Category: Grief

When my Dad was diagnosed with vascular dementia, my Mom’s life changed forever. One day she called me in tears. She was convinced that my Dad no longer trusted her. Dad had been going through her purse and searching through closets and drawers. He had never done that in all their years of marriage. 

I called my Dad’s doctor and asked him about Dad’s behavior. He told me that often people with dementia or Alzheimer’s start rummaging. They start searching through everything because they know they have lost something but don’t know what it is. The behavior can be very upsetting for family members. Oxford Languages defines rummaging as “search unsystematically and untidily”. 

It was time to have lunch with Mom. We needed to talk. I told her she had to separate her life with Dad before he became sick and her life after he was ill. I told her that everything new and different Dad did that was not characteristic of her life with him; she was to assume it was his illness causing it.

Dad did not have a sudden character change; he still loved and trusted her. His illness was blocking the faithful husband from showing who he was.   His condition was speaking through his behavior. The sickness had stolen Dad’s character.

My Mom found this very difficult to do. She took it personally, his new behaviors. How she longed for the man she had known for so many years and grieved his loss. Through his years of illness, I reminded my Mom often that she was not seeing and hearing her husband; she was seeing and hearing a disease.

Dad’s illness progressed, and we finally had to put him in a nursing home when he tried to pour scalding water on my Mom one day. That was not Dad!

When I visited my Dad, I had to remind myself of what I told Mom. Dementia affected the anger part of his brain. He became an angry man. My Dad had always been a gentleman and soft-spoken – that was my real Dad. The disease that spoke out of him changed him into a man I didn’t know. On one visit, he told me, “I am going to get you real good.” He threatened me so violently that it made me afraid. 

I was thinking this week of how so many angry people are in the world. Perhaps they are rummaging. Maybe they are searching for something they lost but don’t know what it is or don’t even know they are searching.

Humanity lost living in God’s presence and got separated from our Father. What a loss! So we search for peace and belonging in wealth, drugs, alcohol, adventures, and more. Each time we gain what we think will fill that void; it lets us down. Perhaps that makes people more angry in this generation than I have seen before. Maybe we have become a world of rummagers. As time passes, the disease progresses, and the more angry people become.

The disease of sin has distorted our ability to see the true character of God – LOVE! People tell so many lies that most people don’t know who God is. Many misunderstand God’s nature if the Bible is read out of context. Misunderstandings are made if the culture of Bible times and history are not considered in the interpretation.

Another huge misunderstanding is if the Bible is read with a mind that does not understand the character of God. Jesus showed the true nature of God. He is true love. 

Dementia and Alzheimer’s don’t have a cure, but our spiritual rummaging does have a cure.

Ask yourself:

• Am I searching for something?
• What am I searching for? (Example:  peace, acceptance, love, grace)
• Where can I find it?
• Is there truly a God who loves me and accepts me?
• Can I stop rummaging and rest?
• How can I stop rummaging?

If you don’t believe in God, then do me a favor. Please say this to God –

“God, I don’t believe in You. There is no God, BUT IF you are real, prove it to me.”

Then go on with your life. Let people know if you ever suddenly discover there is a God. Let people know if you find out that He is not an angry, mean God but one who loves you. 

1 John 4:16 (NCV) And so we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love. God is love. Those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

© Esther Bliss 2023