With you always

I thought the old couple in the back seat were eating their roastbeef and slurping their milkshakes, mindless of the discussion between Asherel and me.
"Where did the music go?" I asked her.
"My battery died. Why don't you have a CD player in this car anyway? And a better radio?"
"I don't know," I sighed, "We are in it all the time. It would be nice to have one. Maybe you should mention this to Dad. After all, Mother's Day is coming up...."

Evelyn burst our laughing in the back seat.
"Oh, you heard me conniving for a Mother's Day gift, did you Evelyn?" I said, glancing in the mirror.
"Yes," she chuckled.
"Did you ever plot ways to get a Mother's Day gift?"
"Oh yes!" she said.
"Hey Comer, did you always get her the gift she hinted after?"
"Hinted or told me, she got everything she wanted. She and my daughter both. Whatever they wanted they got."
"Did they appreciate it?"
"Probably not," he said, squeezing Evelyn's hand.
"You're a good man, Comer," I said.
"He is a good man," agreed Evelyn.
"Well I'm just glad I had the money," continued Comer, "The day I got out of the army, I had a $100 bucks."
"But that was a lot of money back then, right?"
"Yea, but I blew it all before the next morning."
"On what!?"
"Oh you know, wine, women, and song."
"Did you know Evelyn yet?"
"Oh no, I didn't meet her for another 3 years."
"Good thing, Evelyn, you might not have liked him then."
"You're right about that. I think I did about the fastest turn-around of anyone in history. I walked out of there without a penny in my pocket to my brother's house, got a job, and worked my way up."
He started the first office of a small brokerage/insurance firm in the city and after expanding 3 times, he was well on his way to becoming a millionaire.


I had collected my old friends from their new Senior Care facility. The memories of the old place, being apart in separate buildings, poor Evelyn crying every time he sadly walked away to return to his place were already receding. They were sitting together on the lovely lobby couch, holding hands, both dressed elegantly. When Evelyn saw me, I could tell by the bright smile and joyful reaching out to me that she knew me. It almost seemed like in this new place, Alzheimer was retreating.
She stood up quickly, none of the shuffling painfulness of a week ago evident, and walked quickly to the car.
"You're leaving me in the dust, Mother!" called Comer.
We had driven to Lake Wylie, with a stop first at Arbys for the roast beef they'd been longing for.
On the way, Comer told me he had been needing a switch for his lamp, and a small hammer. I stopped at Lowes Building Supplies, leaving Evelyn in the car with Asherel.

"You stay here with Asherel," I urged her, "Will that be ok?"
"Oh yes," she said, smiling at Asherel.

As we drove home after meandering along the lake shore, Evelyn said, "This is such an interesting city, all these parts."
I knew enough about Alzheimers and Evelyn's echo-ing of words to know that word retrieval was sometimes impossible. She may know at times what she wants to say, but often the crumbles in her brain won't let her travel to the place where words come easily. This alert and spontaneous sentence was a little victory.

When I returned our old friends to the home, there were none of those torturous bouts of weeping that broke both my and Comer's heart. Evelyn and Comer went to his room, where they would spend the day together.
"I'm so happy to have this little hammer!" said Comer, holding up the Lowes bag.
"You watch him, Evelyn," I said, ""Don't let him knock the wall over."
"I won't," she said, laughing.

I took her hands and said, "We can go wherever you want next week, do anything you like, see anything you would like to see. What would you like to see?"
Without pause she said, "Asherel!"
"Ok," I said hugging her and Comer, "Then I will bring Asherel."

Later when I told Asherel what Evelyn had said, she mused, "But I didn't do anything. I just sat here."
That sometimes is all it takes. Just being there alongside a fellow traveler. As I left Comer and Evelyn together in his new room, hers just down the hall, I knew that was something this sweet old couple knew deeply in their souls.

Psalm 73:23

 ²³ Yet I am always with you;
   you hold me by my right hand.

Alone

Troubles and concerns always have a way of making me feel alone, a sock in a world of socks. There are always loving friends and family that yearn to help, but ultimately, struggles are often fought in the confines of our own hearts. There are some things that just can't be conquered by committee.

Tomorrow is Passover. We are Jewish, but believe that the Messiah came and is Yeshua, Jesus. So we celebrate Passover with the richness of its symbolism and tradition, but also with some twists the typical Jewish family might not add.

One of my favorite parts is when the matzo is placed in a special cloth with three compartments. Two whole pieces are placed on the top and bottom slot, but the third piece is broken in half, and one half is hidden somewhere in the house. That piece called the "afikomen" is left hidden til the end of the Passover Seder, and the children are then sent to find it, and return it, usually for some reward. There are many interesting things about this tradition. First of all, afikomen is a Greek word, strangely suspended in a Hebrew ceremony. It means "that which is coming" or "he that is coming". Jewish tradition is conflicting on the meaning of the 3 pieces of Matzo and on the Afikomen, which in and of itself is rather amazing given the intense symbolism of the whole Seder which in every other aspect is clearly explained within the Seder "haggadah" or guide.

However, we look at the three matzoh pieces as the three parts of the trinity, and the afikomen, which is broken, but then returned as the broken sacrificial lamb, Jesus. With His return, comes reward. As I was thinking about "aloneness", I thought about Jesus, right before He was crucified, asking His disciples to stay awake with Him. They could not, and ultimately Jesus had to face those terrifying thoughts and lonely dark hours alone.

Yet the Passover Seder is a reminder to a people, to a nation that they will be rescued, their sins are ransomed by the sacrificial Passover lamb, and they will stand together someday redeemed. It is a celebration of togetherness and memorial to the history of a people who together struggled and suffered with a hope of a better future.

I think probably God does need to get each of us alone at times, and those are often hard times. But in the end, I think we will all gather together, voices rising in song together, spirits blending in joy together, made one by "he who is to come".

Psalm 118:25-27

²⁵ O LORD, save us;
O LORD, grant us success.

²⁶ Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.
From the house of the LORD we bless you. ^a]">[a]

²⁷ The LORD is God,
and he has made his light shine upon us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
up ^b]">[b] to the horns of the altar.