To Elena in Phoenix
“Michael, I’m caring for my mom full-time. The doctors say it’s senile degeneration of the brain. She’s forgetting more every day. Some days she’s agitated. Other days she gets stuck in old memories — especially painful ones. She repeats the same stories, the same wounds. I’m exhausted, and I don’t know how much more I can give.”
Elena,
This kind of grief doesn’t come with a funeral. It comes slowly, like sand slipping through fingers. You’re losing your mother while she’s still alive. That’s a pain few understand, and even fewer know how to talk about.
You’re not just a caregiver. You’re a daughter grieving in real time, watching a woman you love return to shadows.
And when she lashes out or ruminates on her wounds, it feels like you’re being asked to carry both her past and her present, even when she no longer recognizes your sacrifice. That weight is more than physical. It’s spiritual.
But hear this: you are not failing because you’re tired. You are loving someone in the most Christlike way imaginable — with patience, with silence, with endurance that isn’t flashy or loud but holy all the same.
Jesus knows what it is to sit beside the broken. He knows what it is to carry another’s suffering, not just physically but emotionally, moment after moment. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). That comfort isn’t just a future promise. It’s a present whisper. You’re not alone.
Let yourself grieve. Let yourself rest. And let yourself be angry, even sad, without guilt. This is the threshing floor. This is where love costs something, where compassion has blisters, and where God doesn’t remove the burden, but He carries it with you.
You don’t have to do this perfectly. You just have to keep showing up with love that outlasts memory.
And you’re doing that.
With reverence,
— Michael
Michael Vowell: Reflections on Grace, Love, and Leadership 