By a Not Yet Old Mom.
For the Health and Happiness of my Children.
This was written by Verdell Davis of One Hope Ministries on the her 60th birthday. I did not write it but I wish I did. To my sweet daughters, I hope you read this as if I wrote it directly for you~
It’s my birthday. On this day, being of sound mind, the soundness of which is always debatable, but while I am thinking clearly enough to write these words, I write to you about…
SOMEDAY WHEN I AM OLD, I mean really old…certainly older than SIXTY…unless, of course, I die before I have a chance to get old…but Someday When I Am Old, I may become quite difficult. While I hope I will age gracefully and pleasantly, none of us can know how illness or injury or pain will impact our lives. I cannot know if dementia will one day control my thinking.
Or if loneliness will drive me to expect more of you than you can give. So, just in case that difficult me should arise someday when I am old, I want to prepare you – and release you from thinking your job is to keep me happy.
I may lash out at the people who love me most in an attempt to get someone to give me back my life! But, you who love me most, that’s not your job. I may not have the capacity of acceptance, but you will. Accept that someday when I am old, I will be old. And with old comes unwelcome changes.
NO ONE CAN PUT LIFE BACK THE WAY IT WAS.
DON’T TRY.
Ask God to help you know the line to walk between touching me with your loving care and living your own life. DO NOT let caring for me make you old before your time! Your family, your calling in life, your commitments, your spiritual journey, your health and well-being MUST NOT be neglected. Your tendency will be to overdo for me. Please don’t. Practice what I have learned to call “detachment without abandonment.”
I may refuse to take my pills. I may complain when I should be saying “Thank you.” I may think someone, or everyone, is out to get me. I may become obsessive over the strangest of things and demand something my way or else! Trust your wisdom, do what you must, and understand that my demands are coming from a place I can’t control.
Find the care I need and don’t put it on yourself, even if I beg you to “keep me.” Make the decisions the old me should not be making, and do not feel guilty for one moment. Feel free to laugh with each other at the ridiculous things I do – it will the make the ridiculous more bearable.
I just might not know you. The thought of that makes me cry. But at that moment, I likely won’t feel the pain. You will. So I say to you now: in the deepest core of my being, NOTHING can erase my eternal memory of you or take away how much I love you. The old in me may short- circuit my brain, but it can never damage my heart of hearts.
Written with Love from your mom, who is not yet old.
(Originally written for my three children as a gift for them on MY 60th Birthday) by Verdell Davis of One Hope Ministries
Thank you Verdell! I am so glad I found this, for my own peace and for my daughters. May they pass it on!
