A January Bride by Deborah Raney

Author:Deborah Raney
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2014-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Ginny phoned early Tuesday morning to say she’d been asked to help with a funeral dinner at church, and that Arthur Tyler’s chicken soup would have to wait a day. Grateful for the reprieve, Maddie spent the morning at home doing laundry and tidying up the house as best she could with the flooring guys in the kitchen.

The housework done, she called her editor in New York to discuss some questions that had come up as she wrote. Janice was talkative and enthusiastic, and Maddie hung up feeling encouraged. It was rather nice to take a day off from writing. Her story still perked quietly in the background, and she had a feeling that when she got back to her computer the words would flow.

She spent the afternoon sitting with her mother in the nursing home’s large sunroom. Maddie had brought her mother’s Bible and read quietly to her from the worn volume. She didn’t know if Mom understood or even heard the words anymore, but Maddie had discovered the Scriptures often seemed to calm her mother’s restlessness. And her own, as well.

She read aloud from 1 Corinthians 13. “ ‘But when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known.’ ”

Was this how it was for Mom? Seeing the world as if through a dim mirror? Yet the passage wasn’t written only for people with dementia. Maddie’s own vision was dark compared to what it would be when she saw Jesus face-to-face. Mom’s mind had been ravaged by a horrible disease, yet her spirit waited for release, waited to soar to her Savior. It was an amazing thought.

She closed the Bible and patted her mother’s cold hand. “I love you, Mom.”

They sat together in silence for a long while, and Maddie tried to enjoy simply being in her mother’s presence.

Shortly before five, a white-uniformed nurse’s aide appeared in the wide doorway. “Mrs. Houser? Are you ready to go to the dining room?”

Mom fingered the crocheted hem of her sweater, not looking up. Maddie put a hand gently on her arm. “Mom, it’s time for dinner. Shall we go to the dining room?” Her mother looked into her eyes but no recognition lit her gaze. Maddie dismissed the nurse’s aide with a little wave. “I’ll walk down with her.”

Taking the frail hands in hers, she stood and gently pulled her mother up beside her. Maddie attempted to match the shuffling gait Alzheimer’s had bestowed, and together they started down the long corridor.

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