My 91-year-old mother with dementia chopped down my rose bush. It all happened 1 ½ years ago. I was upstairs writing on my computer, and I went downstairs to get some water. I noticed my mother was standing very still behind the red rose bush, very still. It was obvious she was hiding from me. Like a child who stands behind a tree that is too narrow for them, she looked suspicious. She was up to something, and she didn’t want me to see her. It was Fall and the rose bush was not as full as it used to be. I could plainly see her. I stepped out onto the patio and stood there with my hands on my hips looking at her with the face of a mother. She was caught. I glanced at the ground and saw the branches lopped off and thrown in a large pile on the grass. I observed she wasn’t wearing any gloves and her fingers were pricked from the amply armed stems.
It was then I knew. She wasn’t forgetting what I had told her several times before, “Do not cut the rose bushes”. Oh no, she was willfully doing this. But why? When I asked her why she did it, she said, “it was in the way”. It wasn’t in the way of anything. One could easily see the beautiful view of the lake behind her; one could easily walk by the rose bush. She slowly shuffled into the house with a forlorn face, knowing she was discovered. I assumed the beautiful rose bush would never be the same again. As so I stood by the kitchen sink, glancing at the butchered rose bush.
I silently cried as I began to recall all the other things she had destroyed over the years. She had secretly crept into my bathroom, gathered up our clothes and washed them, all colors and fabric types thrown in together (over and over again). Some of my clothes changed color while others shrunk, ruined. My husband will never forget she washed his wool sweater, and it was now the size a child could wear. There was the time she washed cushions and they shrunk. The time she scrubbed our white stove and took the paint off. The time we found her literally pulling up our expensive grass for no reason. There was so much more. It’s interesting in her diminishing mind, she thought she was helping. It’s hard for me to forgive immediately, for me it takes time. It’s difficult to forget and to just “let it go.” But forgiveness is at the heart of God’s character, and it’s the key to healing and freedom.
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32
Dementia is a battle that cannot be won. It’s a progressive deterioration of the mind where memories, time, and reality become a messy blur. The ebb and flow between cherished childhood memories and a blank stare. It exhibits a sort of confused madness. It’s watching a mind unravel, unable to retrieve thoughts, words, and names and if a thought does appear, they will not be able to speak it. It is a thief that sneaks in and steals recollections of one’s life story, of family and friends they once knew and loved. It is erasing all the beloved homes and cherished cities where they once lived. Along with a damaged mind that will never heal, they experience a rapid decline of their body which no longer functions on this earth. They have lost muscle mass and strength, and there is a silent yearning for a younger body again. As dementia progresses, they lean into a complete dependency on others to cook meals for them, bathe them, change their diapers, choose their clothes, dress them, sit them up, help them stand, give them meds, and get their old, tired body where it needs to go. This my friend is dementia.
My mother has never known anything about gardening, pruning, or rose bushes, nor has had a passion it. Just a short year ago, she loved the outdoors, that’s where you would find her. After some research, I learned we have Knock Out® Roses and they can triple in size after cutting them back. Well, the rose bush more than tripled (as you can see from the photo).
Today, mom is on in-home hospice and cannot get up, stand, walk, and can barely say a few words that are intelligible. Sadly, she is bed-bound and chair-bound. If you peer into our living room where she sits every day, you’ll see a vase full of fresh flowers. Only God knows how long I’ll see her smiling at me and at the vase of flowers. But as I look back, pruning the rose bush actually made it more beautiful. How could I have been so angry?
“For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” James 1:20