WALKING
THROUGH
TWILIGHT
A WIFE’S ILLNESS—
A PHILOSOPHER’S LAMENT
DOUGLAS GROOTHUIS
FOREWORD BY NICHOLAS WOLTERSTORFF
Bitter-sweet
Ah, my dear angry Lord,
Since thou dost love, yet strike;
Cast down, yet help afford;
Sure I will do the like.
I will complain, yet praise;
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sour-sweet days
I will lament and love.
GEORGE HERBERT
CONTENTS
Foreword by Nicholas Wolterstorff
Introduction: Walking Through Twilight
2 The Year of Learning Things I Did Not Want to Know
13 Learning to Lie to My Wife (as Little as Possible)
16 Miss Becky and a Way of Speaking
Interlude: Becky as My Student
Conclusion: From Twilight into Darkness
Recommended Reading on Lament and Grief
Praise for Walking Through Twilight
More Titles from InterVarsity Press
Foreword
NICHOLAS WOLTERSTORFF
BECKY, THE WIFE OF THE AUTHOR of this volume, was extraordinarily gifted with words. The gift began to fail her. She was diagnosed as suffering from primary progressive aphasia, a form of dementia that has, as one of its primary signs of mental deterioration, the inability of the person to find words to say what she wants to say. Walking Through Twilight is the author’s lament for the wide and deep losses that this ravaging disease has wreaked in his life and that of his wife. He does not wallow in the horror of the disease, but neither does he gloss over it or look away. He does not flinch from the painful reality.
Walking Through Twilight is more, however, than an unfailingly honest lament over loss. Interspersed with Groothuis’s lament is a series of meditations, evoked by observing the nature and course of the disease, and his response and that of others, whose aim is to understand something of the hand of God in this valley of suffering and to discern how to live lovingly and faithfully in this shadowy place.
Groothuis is a philosopher and theologian, steeped in Scripture. So the meditations are, as one would expect, philosophical and theological in their overall character, and rich—incredibly rich—in their incorporation of passages from Scripture, especially from the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. But the meditations are never abstract. In each instance they are tied to the author’s observation of his wife’s suffering, and his response and that of others. The image that comes to mind is that of a cord on which beads are strung—beads of reflection strung ...
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About Walking Through Twilight: A Wife's Illness—A Philosopher's LamentHow do you continue to find God as dementia pulls your loved one into the darkness?Nothing is simple for a person suffering from dementia, and for those they love. When ordinary tasks of communication, such as using a phone, become complex, then difficult, and then impossible, isolation becomes inevitable. Helping becomes excruciating.In these pages philosopher Douglas Groothuis offers a window into his experience of caring for his wife as a rare form of dementia ravages her once-brilliant mind and eliminates her once-stellar verbal acuity. Mixing personal narrative with spiritual insight, he captures moments of lament as well as philosophical and theological reflection. Brief interludes provide poignant pictures of life inside the Groothuis household, and we meet a parade of caregivers, including a very skilled companion dog. Losses for both Doug and Becky come daily, and his questions for God multiply as he navigates the descending darkness. Here is a frank exploration of how one continues to find God in the twilight. |
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