I know the title of this piece sounds like an oxymoron. Wow, what a “free for all” that first debate was! I have been struggling like most with my emotions. I have a hard time understanding why so many in our country don’t think or feel the way I do. I feel tempted to...
My wife Julie is in hospice nursing home care in late stages of Alzheimer’s. She tested COVID positive. We were faced with end of life choices. (Miraculously, she survived, while 18 other residents around her died). I joined thousands of others in...
by Tom Allen As I grow older, I am faced with increasing limitations and diminishments, especially as an Alzheimer’s caregiver. I imagine myself as an artist painting / expressing my life on canvas, and the canvases grow smaller. I imagine God saying to me:...
By Tom Allen My wife Julie is in late stages of Alzheimer’s. She is child-like and vulnerable. While I can walk with her in her suffering and death, I can’t protect her from it or go with her. And yet, I keep feeling responsible to do something. It...
by Tom Allen I regularly tell stories in sessions with my own spiritual director about my not being my best self / dealing with shortcomings / disclosing my shadow- self. These are also common conversations in sessions where I am serving as spiritual director to...
by Tom Allen On April 14, 2010, at the age of 57, my wife and I were told that she had young onset Alzheimer’s. We totally restructured our lives. Selling our home and moving into independent senior living Entering Julie into an adult day care program Leaving my...
by Tom Allen Richard Rohr contends that our post- modern secular culture has forgotten how to experience an “enchanted” world. We can choose to live in the reality that all of life is sacred. Our imaginations are a resource. Walking down the street, relishing the...
By Tom Allen The more I open myself to gratitude, the more readily I see God at work in the world, and in real time. There are certain daily experiences that trigger my consciousness of that presence. This checklist helps me remember. Moments of: Beauty,...
by Tom Allen. February 10 is Ash Wednesday. It is the day on which Christians remember that from dust we came and to dust we shall return. To be an Alzheimer’s care giver demands finding life while sitting in the ashes. I helped Julie change her clothes. She had on 2...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Discerning Choices When The Stakes Are High By Tom Allen Well, I have moved my wife, Julie, into a memory care community. (She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 57. She is now 63.) It is the hardest thing I have ever had to do....
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