By Jim White
Did I Care Enough? is not for readers who want a sanitized, sugarcoated account of suffering. Rather, it describes a five-year journey into a labyrinth of tangled emotions and unreasonable requirements called “caregiving.”
At times tender and at times unpleasant, the story is always compelling.
When Sue Tillman and Joe Strother married in 1956, they eagerly repeated their vows “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” They both anticipated a lifetime of happiness. Words like worse, and poorer, and sickness described only theoretical possibilities.
But they learned eventually that these words have a way of becoming all too real. Fast forward to 1989 and Joe was battling cancer while Sue looked for a book that would help her understand and cope with the stresses of being the caregiver. All she found were books written by people who seemed not to feel the hurt and anger and disillusionment with which she lived.
At first, despite growing up in a pastor's home and being married to one for more than 30 years, Sue thought, “What is wrong with me? I couldn't plug into rejoicing in the circumstance of my husband's illness. I just couldn't relate to praising God for the privilege of caring for my husband who suffered.”
She promised herself that some day she would write a book providing an honest report of the rough and raw edges of their ordeal. “Others who go through the experience should have some real-life guidebook to help them manage,” she reasoned.
Did I Care Enough?, subtitled An Honest Account of a Caregiver, is the result. In it she describes their dependence on God's love and grace, but she also allows the reader to understand that every human emotion is amplified for both patient and caregiver during a painful, lingering illness.
Joe had been the pastor of the North Riverside Baptist Church in Newport News for 15 years when he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood plasma cells. Those of us who had the privilege of knowing him will appreciate the wisdom and humor Sue shares with the reader.
In writing so honestly, she risks being misunderstood by those who have never experienced the strain of long-term caregiving. She admits there were times when she and Joe became angry with each other and she allows the reader to enter the fear and frustration with which they lived. She attempted to care for Joe so well that she would never feel guilty after his death. Nevertheless, she did.
“I think women especially, feel responsible for so much that we struggle with guilt even when things are normal. After Joe died, one night in the middle of the night, I couldn't shake that nagging question that most, perhaps all, surviving spouses ask: ‘Was there more I could have done? Did I care enough?' ”
In a flash of insight, she knew that's what she should call the book.
“I wrote the book with two primary hopes,” says Strother. “My greatest hope is that the book will stimulate thought in readers who do not know Christ as Savior and that they will, by trusting him, discover the comfort of his love. But also I hope that it will help caregivers who go through the experience to know what to expect and to not feel guilty when they are overcome by weariness or sadness or anger or grief.”
Did I Care Enough?, published this year by iUniverse Inc. may be purchased online at iUniverse.com, Amazon.com or Barnes&Noble.com, or may be ordered by your neighborhood bookseller.
Staff report
Jim White is editor of the Religous Herald.