Will you be there for me?
"That is the question everyone asks in his or her heart."
I heard this at a conference last week. Following that the speaker related a true story of his parents. His mother, in her 80s had developed Alzheimer's and she'd frantically get up at times and ask "Where am I?" And her husband, already 90, would gently bring her to the window and point to her the church building some distance away and assuringly told her," Look, that's the church we go to every week. You are safe, at home. I'm with you."
At other times, she'd frantically ask," Where's Wei Jian? It's his entrance exams today!" And he would remind her that he's in the States. But she could not believe it and continued to panic. Alas he drove her to their son's former high school and said,"See, there's no one in school. It's holidays now. No exams and Wei Jian is already grown up, working in the States."
In the wee hours of the night, the old man, bent, with a stick in his hand would walk over to her wife's side and stroke and comfort her, saying that "Everything's alright, I'm with you."
I think some of us at the audience teared, including me. Because that is precisely the question at the core of our hearts.
I heard this at a conference last week. Following that the speaker related a true story of his parents. His mother, in her 80s had developed Alzheimer's and she'd frantically get up at times and ask "Where am I?" And her husband, already 90, would gently bring her to the window and point to her the church building some distance away and assuringly told her," Look, that's the church we go to every week. You are safe, at home. I'm with you."
At other times, she'd frantically ask," Where's Wei Jian? It's his entrance exams today!" And he would remind her that he's in the States. But she could not believe it and continued to panic. Alas he drove her to their son's former high school and said,"See, there's no one in school. It's holidays now. No exams and Wei Jian is already grown up, working in the States."
In the wee hours of the night, the old man, bent, with a stick in his hand would walk over to her wife's side and stroke and comfort her, saying that "Everything's alright, I'm with you."
I think some of us at the audience teared, including me. Because that is precisely the question at the core of our hearts.
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