Half-Mental

I got used to my arthritis,

to my dentures I'm resigned,

I can manage my bifocals

but I sure do miss my mind,

"Two-thirds of baseball is half-mental," Yogi Berra said. To stretch his point, so is old age.

I've lost many things in my lifetime—keys, hats, sun glasses, iPhones, television remotes, lunker trout—but, I must say, my greatest loss is my mind.

I write everything down these days because I can no longer trust my memory. Carolyn will ask me to do something for her and before I walk out of the room I have to ask her again to be sure I remember what she said. Some days I have to walk back to the kitchen or wherever she is, and ask her again.

Worse yet, my memory issues affect my writing. A thought flies into my mind, flits about for a moment or two but escapes before I can capture it and write it down.

I think of Bunyan's Mr. Feeble-mind who was told that his Master had need of him: "Then Mr. Feeble-mind called for his friends and said, 'Since I have nothing to bequeath to any, to what purpose should I make a will? As for my feeble mind, I will leave that behind me, for I shall have no need of it in the place to which I go, nor is it worth bestowing upon the poorest pilgrim: wherefore, when I am gone, I desire that you, Mr. Valiant, would bury it in a dunghill.'"

Memory loss is not fatal for we shall have new minds someday—brighter, wiser, younger than ever before. Furthermore, a fading intellect and memory lapses can be incentives to faith for they are just another step along the way to forgetting ourselves and loving God alone.

And that, of course, is the reason we were brought into this world.

George MacDonald wrote...

Well may this body poorer, feebler grow!

 It is undressing for its last sweet bed;

 But why should the soul, which death shall never know,

 Authority, and power, and memory shed?

 It is so that love with absolute faith would wed;

 God takes the inmost garments off his child,

 To have him in his arms, naked and undefiled.

  David Roper