Handling Our Emotions

Guilt

No matter how much we love our aging parents, we can never do enough. Guilt, whether fact or fantasy, will be a part of our emotions. Can this guilt be forgiven? Can we forgive ourselves?

As I look back upon our experiences with aging parents, I realize guilt could have become a demon to haunt us and a club to cripple us.

   Guilt comes in many packages, individually wrapped for each of us. In our case, I can identify four reasons for the guilt that we had to handle.

Guilt from decision

When my mother's leukemia advanced into the acute state, she entered the hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan, for the last time. I called her doctor from Seattle, Washington, to ask if I should fly immediately to her side. He responded by saying that he did not expect imminent death but would keep me posted on her condition with the assurance that I would have time to make the flight.

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   Later that evening, I received another long-distance telephone call from the nurse who was attending my mother. She reported that her bedside experience with leukemia patients gave her reasons to believe that Mom would die before the night was over. The conflict between the professional opinion of the doctor and the personal experience of the nurse tore at my emotions. If Mom should die, I wanted to be at her bedside. If she continued to survive for days, I had the pressures of long-standing commitments for year-end ceremonies at the University. I decided to accept the doctor's opinion and wait through the night.

   Hindsight says that I should have followed the heart of the nurse rather than the head of the doctor. Mom died in the night, and I felt the guilt of failure as her only son. If I had to do it over, I would have delegated my presidential duties and taken the "red-eye-special" across the continent to be with her.

Guilt by transfer

My father's heart attack left him "brain dead" in Sarasota, Florida. In his case, the doctor urged me to remain in Seattle until the weekend because he could give no hope for my father's recovery. Again, I accepted the doctor's professional judgment.

   Dad's youngest sister, however, flew from Phoenix, Arizona, to Florida the moment she heard the news. Arriving in Sarasota, she went to the hospital and found him in an agitated state with his eyes rolling and his arms failing against the restraining straps. After he calmed down, she tried desperately to communicate with him by speaking family names and familiar words. Occasionally an involuntary movement gave her hope, but in the end, all of her efforts proved futile. Late that night, she called me on the telephone to report on her visit. Speaking through tears, she drove a stake into my heart: "I am convinced that he is waiting for you to come," she said. "That's why he is so restless. If you spoke to him I know that he would respond."

   As Dad's only son who felt estranged from him for fifteen years and then experienced the joy of reconciliation just before his heart

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attack, my vulnerability was laid bare. Of course, I hurried up my schedule, took the "red-eye" from Seattle to Sarasota, and went directly to my father. Alone with him, I whispered my name, recited "The McKenna Psalm," and sang "Jesus Loves Me." The doctor was right. Dad showed no sign of human consciousness. My guilt turned to anger, and I kicked the wall as I left the room.

Guilt from delay

Five years later, Janet's ninety-one-year-old father fell and broke his back. After a long period in the nursing home, it became obvious that he would not recover. Finally, the doctor ordered him into the hospital, where he lingered for several days. Janet followed his condition daily by telephone calls to her brother. He assured her that he would call if Dad took a turn for the worse. Ironically, the same pastor who had called three years earlier to urge us to move Dad and Mom Voorheis from their home before they hurt themselves called again. This time he urged Janet to come to her father because he saw life ebbing away. She already had her suitcase packed, but with children still at home she had to take another day to arrange for meals and appointments. Dad died just hours before she arrived.

Guilt from regret

Two years after her father's death, Janet confessed that she hid within herself the guilt of not being with him when he died. The confession came out when she talked with me about her dream of having Mom Voorheis live with us if Dad died first. She and her mother especially enjoyed shopping together. Janet anticipated serving her mother full-time and taking her to the mall or an afternoon of bargain hunting. By the time Dad died, however, senility had already taken its toll upon Mom. Her lifetime love for shopping disappeared along with her loss of recognition for friends and relatives, including her daughter. In her moment of confession Janet spoke her regret, "Perhaps I could have done more to help Mom with the stress of caring for Dad."

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Our Natural Ambivalence

We cannot escape guilt in caring for our aging parents. No matter how much we try to do for them, it is never enough. Part of the problem is the tension between their needs and our needs. As aging parents require more and more care, we must give up time, money, and energy that would have been used to meet our own needs. Ideally, we might say that Christian love for our aging parents is an "unlimited liability" without boundaries or conditions. Realistically, however, we bump into boundaries and confront conditions that require choices and cause guilt.

