She's a Keeper

Taken from "Living Gently in a Violent World" by Stanley Hauerwas and Jean Vanier:

"I know a man who lives in Paris. His wife has Alzheimer's. He was an important businessman - his life filled with busyness. But he said that when his wife fell sick, 'I just couldn't put her in an institution, so I keep her. I feed her. I bathe her.'

I went to Paris to visit them, and this businessman who had been very busy all his life said, 'I have changed. I have become more human.'

I got a letter from him recently. He said that in the middle of the night his wife woke him up.

She came out of the fog for a moment, and she said, 'Darling, I just want to say thank you for all you're doing for me.' Then she fell back into the fog. He said, 'I wept and I wept.' "