We all want to be remembered for a life well lived. At least, I do. That doesn’t always happen. Occasionally the things that happen to us at the end our lives, whether we are young or old, overshadow all we have done in the past that is good.

We have all heard the comments, “It is such a shame. He or she had a good life and they ruined it by their choices.” Or, when someone loses their memory in the last few years of their life, it overshadows who they were before the memory stealers changed them. It is hard to remember the past when seeing what the present has held for many people.

It is especially hard for families and friends when those we love change. When we, as family and friends, hit that hardship, we don’t always react in a positive way, not understanding that much of what our friend or family member is going through is beyond their control. They don’t know how to ask for help or receive that help when we suggest it. Because we don’t want to intrude and we are not experts in how to deal with the changing landscape of our friend or families personality, we may ignore them and become bitter at what has happened to their life, because in our view they let it happen.

I remember on my father-in-law’s deathbed my mother-in-law said, “We could have had a good life if only. …” She was referring to alcoholism that destroyed a marriage of 40 years. This was at a time where we didn’t have the knowledge that we do now, or the help we do now, to deal with the issue. There was anger and bitterness because we didn’t understand. As a family, we felt helpless to change any of it and so we stepped away.

Recently, a friend died. This person died a lonely and bitter person. When someone would mention the name in the past few years, all that was mentioned is what a shame it was at what they had become.

It didn’t seem to matter that for at least 70 years of this person’s life he was an upstanding and valuable citizen in his community. This person was a reliable worker, a great father and husband. When this person gave his opinion, people listened. We knew this person in the past as a caring, loving individual. That is how this person would want to be remembered and should be remembered.

Grief changes people. Some people know what to do with that grief. They know how to grieve in a healthy way. They know how to ask for help. They rise above and go on with their life. Other people feel that grief so deeply and take on blame that is not theirs to take on. That grief changes who they were and takes them to a deep dark hole that they can’t navigate on their own. They don’t ask for help because they are not physically capable of asking. I suspect this is what happened to our friend.

And what did we do? Not a thing. We didn’t know how to help or cope with that grief so we stayed away.

It is another lesson in life about friendship that we need to remember. We must try to change how we react to the changes in someone we care about. We failed that person. I suspect many of us do that repeatedly in our lifetime because we don’t know what to do, and we feel it is none of our business. We don’t want to interfere in others family matters.

There might not have been anything we could have done — except be a friend whether we liked our friend’s behavior or not.

I understand what it is like to be a family member and forget the contribution to society that a family member made. In the last years of her life, my mother turned into someone we did not know. She wasn’t keeping clean, she had odd behaviors including wandering outside at night without clothes. Some people criticized me, because for a short time she could be believable, and I was the enemy because I was trying to get her help. I only saw who she was in the present because of the anguish she caused me, through no fault of her own because the cause was her illness.

My mom for most of her years was also that upstanding citizen. She taught school and helped manage her and my dad’s shoe store. She did all the ordering and the entire bookkeeping and all the cleaning. At the same time she took care of her mother, took care of my father and me and still took the time to take part and be active in my activities. She constantly worked and cared for her family. She was a valuable member of society but we forgot that in her final years. People only remembered what happened during her dementia.

We judge what we do not know and what we do not understand. I do it too. I do it in frustration when I feel helpless to help someone I love. It is easier to stay away and make the comments we make.

I have no answers. I hope I change my behavior. I hope I have more compassion and empathy for those that are dealing with destructive behavior. I can try, but I don’t know if I can promise to follow through.

Remember the life of those you care about before whatever event changed them into the person who keeps you away from them today. The person in our life lived 70 years of integrity. Let him be remembered for that always.

 

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send email to her at hermionyvidaliabooks@gmail.com. Her Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/julie.