The May 20 edition of The Living Church is available online to registered subscribers.
In this edition’s cover story, the Rev. Richard Kew writes about his younger brother’s struggles with dementia:
As I was getting into my devotions at about 4:30 a.m. January 5, my phone pinged with a text from my elder daughter, Olivia, in England. She was letting me know that my younger brother, after failing several assessments, had finally been accepted into the dementia unit of an outstanding care facility near his home. Phone calls, more texts, and email followed through the day as we arranged his transfer from the hospital, a contract, funds, insurance, and such things.
An early-morning call around Thanksgiving had let me know that my brother’s healthcare crisis had come to a head. Chris is 70 and single. He had fallen during the night, and been down for eight hours before being found and rushed to a hospital. As soon as I could I arranged a flight across the Atlantic, and at the hospital I found a man with galloping dementia, a mere shell of the one I had seen only a couple of months earlier. Chris had been a successful businessman, but the doctors were adamant he could never live at home again, drive, or even manage his own affairs. Diabetes and dementia are only part of the long list of his ailments.
During the next ten days my routine was to visit the hospital while scouring the countryside for a place where he would be safe, secure, cared for, and comfortable. My cousin, a registered nurse with a lot of eldercare experience, advised and prodded. I was naïve enough to think I might have everything fixed up before I returned to the United States. Given the convoluted nature of my brother’s physical and mental health, many establishments had misgivings about taking him on, so my daughter, an overburdened university administrator, picked up the trail when I came home.
News
- The Impairment Commission’s Intervention
- Executive Council Considers Title IV
Features
- Suddenly My Brother’s Keeper | By Richard Kew
- Grace along the Way | By Molly Jane Layton
Cultures
- Welcome by Design | By David G. Hawkins
Catholic Voices
- The Glorious, Complicated Legacy of James H. Cone | By Matthew Burdette
Books
- Importing Faith | Review by Adrian Chatfield
- Pentecostalism as a Mystical Tradition | Review by Joseph Lear
Other Departments
- People & Places
- Sunday’s Readings
