The aging generation is growing fast in the United States today. With good health care, the baby boomers are living longer and for the most part living better than the generations before them. But with age, comes difficulties and needs. Many more of the elderly are living with and developing dementia and Alzheimer’s. As they do, families are finding it more and more difficult to answer the call of Christ to honor and care for our parents. It’s an enormous and tiring task.
There are not many weeks that go by that we are not asked by family members to help in caring for their aging family members. At Orchard Hill we have more than 30 persons on the shut-in list – a few of them over the age of 100! Bev Buikema, our visitation elder, is faithful in visiting and serving communion to these unseen members of our family, but family members also need our support and care. There is a generation out there that are raising children and caring for aging parents all at the same time.
How as a church are we to respond? First, we can’t forget the unseen. We must hold all life as having value and these aging members, even in the end stages of dementia, when they don’t even remember who or what Orchard Hill is, need our support and love. A visit of 10 or 15 minutes is the best gift and can make someone’s day. A card, just to let someone know they are not forgotten is prized. A commitment to visit and maybe do crafts or look at pictures can bring joy in a day of never ending boredom.
Second, listen and care for the family members caring for aging parents. Pray with them, hear their frustrations and anxieties about how best to care, and help them search for communities of support and possible ways that they could receive respite.
We all are aging and with medical care continuing to get better and better many of us will need to be cared for. My grandmother used to say, “Once a man, twice a child” and this is becoming truer now than at any other time in history. Someday, (soon) it will be my turn and how will I want to be cared for? I better model it now for the generation that comes behind me for they are ones who will care for me.
Pastor Kathy Bartels
