True Love's Inspirational Prayer

By Betty Seagle Lawing, Morgantown, North Carolina

As appeared in

My husband shook his head stubborn­ly. “I’m not going,” he declared.

“But, Gene, the doctor is ex­pecting us for your checkup,” I said.

I finally cajoled Gene to get into the car, but he glared at me the whole drive over.

I couldn’t fault Gene. Alz­heimer’s had made him this way—confused and argumentative, nothing like the husband I had known and loved for 58 years. The man I could talk to for hours, who never let a day go by without telling me that he loved me, not always with words but with a romantic gesture like a red rose chosen carefully from the garden. The man with whom I had shared a lifetime.

When we got to Gene’s appointment, the doctor took blood and gave Gene his checkup. But there was little that medical science could do about the real problem. The man I loved was slipping away, as if disappearing into some fog where I could not follow.

Gene lay down for a nap when we got back to the house. Now he’ll be up until the wee hours of the morning, I thought. I felt guilty about my impatience, but it was hard caring for someone who might as well have been a cantankerous stranger. Does he even remember who I am? I wondered.

I went to the kitchen to wash the breakfast dishes. My eyes fell on the empty vase sitting on the windowsill, the vase that had always held a red rose from Gene. Lord, I prayed, I miss my husband. Is Gene in that body anywhere?

At bedtime Gene put on a suit and announced that he was going home—he didn’t recognize our house. I finally got him to bed, but lay awake myself, thinking about our life together. Does a man who loses his memories lose the love those memories held?

Next morning in the kitchen as I reached for the coffee maker I saw a flash of red on the windowsill.

Is that…? Yes! The little vase held a bright red rose. I had to touch its petals to believe it was real.

I wasn’t sure how or when, but I knew for certain that rose came from my loving husband, Gene, and from a God who never stops showing his love for us.