In Sickness or in Health: a faith based Father's Day Story from the Story Powerline

In Sickness or in Health: a faith based Father's Day Story from the Story Powerline
Wednesday, June 16, 2021 by David Melin as told to Becky Cerling Powers

My mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1962 when I was eight years old. When she passed away in October 1997, the nurses and doctors at the hospital were amazed to find out that she had had MS for 35 years. They said they didn’t know anyone who had lived that long with the disease. They credited my father for the way he had taken care of her.

Both my parents deserve a lot of credit for the way they handled that tragedy.

Mom was a 1950’s style housewife, a stay-at-home mother who was active in our church and school. She was only 33 and was raising three young children when she started losing control of her legs and arms and was diagnosed with MS.

Today there are drugs that can help control the effects of the disease, but none of that was available then. By age 43, she was unable to use her legs or right arm and had only partial use of her left arm.

She was an invalid in a wheelchair for the last 25 years of her life.

Since Mom couldn’t physically stand to cook or wash dishes or do laundry, it meant that the three of us kids had to work around the house under her supervision. It turned out to be good for us because we all learned how to take care of ourselves.

As kids, we did our share of griping, but Dad told us, “This is the way it is. You can complain if you want to, but this is how it is.”

Mom herself never complained.

She was never bitter and never played on our pity. She did what she could. One of my really good memories growing up was Mom reading to us at lunch time when we came home from school for lunch.

My father was a traveling salesman for an electrical wholesale company. He had plenty of opportunity to cheat on Mom. He could have rationalized it because of her physical condition. But when Dad got married, he made a vow to be faithful “in sickness or in health,” and he meant it. Dad always kept his word, and he was true to Mom.

After Mom became bound to her wheelchair, Dad never wanted to put her in a nursing home. He hired companions to come during the day and stay with her while he was at work. Here in El Paso, it’s easy to find a maid, but hard to find a companion – someone who can lift a person from a wheelchair to the toilet without hurting her. Most the time Mom had good companions who cared about her as a person.

That was an added expense to Dad, but he never begrudged it.

Through the tragedy of Mom’s illness, my parents taught me the importance of keeping your vows and the importance of approaching problems with a good attitude. You can approach them with anger or despair or with their attitude: “Here’s the problem, and there’s no perfect solution, but we’ll do the best we can.”

I keep seeing people who make the worst out of a bad situation, by using drugs or alcohol, always having a bad attitude.

Both my parents made the best out of a bad situation.

When Mom died, my parents had been married 48 years.

What ancient wisemen said:

“A man cannot be established through wickedness, but the righteous cannot be uprooted” (Proverbs 12:3 NIV)

A prayer for today

“Dear God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.”

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