When I think of Christianity and good Christian values, one of the first phrases to float through my mind is "Love Thy Brother", followed shortly thereafter by "Cleave Unto Thy Wife."
After all, one of the primary roles of the Church is to sanctify the bonds of marriage between two people who commit to support each other for the rest of their lives.
Here are just a few quotes from the Bible about the commitments of marriage:
"For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh" (Eph. 5:31)
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it [her]." (Eph. 5:25)
"The woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives." (Rom. 7:2; cf. Rom. 2:11)
It goes all the way back to the Book of Genesis:
"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh". (Gen. 2:24)
* * * * *
Pat Robertson, a prominent fundamentalist Christian minister who has previously campaigned for the presidency of the United States, recently told a 700 Club viewer:
"I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s going to do something he should divorce [his wife suffering from Alzheimer's] and start all over again. But to make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her."
Robertson was responding to the query of a man whose wife suffered from the affliction, wondering whether it was morally acceptable to leave his wife.
I am not a deeply religious person, nor am I well versed in Christianity.
But even to me, a "progressive" liberal, Robertson's response seems terribly wrong.
* * * * *
This is an issue that strikes very close to home for me.
Two years ago my own father passed away after a protracted battle with Alzheimer's disease, a struggle which lasted approximately ten years.
For most of those years, my mother acted as his primary caretaker.
Her responsibilities during those years continued to expand.
At first, she helped him to remember things that he had forgotten - names, dates, events.
After a while, she assumed all of the driving responsibility for him - ferrying him to appointments, out to dinner, to see movies, to go swimming.
She also helped to "cover" for his failings, especially around those who he did not wish to know that he was suffering from dementia.
In 2005 I got a call from my father while at work, letting me know that he'd had an 'episode' (stroke) but that everything was going to be okay.
Pregnant and hormonal, I wept to learn of my father's struggle for the first time.
When I learned that he had known of the problem for many years; that my mother had helped him to hide it, I felt angry.
"It wasn't my secret to tell," replied my mother calmly when I confronted her. "Your father asked me not to discuss it."
From that time forward, my father declined steadily and then rapidly. His cognitive function degenerated quite drastically between '05 and '07 to the point that, by the time my second son was born in June 2007, my father was no longer able to function independently and needed round-the-clock assistance.
My mother was not sleeping at night, forced awake every few hours by my father who had regressed into an child-like state; waking with cries, soiling his bed, having terrible nightmares and hallucinations. Soon he needed home nursing care, which was expensive and invaded my mother's privacy.
* * * * *
Through it all, my mother stayed by my father's side.
I don't think any of us - the five children and several spouses - would have blamed her for giving up. Her work to care for Dad was exhausting, not just physically but also mentally.
My mother would weep. "I mourn the man I married," she would cry. "I miss him."
Yet never once, not one time in all those years, did my mother ever suggest divorcing my father to leave him in the hands of a caretaker.
It would never have occurred to her.
"Your father has been so good to me," she would explain to us gently. "I love him very much. He is not the same man I married, but he is still my husband and I am still his wife."
Watching Mom care for Dad at his worst -
This taught me the meaning of true love.
* * * * *
Mom believed that the least she could do, as a loving-loyal-respectful wife, was to honor the man Dad had been (brilliant, kind, handsome, charismatic, funny, political, athletic) by taking the best care of him possible.
To that end, my mother wore her hands to the bone caring for him. At times, we worried that we would lose her first ~ thanks to the stress of the situation.
When my father lost full control over his bodily functions (in addition to the mental clarity which had been gone for quite a while) my mother at last placed him in an assisted living situation close to where we lived.
Wracked with guilt and sorrow over needing to make this choice, Mom visited Dad every single day - devoting her entire day to him. She never missed a day.
Mom would sit for hours by his side, combing his silvery hair and trimming his beard. She helped dress him and bathe him. She talked to him, read to him, held his hand. She sat with him in the dining hall as he ate his (ridiculously expensive) cafeteria style food. She put up with the antics of all of the other patients in the Alzheimer's wing, many of whom were in far worse shape than Dad.
