be ninety-six with all his mental faculties intact.  There’s also some evidence to suggest that trauma plays a role.  That certainly fits the bill in our family.  My grandfather and his family were evicted from their home when my father was a teenager and Dad was carted off to Germany during the German occupation of Holland.

Sickness and disease can take horrific tolls – not only on the victims but also on their loved one and particularly on their carers.  Dementia is a particularly cruel disease.  The shrinkage of the brain leads not only to memory loss but often to dramatic personality changes – even to the point where the patient no longer recognises loved ones.  My father had a night where he declined to go to bed with this unknown woman sitting in his lounge room.  Patients generally become bed-ridden, unable to eat, drink or move.  The disease is often called ‘the long goodbye’.

Many of us who have a close association with dementia victims have wrestled with the questions raised by this evidenced of a fallen and broken world.  Perhaps we’ve walked the journey with someone and given what hope and encouragement we could.  My mother found much strength in her faith and in the certainty that the Lord God had not left them alone in this trial.

I’ve found it particularly comforting in my dealing with dementia patients as a pastor to discover that spiritual realities stay with them longer than anything else.  I have often read the Scriptures and prayed with such parishioners.  In that brief time of Bible reading and prayer anyone listening in may not even notice this person has dementia.  There is still some communication on spiritual matters... of course less so as the disease progresses.

One lady in a nursing home had a very restless form of the disease.  She paced up and down the footpath for hours on end.  I walked alongside her once and tried to converse with her.  All in vain!  I tried reading some well-known Bible verses with her while we walked up and down.  No response!  Then I recalled that one of her favourite hymns was, ‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God’.  I began to sing the first verse.  She stopped in her tracks.  By the time I got to the second verse she was softly humming the tune along with me.  We had a similar experience with my father on one of the visits I made with Mum.  We sang the first verse of a Christian song with him.  He continued with the second and third verses – all from memory.

It’s telling that spiritual realities are so deeply ingrained that they remain accessible even when we can’t remember what we had for breakfast.  It’s another encouragement to make sure your relationship with Jesus is as it ought to be.

John Westendorp