Messy Motivations

     Sarah and I did something difficult and necessary this week. We signed a contract to place my mother in a personal care facility.

     I am of (at least) two minds about this decision. I feel strongly that it is the right way to go at this point in my mom’s life. Her Alzheimer’s Disease has advanced to the point that she has trouble retaining memories for even short periods. She seems unable to make the most basic decisions—she becomes almost paralyzed by the task of choosing clothes to wear, for instance. Plus, at her age and in her condition she doesn’t need to be navigating seventeen stairs multiple times a day. Getting her into a facility where she has consistent professional care will be good for her, and it will take a heavy load off of us, especially Sarah, who has her own health concerns to deal with.

     Having said all that, however, I still can’t help feeling that this is a sort of betrayal. Aren’t family members supposed to take care of each other? Is it wrong to hand her over to professional strangers instead of continuing to care for her at home? And what is my real motivation? Am I doing this strictly for her benefit, or is there not a feeling of relief that goes beyond simple concern for my mom’s welfare that I feel washing over me with an accompanying wave of guilt?

     I know I am not the first person to struggle with these decisions and questions. Many of you reading this have already had to deal with aging parents or spouses and have had to make difficult decisions fraught with complex, mixed feelings. I’m not special in that sense. But this is the only parent I have who has come to this pass (my father died suddenly of a heart attack just before he was to turn seventy, back in 2007). I have witnessed my mothers’ slow decline, her changing personality, and her growing frailty with feelings of loss, preemptive grief, and some unreasonable anger. I want to be a good son, and I want the decisions I make to be pure and motivated only by love.

     But that’s the thing about us humans: we are messy. Our decisions and deliberations are complicated, and we have all sorts of conflicting feelings that make us doubt that we are doing what we do for the right reasons. It may be true that pure altruism is not possible—there is always an element of self-interest in the things we do for others. Even if it’s only because we get a good feeling when we offer help to another person, there is that element that resists pure self-sacrifice. Even Jesus, I am sure, found satisfaction in following God’s will when he went to the cross. The writer of Hebrews says that “for the sake of the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2). Jesus trusted in the reality of that joy, and it sustained him in his time of sacrifice. Maybe we can learn from him to find joy in obedience and to let the messiness of our motivations be what it is without dissecting it too much.

     Anyway, please pray for my mom Doris as she makes what will probably be a bewildering transition in the coming days. And pray for Sarah and me as we do what needs to be done, messy motivations and all.