* * * * *
Here is the thing about Alzheimer's that Pat Robertson seems not to know:
Alzheimer's is not a steady decline.
The disease takes people in loops. It goes in fits and starts. They decline. They come back. They decline again.
Some days, I would arrive to visit my father and he would greet me warmly with a hug and kiss.
"Hi honey!" he would say. "It's good to see you! How are your boys?"
Other days, I would arrive to find my father running naked up and down the hallway of his wing, shouting at the nurses and refusing to put his clothes on.
With that kind of illness, you never know what you're going to get.
Some mornings my Dad would wake up and know who he was. He'd know his name, his family history, and how he was related to all of us.
Those were the saddest days for him; my father would weep in despair as he came into brief, fleeting consciousness about what was happening to him.
Yet on those days, Dad needed us the most. "Where is my WIFE?" he would bellow at the nurses. "Call my WIFE! I want to see her!"
The days when he remembered us - when he remembered himself! Those days were precious treasures, rare jewels where we clung to every moment.
"I'm here with Dad," I would telephone my brothers in New York, "and he is pretty lucid today. He'd love to talk with you. I'm putting him on the phone."
* * * * *
I cannot even fathom, not in my wildest nightmares, how awful it would have been for my father to wake up on one of those rare but precious mornings ~
...to discover that his wife was long gone. That he'd been abandoned. Divorced. Left with a caretaker. Declared "dead" by his true love.
The mere idea of it is heartbreaking.
* * * * *
My father passed away in June 2009. For the week leading to his death while he was cared for by Hospice my mother, brothers and sister held vigil by his bedside.
(I was hospitalized, giving birth prematurely to the granddaughter my father would never meet.)
As he lay dying, Dad was surrounded by love.
The woman he had promised to honor, cherish and remain faithful to for all of his days... where was she?
Had she divorced him and left him to start a new life?
No. She sat by his side, praying and weeping and holding his hand.
She loved her husband right until the very end, and she taught all of her kids the meaning of true love by example.
My father was never alone, never abandoned. He died peacefully and I *know* without a doubt that he was conscious of my mother's presence - he wanted her there.
* * * * *
When we choose to marry, we agree to the vows of marriage.
One of those vows says, "In Sickness and in Health".
We don't promise to stay faithful and true, "as long as you stay smart and cute"... or, "as long as I'm still happy with your body."
The whole point of marriage is to bind yourself emotionally, physically, spiritually and legally to be a person's truest partner for life.
My husband is an avid cyclist. One of his close friends says it's a matter of *when* and not *if* my husband will be hit by a car.
I absolutely hate thinking about this, so I don't.
If I got the call today, though, that my husband had been hit by a car and was mentally incapacitated or handicapped ~ would I leave him? Would I forsake him in his hour of need? Would I divorce him to go "start all over again" (as Robertson recommends)?
No.
No.
Never.
* * * * *
I love my husband. I agreed to marry him, to honor him, and to be there for him for the rest of his life. Ups and downs. Ins and outs. Rich and poor. Everything.
Brain damage. Alzheimer's. Whatever.
We live in a society that is so ME-focused. So fixated on having our needs met at all times, as quickly as possible.
Yet true love doesn't work like that.
Marriage doesn't work like that either.
So here is my answer to Reverend Pat Robertson:
Go sit with a couple that has been married for 30 years where one partner suffers from Alzheimer's disease. Stay with them for a week. Watch the kind of pure, full-hearted, innocent love showered by the Alzheimer's patient upon his or her spouse. Witness the devotion of the caretaker spouse to his or her partner. Experience the fleeting highs, the tragic lows. Cry with them.
See for yourself the poignant moments of tenderness that remain between two married lovers, even after all mental and physical strands of their relationship have been withdrawn.
You may learn something about the meaning of marriage.
(This photo (above) was taken during the last six months of my father's life, when he was already 9 years into his battle with Alzheimer's and "long gone" mentally. As anyone can see, my father still deeply loved and cherished his family... even then.)
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