The Slow Hello

I am calling about your father,” said the voice over the phone.

Immediately, I worried he had died.

The adult protective services worker went on to tell me he had been hospitalized after being found at home, emaciated and abused.

Because I was his only relative, the decision was mine as to where he would go next. My initial reaction was an immense inner struggle.

It felt unfair to finally have a chance to be reconnected, only to have it happen so near the end of his broken life. My father and I had not lived under the same roof since I was four. Alienated from me for decades at a time, he could not give me what he had never received. Suddenly, I was presented with the opportunity to give him what he had never been able to give me. My husband and I agreed to take this stranger in.

Although I had forgiven him years ago, it remained a challenge to accept him as my father. But Jesus was calling me to a deeper level of reconciliation.

Dementia had erased me from my father’s memory.

I sat with him often at first, willing him to understand the word daughter. He would tell me, “We met in the supermarket.” Although he would smile a toothless “Good morning!” every time he saw me, he would repeat it again five minutes later as if seeing me for the first time. Gradually, our relationship began to grow. Once when my husband could not get him to take a shower, my father begrudgingly acquiesced, “I will do it for the lady.” As I became acquainted with this man, I was surprised that dementia had made him mellow.

His favorite food is bananas, yet he never fails to offer me half.

I noticed how sensitive his spirit is, in spite of his muddled mind—he cries each time we play worship music or pray. Surprisingly, I have also discovered we have things in common, like an interest in maps. Dementia has been called the slow goodbye.

In my case, these last two years have been the slow hello as I have begun to know my father. God will go to great lengths to restore relationships.

Is there a relationship God wants to restore in your life? His grace is available to help us walk that road.

Lisa DeGraw