 |
LaRee gives a keynote
speech for the U.S.
National Right to Life
Prayer Breakfast 2010 |
A number of years ago, my wife LaRee gave a rare speech about her journey as a loved-one of someone with a degenerative and incurable disease. It was rare because she's terrified of public speaking. LaRee is an extremely private person, and yet gave a keynote address to a sold-out audience of 800 people at the U.S. National Right to Life Prayer Breakfast. She spoke honestly from her heart. At times her voice quivered from fear and emotion but it was her humble offering to God and those present at the Prayer Breakfast. She news people with suffering loved-ones must be in the auditorium. I often spoke throughout America and Canada about degenerative disease and disability. My audiences got one side of the story. What about families who must helplessly watch someone they love struggle with disability or decline with incurable degenerative disease? She spoke to a national audience once, and only once.
You could have heard a pin drop during her address. When she finished, the audience responded with a prolonged standing ovation. Many in the audience had disabled children, ailing spouses or parents. LaRee was swamped by people from all across the U.S.. She listened, consoled and prayed with people as they shared their pain with her. LaRee's tender and broken heart communicated easily with their broken hearts.
Here is part of what LaRee said:
_______________
There
is a special torment experienced by those who watch a loved-one suffer. To see
disease rack their bodies, and souls, increases the sum total of suffering ...
because I suffer too. I believe it is harder to watch degenerative disability
torture and break my loved-one, than to actually suffer the disease. I watched my grandparents suffer infirmities associated with extreme age, such as
blindness, Parkinson’s disease and cancer. I walked my mother through heart
disease and dementia until her death in late 2013, at the age of 81 years.
Mark lives with the real symptoms of aggressive,
degenerative
multiple sclerosis, which have limits. I am left to witness
it all, ― and imagine. Imagination has no limits. I believe it is easier to be than to watch. Despite countless trials, love has prevailed. But love is
like the two sides of a precious coin.
The two sides of love
are this: It is life’s greatest ecstasy but also the cause of life’s greatest
agonies and anguish. The 19th Century writer, Victor Hugo said, “To love or to have loved, that is enough.
Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of
life. To love is a consummation.” -- And
so it is.
Yet as a wife, mother
and grandmother, I want more, and I ask further. I want to protect those I love
from pain, emotional hurts, disappoint-ments, and even life as it ends—but I
cannot.
So often I sat at the bedside of suffering
loved-ones and prayed, “God, give me their pain” – as though there is some
quota of suffering to be filled which I can bargain over with God. There is
not.
When Mark and I
married, he was so healthy and active. For the first eleven years of marriage
he was a super-achiever not only in his career but with family life.
After being diagnosed
with MS his career stalled and he was often too sick to participate in family
activities he previously led. Our children were 7 and 5 when Mark was
diagnosed with MS. They had difficulty understanding why their Dad could not
play and be active like he used to.
At the time that Mark
was diagnosed with MS, I didn’t even know what the disease was. I had no idea
of the impact it would have on our future. And so I began to research the
medical literature and even visited a few auxiliary hospitals to see if I could
pick out the people with MS. I noticed the canes, the crutches, the wheelchairs
and scooters, the van contraptions and curb-cuts. Multiple sclerosis meant disability! I looked
into the faces of loved-ones of patients with MS and wondered if I could face
the heart-break and hurt.
My initial reaction was
anger. It was irrational but my immediate
response was anger. How could Mark do
this to me? How dare he get sick! He was supposed to be the strong one. I was
the weak one. “Damn you!” I thought. If one of us was to get sick, it should be
me. I could cope better with a disease if I was the sick one.
I wanted to correct the
fate God allowed by trying to convince Him he made a mistake. I was sad, and
bitter but most of all ... I was afraid and angry with Mark and God.
Mark’s MS started
changing him. I began to gauge the distance between benches in shopping malls
in case he needed to sit with exhaustion. I started fearing places with crowds.
He might get impatient and I would see a look of frustration on his face.
Then one afternoon I
looked on in horror as my husband began crawling up the stairs in our bi-level
house so he could use the toilet. I realized our life had changed and I had
to make some decisions. The first
decision I had to make was whether I was prepared to stay in our marriage.
Don’t think I was not
tempted. I was. Self-interest and my own internal poverty told me that divorce
was easier. I could start over like many other women after divorce. I knew I
could get help from other family members. They would understand. Even people at
my work asked why I was staying with Mark because it was easier to walk away
than to stay.
But abandonment is not
love. It is a betrayal of love, solemn vows, and that which makes people fully
human and civilized.
For me to walk away
from Mark or agree to his suicide would have been a profound abandonment of him.
It would also have been a profound abandonment of my own humanity and what
matters most to me: My family and love.
I decided to stay in my
marriage and trust that God would see us through to a sacred place of grace and
understanding. After 37 years of marriage (26 living with Mark’s MS) I think I
have discovered something about love.
Human interdependence, based upon love (both human and divine), is capable of helping us transcend
beyond difficult or tragic circumstances and opens new understanding of what it
means to be human and part of the human family. I am now convinced a truly civilized
society has no place for euthanasia or assisted suicide. It is more inviting
that that. People with disabilities or incurable illnesses are, in reality, indispensable to our communities – their lives are full
of potential and meaning. Value them, include, protect them, but most of love for the sake of love. Thank you.
Earlier in my life numerous people tried to lure me to central Canada and away from my little French town in the hinterland of western
Canada. Perhaps the most tempting that I remember was being offered a job
to host a national TV series the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was planning in 1990. The series was about issues surrounding disabilities and showcasing the
lives of Canadians with physical and mental challenges.
I have often thought of revisiting the earlier idea CBC presented to me of hosting a series of television programs profiling individuals and families living with disabilities or chronic diseases. The series would be different from the CBC idea in that it would have a Christian orientation. It would delve into topics such as:
Yet as a wife, mother
and grandmother, I want more, and I ask further. I want to protect those I love
from pain, emotional hurts, disappoint-ments, and even life as it ends—but I
cannot.
I decided to stay in my
marriage and trust that God would see us through to a sacred place of grace and
understanding. After 37 years of marriage (26 living with Mark’s MS) I think I
have discovered something about love. 
Canada post-2016 will not only kill its sick and disabled, it may well kill the collective conscience of a nation and gut its soul. 
On January 22nd 2016, good people from across America will gather in Washington, D.C., for the annual March for Life. It is a solemn annual observance of 58 million unborn human lives deliberately killed by abortion under the infamous 1973 Roe v Wade Supreme Court legalizing abortion throughout America. The holocaust of posterity continues unabated year after year.
The glorious day of a culture of life is still far off. A new cultural storm is gathering on the horizon in the form of euthanasia and assisted suicide acceptance. People of Life must brace for another battle. Menacing clouds of untruth and injustice threaten all they (and I) hold dear. People of life must stand resolute and strong against a new storm of state-sanctioned killing. 
We are at the end of the 2015 International Day of People with Disabilities. People of good will and those concerned about human rights must resolve to oppose assisted suicide. Why? Because assisted suicide is specifically targeted at people with incurable or chronic illnesses and disabilities. Assisted suicide does not further inclusion, it is the ultimate exclusion. 
