Saturday night Matt and I had an in-home date night. He treated me to a special three course homemade meal which I didn't have to prepare. He made Caesar salad, french onion soup, and ice cream with chocolate sauce. Matt cooked the soup in our crockpot in the oven for three hours. It was very authentic--smooth and mellow tasting, yummy indeed. I provided a bottle of Cabernet and the movie. The meal was great; the movie was okay.
We watched "Away from Her" from Netflix. It starred Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent as a senior married couple who have been together for 44 years. The wife is diagnosed with Alzheimer's and she decides that she needs to check herself in to a residential care facility. The husband is very reluctant to let her go, but she insists that it is what she needs. After the policy-enforced no visitors for the first month, the husband goes to visit her and she's completely forgotten who he is and has attached herself to another male patient. It was a sad movie to watch but interesting. The husband did find a way to still love his wife from afar and to find new happiness for himself. My dear, devoted husband found the movie very upsetting. I thought the movie was good. It made me realize again that we truly need to cherish each day we have with our loved ones because we have no guarantees of what the future holds. We can plan and save for the future but we also need to enjoy the present because that's all we really have.
Monday, January 12, 2009
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4 comments:
ooohhh That was "On Demand" on cable about a year ago. I agree with Matt, it was upsetting, and very tough to watch! And yet, I felt it was a good movie. It really gets you thinking about some things!
Alzheimer's is a cruel and terrifying disease. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
Theodicy helps us understand why God allows other kinds of diseases like cancer and related suffering, but I have yet to read any work which purports to solve the mystery of why God would allow mankind made in His image to be afflicted with Alzheimer's.
I would rather live to be just 50 or 60 and die with my wits intact than live to be 75 or 80 and die a long, agonizing, and lonely death in some dark, forgotten corner of a nursing home.
Thomas: I agree with you. But you do know that you'll have a devoted efficient nurse by your side!
My father died from Alzheimer's a couple years ago and he had a peaceful happy death. God was entirely there. Dad was still able to receive Communion because he had the requisite [childlike] knowledge: it was Jesus Christ. In fact, it was his last supper on earth. God may have allowed my father to have that disease so that my mother could see Christ in him and care for him; or to allow my intellectual father to know Christ as a child does; or to let us children follow the scripture of loving our father, even though his mind fail, to honor God the Father. And it was just fine that he lived to be 77 and not die at 50 as you suggest. He was able to play with my young son as a peer.
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