The Patience of Job…’s Wife
Today I have the patience of Job.
Well…
Job’s wife.
You know the one.
The woman who finally looked at her husband in the middle of everything and essentially said, “Why don’t you just curse God and die?”
Now, before anyone gets concerned, I do not want my husband to curse God and die.
But I understand that woman a little better today.
Because despite the occasional messages I receive telling me I’m a saint, or that I’m doing something other people could never do, let me clear something up:
I am human.
Very, very human.
In fact, an old Stacie Orrico song came to mind this morning: Don’t Look at Me.
Please don’t use me as the example of how to do caregiving perfectly.
You will be terribly disappointed.
It Started Out as a Good Sunday
I woke up feeling great.
We had talked about going to church, and I was really looking forward to it.
Not just the sermon.
Not just the worship.
I wanted the fellowship.
I wanted to leave the house and have a conversation with another human being who wasn’t my husband with Lewy body dementia.
There. I said it.
I wanted to talk with someone I hadn’t already spent the previous 24 hours with. Someone who didn’t need me to explain something, find something, fix something, reassure something, or figure out what had just happened.
Just some normal human interaction.
Caregiver loneliness is a strange thing. You can spend every minute of every day with another person and still feel incredibly alone.
But this morning my husband didn’t want to go to church.
Again.
And my heart sank.
So we stayed home and watched a sermon from our old home church.
It was from John 10, and it was good. Really good.
The sermon was about the parable of the Good Shepherd, and when he got to the verse about, “I came to give you life and have it more abundantly. He shared that he thinks abundance is based on contentment—being content in every season and understanding that contentment is a choice we make.
I sat there listening and agreeing.
Yes.
Amen.
Contentment.
Every season.
Got it.
And then the sermon ended.
Apparently God decided there would be a pop quiz.
Enter: Two Dirty Coffee Cups
My husband picked up our coffee cups and carried them into the kitchen.
Then I watched him grab the drying towel and begin wiping out the dirty cups so he could put them back into the cupboard.
I told him the cups were dirty.
He insisted he had just washed them.
He hadn’t.
I tried explaining.
He insisted.
I got frustrated.
He got frustrated.
And suddenly the woman who had just spent the previous hour listening to a sermon about choosing contentment in every season was nowhere to be found.
So much for that.
I knew I needed to step away.
Sometimes with dementia, there simply isn’t anywhere productive for the conversation to go. I could continue trying to convince him that the cups hadn’t been washed—or I could let him do whatever he believed needed to be done in that moment and accept the fact that sometime later today I’ll probably be pulling dirty dishes out from among the clean ones.
So I announced that I was going outside to pull weeds.
I grabbed my gardening gloves and headed for the yard.
And that’s where God met me.
Apparently, the Yard Wasn’t the Only Thing That Needed Weeding
I sat on the ground pulling weeds and complaining to God.
I told Him I was tired.
I told Him I just wanted some normal interaction.
I wanted to sit with friends.
I wanted a conversation with someone who didn’t need my help.
I wanted to listen to someone else’s life for a while instead of constantly trying to manage ours.
And yes, I knew how that sounded.
I love my husband.
I know he isn’t choosing this disease.
I know there are things he simply cannot understand anymore.
I know all the things I’m supposed to know.
But knowing them doesn’t make me stop being human.
And as I sat there pulling weeds, I realized there were still some weeds in me that God needed to pull.
I’m a by-the-book person.
There’s a place for dirty dishes.
There’s a place for clean dishes.
And there should not be crossover between the two.
This seems perfectly reasonable to me.
But dementia doesn’t care about my rules.
And sometimes peace matters more than being right about whether a coffee cup has been washed.
Seek peace and pursue it.
Even when that means quietly rewashing a few cups later.
So I kept pulling weeds.
And talking to God.
And crying.
Then the Breeze Came
A cool breeze suddenly picked up.
I stopped what I was doing and just sat there on the ground.
Gardening gloves on.
Weeds around me.
Tears streaming down my face.
And I lifted my face toward heaven and let the breeze wash over me.
God has a way of getting straight to the heart of the matter.
Because somewhere in that moment, I realized something about the Caregiver Joy Club that I hadn’t completely understood before.
I thought I was creating it for other caregivers.
And I am.
But maybe I created it for me, too.
Caregivers Need Connection, Too
This season of dementia caregiving can make connection incredibly difficult.
I am needed at home.
Plans change.
Church doesn’t always happen.
Coffee with a friend isn’t as simple as saying, “Want to meet Tuesday?”
Sometimes leaving the house isn’t convenient.
Sometimes it isn’t wise.
Sometimes it simply isn’t possible.
And yet I still need people.
I suspect I’m not the only dementia caregiver who has discovered that the more you’re needed at home, the harder it can become to maintain the very relationships that help you keep going.
Caregiver isolation can happen quietly.
Your world gets smaller without you ever deciding that you wanted it to.
And I still need connection.
I still need to know there are other caregivers sitting on their floors—or standing in their kitchens, or hiding in their bathrooms for three blessed minutes—thinking:
I love this person with everything in me, but this is HARD.
Maybe that’s part of what Caregiver Joy Club is.
Not me standing on the outside telling caregivers how to find joy.
Good grief.
Today alone should disqualify me from that position.
Maybe it’s simply a way for us to find one another from inside our own homes.
A little mail traveling from one caregiver’s house to another saying:
I’m still here.
You’re still there.
We’re not doing this perfectly.
But we’re doing it together.
Maybe This Is What Caregiver Joy Looks Like
I think that’s the kind of joy I’m beginning to understand.
Not happiness because everything is good.
Not pretending dirty coffee cups aren’t driving me crazy.
Not pretending I don’t desperately miss normal conversation and Sunday mornings at church.
Joy that can exist right there alongside disappointment, frustration, caregiver loneliness, dirty dishes, weeds and tears.
Today I had the patience of Job’s wife.
Tomorrow may not be much better.
But for a few minutes this morning, I sat in the dirt with my face toward heaven and felt a cool breeze.
And somehow, right there in the middle of a very human Sunday morning, God reminded me:
I’m not alone.
And maybe that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell other caregivers all along.
A Little Connection for Caregivers
If caregiving has made your world smaller too, Caregiver Joy Club was created for caregivers like us.
Not because we’ve figured out how to do this perfectly.
Not because every day feels joyful.
But because sometimes we need something that simply says, “I see you. You’re not doing this alone.”
Caregiver Joy Club sends a little encouragement, connection and joy through the mail to caregivers navigating seasons just like this one.