Finding Our Way

Ten years ago today, I sat alone at the Emory Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, waiting for Dale to emerge from the room where he had been taken for cognitive testing. My heart dropped when I saw him walk toward me. He looked shaken. Defeated. I had never seen him that way. He composed himself a little as he sat down beside me, saying, “I never did well on tests like that.”

We had wanted to know.

And soon we did know: Dale had the same disease that had taken the lives of his father and brother.

Learning the diagnosis early enabled us to enter a clinical trial and motivated us to move to a retirement community.

But the news also shook me to the core. I felt as if we had suddenly been dislodged from familiar land and were floating out to sea. No oars. No compass. Adrift.

Similar feelings would wash over me with each change. What do I do? What’s next?? I wanted to know, to be able to see ahead, to understand. I read everything I could find that might enable us to chart our course.

What I learned was helpful. With every new sign of the disease, it became easier for me to imagine broken connections in the brain and respond with compassion. But there was a frantic nature to my quest…as if learning could somehow stem the tide of the disease…as if knowing would be our salvation.

In these early days, a friend said calmly, “We’ll be in the boat with you.” Those reassuring words were followed by regular calls and visits. Other friends and our family members reached out with similar words and actions.

It is this kind of knowing that has sustained us. Heart knowing. An awareness of need followed by a loving response.

There is no way to count the many acts of kindness we have received these last ten years. So many people have reached out with caring hearts, saying, “we are with you” through notes, calls, visits, shared memories, tears, and laughter. I picture them as lights on our path…buoys on rough seas…outstretched hands as we run this marathon.

Heart knowing uplifts. Provides hope. Helps me know that while there is a disease ravaging Dale’s brain, he is still here. Assures us that we are not traveling alone.

This is the kind of knowing that fills our hearts with gratitude, sustains us on our way, and is the compass for the journey.

“Love never ends.
But as for prophecies, they will come to an end;
as for tongues, they will cease;
as for knowledge, it will come to an end…
And now, faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
I Corinthians 13: 8, 13