August 2010

Chalk this one up as a caregiver’s answered prayer.

I just spent some time with parents and it was revealing in many ways. My dad, as I’ve mentioned, suffers from a heavy burden of ailments that leave him in tremendous pain—arthritis, spinal stenosis, neuropathy and all the indignities of a body that’s giving up on him. We talk on the phone regularly but it’s hard from long distance to know how he’s doing. Mom’s the primary caregiver and I worry as much about her as I do about him.

Sometimes I need to say a prayer and I have hardly the time to say it. Here’s some inspiration for times like that. Maybe I should call these “on-the-go” prayers.

Print ‘em out. Cut ‘em out. Put ‘em in your pocket. Pray them on the fly. You don’t need to even say the exact words. Just use them to connect.

Oh Lord, never suffer us to think that we can stand by ourselves, and not need thee.
—John Donne (1572-1631)

Carol and I were back at church this Sunday after the vacation, back sitting together, back seeing friends, back singing together—I always like it when she reaches for the descant—back praying together. 

I just had this op-ed piece about recovering from open-heart surgery in the New York Times and one of the things that happened almost immediately was a flurry of emails from people who’d had the same operation or would soon have similar operations, most of them complete strangers, and they wanted some reassurance or advice.

Do you hold hands in your family during grace?

I’ve just spent a week at the beach with my extended family—nieces, nephews, siblings, sibling-in-laws, kids, amazing caregiver Mom and indomitable Dad—and every night at dinner we’ve said grace. Somebody said grace. My dad’s graces are famous for their rambling informative everything-but-the-kitchen-sink quality. Friends used to call them “the six o’clock news.” But my wonderful brothers-in-law can hold their own.