When Memory Fades - Treasure Valley Prays - Kari Sansgaard (2025)

We visited her on the farm year after year. She arose at 5 am, braided and rolled up her long hair, wrapped her body in an apron, and spent the next fourteen hours (save for a mid-afternoon nap) living and working in her kitchen. *Suddenly (it seemed sudden to me), she was in her late eighties, living in a nursing home, and calling out for my cousin to come in from chores and eat supper. Dementia. I no longer knew how to talk with her. Thankfully, my mother knew to sing. Our family joined in singing her favorite hymn in four part harmony: Children of the Heavenly Father. And she was with us – if only briefly.

I was nervous when I began visiting people in memory care as a hospice chaplain. What would I say? How would I find ways to connect? Thanks to hours of training with Eric Collett (CEO: A Mind for All Seasons – Boise), I have experienced extraordinary moments with people living in memory care units across the Treasure Valley. In fact, I miss them most in these pandemic times. When I next visit, I will be a complete stranger and trust will need to be re-built.

Mary was a devout Roman Catholic, having worked in her parish where she also served as a lector and choir member for decades. In our early visits, she told me snippets about favorite saints, scriptures and hymns. She always made the sign of the cross when we prayed together. Until she didn’t. During our final visit, I asked her how things were with God. She looked at me with a furrowed brow and said, “I’m worried about that.” When I asked her to tell me more she replied, “I can’t remember what I remember.”

So I helped her remember. I remembered aloud the stories of faith she’d shared with me, I prayed aloud familiar words and marked her with the sign of the cross, assuring her of God’s abiding love. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she said, “Thank you. Now I can sleep tonight.”

Somewhere in her being she remembered. She simply could no longer access God’s wondrous deeds; she was no longer able to “proclaim God’s might” to future generations.

In reality, she likely remembered our final conversation for about 90 seconds; the endorphins would last longer.

A widow recently said these words to me: “I lost my husband three times: first, when his dementia set in; then when he moved to memory care; finally, when he died. Denise Cooper, a journalist and writer, left her home and work to move in and care for her parents, both of whom live with dementia. She says this: “It’s like watching the people you love die over and over and over (Terrible, Thanks for Asking” podcast – December 11, 2019; host: Nora McInerny).”

Loving someone with dementia is not for the faint of heart. And, as we know, it is a disease that may also affect people in mid-life. Like cancer and COVID-19, it doesn’t care who you are.

We have available to us a beautiful prayer written by Mary Louise Bright – a remarkable hymn writer of our time. If you have an Evangelical Lutheran Worship, book, you can see for yourself: When Memory Fades #792. I’ve included a link to a youtube video as well.

The following passages are referenced in the hymn:
Psalms 31 & 36:9
Jeremiah 29:11
2 Corinthians 12:9
Hebrews 6:10
Romans 8

**Eric Collett teaches dementia is present ten to twenty years before symptoms appear.