For the last four years, I have been caring for my mom.
On paper, that means dressing her, bathing her, cooking her meals, doing her laundry, managing her medications, driving her to appointments, making phone calls, sending emails, and helping with every detail of daily life. It means carrying the physical, emotional, and spiritual weight of another person’s needs every single day.
And I do it all from a wheelchair.
I don’t say that for pity or praise. It is simply another reminder that God often asks us to carry burdens we never would have chosen. Yet He also provides what we need to bear them. My wheelchair has never disqualified me from loving, serving, or caring for others. If anything, it has taught me that strength often looks different than we expect.
The same God who has sustained me through decades of paralysis has given me the strength to care for my mother too. Some days I feel inadequate, exhausted, and just plain sick of this task, yet somehow He gives me grace for that day.
Nevertheless, caregiving has been one of the hardest things I have ever done.
There have been days filled with resentment. Days when I’ve mourned the money spent, the friendships neglected, the activities missed, the time I couldn’t spend with my husband, children, and grandchildren. Days when exhaustion has brought out parts of me I don’t like, such as impatience, frustration, anger, jealousy, and bitterness.
There have been careless words that slipped out when I was exhausted and overwhelmed, words I wish I could take back. There have been sighs, eye rolls, and frustrated expressions that spoke volumes before I ever said a word. Caregiving has a way of exposing the rough edges of your heart, revealing both your weaknesses and your desperate need for God’s forgiveness and grace. And my mom’s.
But caregiving has also changed me.
I’ve discovered strength I didn’t know I possessed. I’ve learned that love often looks less like grand gestures or extravagant gifts and more like showing up again and again when you’re beyond weary. It’s changing wet bedding for the hundredth time or explaining how to put pants on yet again. It is washing her hair when you haven’t even had time to wash your own. It’s going to work to help her buy groceries. It’s making chicken when you’d rather eat Frosted Flakes.
It’s sitting through the same conversation for the fiftieth time and answering with patience anyway. It’s playing along when she insists it’s Christmas but it’s really July. It’s giving up comfort, convenience, and pieces of yourself so someone else can feel safe, cared for, and loved.
Love, I’ve learned, is rarely glamorous. More often, it’s gritty and ordinary, found in the messy, repetitive moments that no one applauds and few people ever see. It’s the kind of love that rolls up its sleeves, keeps showing up, and does the hard things anyway. And I believe God sees every single one of those moments.
I’ve grieved the loss of my mom while she’s still here, which is a peculiar kind of sorrow. It’s mourning someone you can still talk to, still sit beside, while knowing so much of who they once were is slowly slipping away. The woman who raised me is now hidden behind layers of disease. Yet every so often, I catch a glimpse of her. The familiar smile, a quick-witted (sassy) comment, a shared memory, a look that says she knows exactly who I am. For a moment, it’s my mom again. Then the fog settles back in, and I find myself seeing her blank stare and grieving all over again. Those glimpses are both a gift and a heartbreak, reminding me of who she was, even while she’s sitting right beside me.
Parkinson’s and dementia are cruel thieves. They steal memories, independence, confidence, dignity, and so much more. They have transformed my once capable, do-anything mother into someone frail, frightened, and extremely dependent on others.
Tonight, she is lying alone in a hospital bed.
After collapsing from dangerously low blood pressure and stopping breathing, she was admitted to the hospital. In the early hours of this morning, the hospital called to tell us she has possibly suffered a stroke. And I cannot be at her bedside. I’m home caring for my four-year-old granddaughter so her parents could get a much needed 10th anniversary getaway after a hard year. My body is drowsy with muscle relaxers for my own paralysis, as I wait for morning when I can safely get to the hospital.
The helplessness is unbearable.
Part of me wants to beg God to leave her here. Another part wants to beg Him to take her home. She hates this disease and everything it has stolen from her. I long for her to be healthy, whole, and free in the presence of Jesus.
But she’s my mom.
And no matter how exhausting caregiving has been, no matter how much I’ve struggled, I can’t imagine a world without her in it.
Caregiving is a strange and painful calling because it forces you to feel everything so deeply. Fear, frustration, compassion, grief, anger, and guilt.
But underneath all of it, beneath every difficult day and every tear-filled night, is the thing that keeps us going.
Love.
And sometimes love hurts this much because it mattered this much.
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A special note of gratitude to Thelma.
There are simply not enough words to express my gratitude for the way you have loved my mom, your dear Louise. You have cared for her with tenderness, dignity, patience, and compassion, seeing not just her needs but her heart. You see the woman she has always been, even as disease tries to hide her from the rest of us.
On one of the most frightening days of our lives, you were the one holding her when she stopped breathing. I will never forget the sound of your weeping as you thought you were losing your friend, nor the gentle way you lowered her to the bed and cared for her alone in those terrifying moments while I ran to call 911. That image will stay with me forever.
You have loved my mother as your own, and you have carried part of this burden with a grace that reflects the heart of Christ. Your servant’s heart, your faithfulness, and your willingness to care for others are nothing short of beautiful. Thank you for seeing my mom’s soul and loving her so well.
Just Differently Abled 