   In Robert Wuthnow's book Acts of Compassion, he notes that our desire to show compassion for others often conflicts with our need for self-fulfillment.¹ An example might be a daughter who defers on a graduate degree in her profession in order to care for an aging parent. Or, in our particular case, we felt conflicting pressures to care for our parents and fulfill God's calling to presidencies in Christian higher education. More often than not, we must try to balance these conflicting demands on the fulcrum of our motives. When Janet concluded that she could not bring her mother to live permanently with us, her love for her mother did not diminish. In fact, I would argue that she loved her more because she gave up her own desire for the sake of Mom's safety and security. If she had insisted on caring for her mother at the expense of her family and our ministry, her guilt would have been compounded and, ironically, Mom would never have known the difference.

Good News for Guilt

From our experience, some guiding principles evolve for dealing with the guilt that comes from conflicting motives when we care for aging parents.

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First, our best is never good enough. If guilt comes because of decisions we must make about caring for our parents, then guilt is inevitable. Aging is a process filled with surprises that we cannot anticipate and circumstances we cannot control. Like the best-laid plans of mice and men, care for our aging parents can go astray. Even our decisions require a choice between two "greater goods" or two "lesser evils." When Janet made the choice for our family and our ministry over the full-time care of her mother, she still had moments when she second-guessed her own decisions. Even then, the greater danger is to let guilt dictate our decisions. We can do too much, too early for our aging parents so that they become dependent upon us. Our guilt may be relieved, but at the price of their independence and dignity.

Second, we cannot brutalize ourselves with guilt. If, in caring for our aging parents, we lose our individual identity, stunt our personal growth, hurt our family relationships, or cripple our professional effectiveness, we must ask the serious question, "Is there a better way?" Something is wrong with any relationship in which one of the parties is smothered by love or smothers with love. If we make our parents overdependent upon us, it is wrong. In either case, a neurotic need is being met under the guise of loving care. Whether in parent-children, husband-wife, or child-parents relationships, mutual needs must be met and mutual growth must be the goal. When God commanded to us to "honor our father and mother" He did not mean that our care would be crippling for either parent or child. Here is where our motives come into play. If our decisions are motivated by love for our parents and esteem for them as persons, we should be relieved of debilitating guilt.

Third, others cannot judge us. As I recall the episode with my dad's youngest sister, her shock at seeing my father's unseeing eyes rolling

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in his head and his frothy tongue hanging out of his mouth drove her to desperation. Faulting me for not coming instantly to his bedside, she put on me the onus for his recovery. I do not blame her. One look at Dad, and I too lost my composure in a fit of anger. At the same time, when I saw his condition, I felt some resentment against Dad's sister for judging me and making me feel guilty. A few hours together with her restored the lines of love we had always known as "favorite aunt" and "favorite nephew." Still, I came away from that experience with the firm conviction that no one should pass judgment on children who are doing their best out of the motive of love and with a desire to dignify their parents.

Fourth, God's grace forgives our guilt. Even after we have done our best and worked through the downside of our decision in caring for our aging parents, guilt can remain. Also, when we look into our motives, we will often discover a conflict between love for our parents and love for ourselves. Or we may see that we diminished their dignity by making them overly dependent upon us. Whatever the reason for our guilt, God's grace is sufficient. According to Scripture, the worst sin is to curse our parents (Matt. 15:4). Another sin is to "mock" them (Prov. 30:17). Still another sin is to "dishonor" them (Deut. 27:16), and another is to "forsake [their] teaching" (Prov. 6:20). All of these sins are worthy of punishment ranging from death to the displeasure of God. If we are guilty, we must ask forgiveness of God and our parents.

   Old age is special in the mind of God. As children who love the Lord and our parents, the guide for our decisions should be the spirit of the law more than the letter of the law. God speaks in that spirit when He says, "Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD" (Lev. 19:32). Note the word and. It is what Elton Trueblood calls a "holy conjunction" linking two interrelated and inseparable thoughts. "Show respect for the elderly and revere your God" leaves no doubt. The quality test for the care of our aging parents is the "respect, dignity, honor, and

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esteem" that our decisions give to them. Even now, I remember Janet's decision to pay extra each month to have her mother's hair done in a beauty shop until the day she died. Visitors remarked about the beautiful white-haired lady sitting in the hall, and the nurses said that her face seemed to shine after her hair was done. Is such a simple gesture of respect for a parent equal with our reverence for God? According to His Word, it is. If we respect our parents and revere our Lord, grace will cover the guilt that comes when we try to second-guess ourselves with the questions "Did I do my best?" and "Did I do enough?"

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