TO SEE HER SUFFER

Yesterday, for the first time in nine days, I visited my 92-year-old mother. We have all had some kind of illness, and I have stayed home, first with my own illness, then with my husband's. But Mama's has been complicated with a bad case of shingles. She is in incredible pain and the medicine the doctor gave her hasn't kicked in yet. Her skin, from her breast to her spine, is mottled red and black and she cannot stand for more than the merest whisper of fabric to touch her. I went to the health store and got something called Shingles Rescue, and she finally trusted her own fingers to apply some of it. She even took some of those tiny beads from a blue bottle that specifies relief for "intercostal pain" under her tongue. She never wants any pain relief because pain reminds her that she is still alive.

She doesn't talk much now--this wonderfully alert woman who last week wrote her weekly article for the newspaper--but she said this: "When I wake up, I always say, 'Thank you, Lord, for this day, and I think I'd like another,' but now I just say, 'Your will be done.'"

Having had a much milder case of shingles, I sympathize. I am asking for relief for her. Amen.