aliens among us

subtitle: nothing left to lose

If you don’t place value in yourself, you don’t value anyone else either. The chains that bind you to this world, this life, are only the ones you wrap yourself in. Your fear, your guilt your addictions, your twisted needs. But you still have chains. People who haven’t really experienced the depths you’ve plunged your heart, mind and soul into think that all you have to do is shrug them off and accept freedom. If it were that easy, you would never have become “homeless” in the first place.

My wife is changing. I can’t tell any longer if it’s just the cycle of her dementia expressing itself in a different manner or a worsening of her condition. She no longer gets angry, only frightened and childlike. It frightens her friends and family so much that they speak to me now in hushed tones about a condition they doubted she actually had just a few months ago. I tell them what has been told to me. She has cycles of good and bad days she goes through. It’s unlikely that her condition will rapidly deteriorate because as far as the Doctors can tell, it’s not that type of Dementia.

Her friends and family then gush at me about how fortunate she is to have me. No, as I wait for her to die, I remember the person that first bound me to this life with the ties of love that I refused to acknowledge for so many years. I hate love. But I can’t live without her.

My granddaughter turns 11 this summer. The other night when she stayed over and it had gotten very late, I told her it was time to go to bed. For the first time since I’ve known her, she said no to me about something that wasn’t a question or optional request. For the first time I was faced with whether or not I was going to force her to do something that she had decided not to do. I shouldn’t have to deal with this! I’m not her parents! I’m her grandfather whom she loves and adores and never ever says no to on something like this!

Despite the personal trauma drama of the situation, it was an easy fix. I simply let her stay up until she was so tired she went to bed on her own. It wasn’t a school day the next day, and there wasn’t any real reason she needed to go to sleep. But she is changing. She doesn’t need to obey me without question anymore.

I’ve bound myself with chains. Actually, I’ve allowed others to bind me with them. But even as their ability and the nature of their desire to hold me captive changes, my desire to stay bound to them changes to accommodate them. I love them enough to make that sacrifice. It doesn’t feel like sacrifice most of the time. When it does, it’s blood I’m willing to offer.

The secret to “curing” the homeless is not in offering them freedom from what binds them to the chains they return so quickly to when you least expect it of them. The secret is to offer them chains that are so much stronger than any you really want to bind them with. It’s the same chains you have to use to bind your children to God with. It’s the same chains you bind yourself to your faith with. It’s the same chains the world wants from you when they really see you wearing them, instead of trying to trick them out to look like gold and candy. It’s the same chains God binds you to Himself with.

Sacrifice is never easy. If you aren’t sacrificing something you can’t afford to lose, it’s not even that. As one of the most unfortunately beautiful woman I’ve ever seen once said; “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”.

Can you make that sacrifice? Do you believe you should? Is your God asking you to do so? Are you hesitating to make sure it’s Him asking, or because you don’t want it to be?

Can you count the cost of nothing left to lose?