Dementia claimed his wife’s life
The older man, somewhere in his 80s, waved and smiled.
I was a bit taken aback.
It was a warm Good Friday afternoon, and I was out walking the dog—just following my normal path, expecting the usual silence from a stranger. And so his wave, like an unexpected chord in a familiar song, caught me off guard.
He shuffled toward me with a gentle ease, his smile open and unguarded. I’d never seen him before. Maybe this was one of those quiet invitations life gives you—a moment to make a new friend.
I gripped the dog leash and paused, offering a casual comment about the weather. He stopped and began to speak, gently. His wife had died in January —just a few months ago of dementia. He had cared for her up to the end.
As he talked, I realized this wasn’t just a small moment. It was a kind of doorway—one of those brief but honest encounters where grief and grace meet on the sidewalk.
He mentioned he was a musician and played German music. I asked if he gave lessons—thinking, maybe, someone in my family might want to learn. But he shook his head.
We exchanged names and shook hands in the old-fashioned way—not the fist-bump my college-age son uses with his buddies.
As he walked on, I wondered about the weight he had carried. Dementia is a thief—it doesn’t just steal memory; it rearranges one’s entire household. How much of her confusion had he absorbed into himself? How many times did he steady her body or spirit while quietly losing his own?
And now, what was left? Silence? A chair across the room with no one in it?
Yet despite it all, he seemed light-hearted. Maybe there’s a strange freedom that comes after the hardest seasons—a lifting, like mist burning off in the morning sun.
A new faith after tragedy
I thought later of a piece I’d read online. Dan Foster, a popular online columnist, wrote in “Faith After the Worst Day of Your Life” about his experience with his wife after she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer:
“The world didn’t just shift. It collapsed. That was the day I was dragged — kicking and screaming — into a world of uncertainty. And on that day, my faith changed forever.”
Foster realized that after that kind of suffering, faith becomes an effort, not a possession. “Faith isn’t something you passively have—it’s something you fight for,” he wrote.
On this Good Friday, I thought of that. Of the suffering of Jesus Christ during his passion, and the quiet redemption it can bring in our own hearts.
As Jordan Peterson said recently:
“Christ takes on the sins of the world. That means all the problems of the world are his problems.”
Sometimes, you find resurrection in a sidewalk conversation. I hope John and I bump into one another again.