A Promise Kept - The Story of an Unforgettable Love

A Promise Kept - The Story of an Unforgettable Love is the story of the last years of Muriel McQuilkin's life as told by her husband Robertson McQuilkin.

Muriel came down with Alzheimer's when she was only in her 50s. It took many years for this cruel disease to do its work.

This book is a bit difficult for me to read, since my father suffered from Alzheimer's for the last 10 years or so of his life. My mother made the decision to keep dad at home until almost the end. She finally had to give up when he became dangerous to her. He had never been a violent man.

It was my mom who spanked us kids - and that rarely. Of course, I'm not sure about my brother. I'm not sure if he got spanked by my dad. He may have. I'm not sure that my mom spanked me, either. The only thing I remember was once when she grabbed a switch off the old cherry tree. Every time she whacked my brother on the bottom, the switch broke! It was rotten. We all cracked up, especially my mom!

The disease took over Dad's mind, and his will. He never hit my mom during that time, - at least that she admits to - but he got aggressive. One time near the end, he grabbed her arm as she was driving and would not let go. She had to pull over to the side of the road. I forget how she got out of that situation. Dad was very strong.

One night, she finally had to call 911 and have the police and paramedics take my dad away to the hospital. He was there for awhile, but then they moved him to the nursing home. He lived for about a month after that. We were all able to spend time with him during that last month of his life.

In fact, my nephew was able to pray with my dad while he finally gave in to Jesus. Dad died a few days after that.

So, reading this book brought all those memories, and all those impressions back.

Here are a few quotes from the book so you can get an idea of the love and tenderness that these two shared during their whole lifetime. This also reminded me of Mom and Dad. No, my parent's marriage was not perfect - far from it - , but they loved one another to the end. They loved us, too. Love covers a multitude of sins.

McQuilkin's book is a beautiful one - beautifully written and beautifully printed - except that my copy fell apart! No matter.

It is only 90 short pages long. Here are the quotes.

p. 32:
"...I made a wonderful discovery. As Muriel became ever more dependent on me, our love seeped to deeper, unknown crevices of the heart...We found the chains of confining circumstance to be, not instruments of torture, but bonds to hold us closer."

p. 33, 34:
"No one ever needed me like Muriel, and no one ever responded to my efforts so totally as she. It's the nearest thing I've experienced on a human plane to what my relationship with God was designed to be: God's unfailing love poured out in constant care of helpless me."

"But I made another discovery as well, quite the opposite: broken shackles can turn out to be an imprisonment...I've received dozens of visits and agonizing letters from women whose husbands have broken the shackles of marriage, from men whose wives have broken free and left both lives in shambles.

Ours is a day of passionate pursuit of self-fulfillment. And the folk wisdom of twentieth-century America holds that fulfillment can be found only in freedom. So, if some responsibility or commitment, some relationship or value shackles, you have a moral obligation to yourself to break free.

But that's a fantasy. T?hat doorway to freedom and fulfillment may turn out to be the door way to a stronger imprisonment...Only the one who says no to self-interest for Christ and the gospel cause can ever find the treasure of true life - freedom and fulfillment in Christ. But we don't seem to get it."

p. 66:
"Once, before we signed off for sleep, I was winning an argument with irresistible logic when she raised up on one elbow, transfixed me with fire in her gray-green eyes, and said, 'Well, let me tell you something. Logic's not everything, and feeling's not nothing.' "

p. 89:
"Remember my prayer, 'Let Me Get Home before Dark'? [this was a poem written about his wife] It was written in 1981 in a hotel room in Florida, three years into our Alzheimer's journey. I consciously wrote only one line of it for Muriel, "will I reach the gate...a mind wandering untethered among light fantasies or grim terrors?' I paused and prayed, 'Dear Lord, for my beloved may it be light fantasies, not grim terrors.' How abundantly God answered that prayer. Gratitude."