They are kind to you. That is what makes this impossible to say to anybody.
Nobody in this house has been anything but good. They moved you in when it made sense to move you in. They gave you the room at the front. They ask if you want anything every time somebody stands up.
And somewhere in the middle of all that kindness, you became a piece of the room.
The chair is by the window because that was thoughtful. The little table beside it holds the things you might need so that you do not have to get up. The lamp is at your shoulder. Everything has been placed so that a man in that chair needs nothing.
Which means, and this took you about a year to understand, that a man in that chair does nothing.
They step around you. Not unkindly. They step around you the way people step around a sideboard.
And the grandchildren are in and out all day, and they come and kiss you and they tell you things, and then they go outside, and the going outside is a thing that happens on the other side of a window.
You are not going to say any of this at dinner. You would rather be furniture than be a burden, and the two words have got tangled together in you.
So let me say something else instead, because there is a different thing available to you tonight and it has nothing to do with anybody rearranging their kindness.
The crown of old men
There is a proverb about the old and the young that is usually read as a compliment, and it is actually a description of a job.
Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers. (Proverbs 17:6, King James Version)
Children's children are the crown of old men, and the glory of children are their fathers.
A crown is not a decoration in this book. A crown is what says somebody holds an office. The proverb is not saying grandchildren are nice to have. It is saying that having them puts a man in a position.
You have a standing in this household that was never handed to you by anybody living in it, and it has never once depended on how much you can still carry up a staircase. Proverbs 17:6 gives the crown to the old man on account of the children's children rather than on account of his strength, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps an office filled when a body slows down.
You have been reading your own situation as a demotion. Used to be the one who did things, now the one things are done for.
And the proverb is describing a promotion that happened without your noticing, on the day the first grandchild was born, and it has nothing to do with what you can lift.
The second half is worth as much. The glory of children is their fathers. It runs both directions in one verse. The young are made much of by having the old, and the old are made much of by having the young, and neither half is about capability.
You are the crown of a household in the plain reading of the written word, and that has never once been a sentimental way of describing a man in a chair. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives an old man a place among the young, and Proverbs 17:6 states the office as a fact rather than as an encouragement.
Which brings us to the practical problem, and the practical problem is not the family. It is the chair.
Get up before they offer
Here is the thing that has happened, and it is nobody's fault.
Every time you go to stand, somebody helps.
You are able to get out of a chair on your own terms once a day, and the value of that has never once been about proving anything to the people in the room. It is written that children's children are the crown of old men, and the Holy Spirit is the one who moves a man off a cushion before the room notices he intends to.
They help because they love you and because it is faster. And every time it happens, the message that goes into the room, and into you, is that getting up is an event which requires assistance.
So it stops being something you do and becomes something that is done for you.
The fix is small and it is entirely in your hands. Get up before anybody offers.
Not to prove a point. Not with any announcement. Simply be already standing by the time the question would have come.
You were the one who put the roof over this family in the first place, and none of that has never once been erased by needing an arm on the stairs now. The Spirit of God is the one who steadies an old man on a rug, and Proverbs 17:6 calls the children of children a crown rather than a payment for services rendered.
And then, because standing up in the middle of a room with nowhere to go is worse than staying seated, have somewhere to go.
Which is the whole of the next part.
The back door and the smallest one
Here is the assignment, and it is deliberately something the family cannot help you with.
Take the youngest grandchild out of the back door and walk to the end of the yard and back.
Not the teenager. The teenager will be kind and will look at the door. The smallest one, four or five or six, the one who has no idea that you are supposed to be a fixture.
You have the one relationship in this house that requires no explanation from you, and a small child has never once needed to be told why an old man is worth walking with. The Spirit of God is the one who puts the young and the old in each other's company, and Proverbs 17:6 makes that pairing the crown of the whole matter.
The end of the yard. If there is no yard, the front path and back. If there are stairs and stairs are no longer yours, then the length of the hallway twice, at whatever speed you have.
And go slowly. This is the part that will surprise you. A child of five does not want a fast walk. A child of five wants somebody who will stop and look at whatever is on the ground for as long as it takes.
You are the only person in this household with the time to do that. Everybody else is on their way somewhere.
You are in possession of the one thing this family is short of, and having time has never once been the same thing as having nothing to do. It is written in Proverbs that the old and the young are each other's glory, and the Holy Spirit is the one who does more in ten slow minutes at the end of a yard than a busy house manages all week.
Do it once. Then do it tomorrow. Do not announce it, do not make it a tradition, and above all do not apologize for how long it takes.
So here is what I believe is going out over a good chair by a window this afternoon.
You are able to be a man in motion in this house rather than a fixture in it, and that has never once needed anybody's permission. Nobody has to rearrange anything and nobody has to be told they have done wrong. Proverbs 17:6 says children's children are the crown of old men, and it is the Holy Spirit and not your own strength that keeps that crown on a man who now takes a while to stand.
And this, which is the word I came with:
You have an office in this household, and being cared for has never once been the same thing as being finished. The Spirit of God is the one who puts the old and the young in each other's company, and the written word calls that pairing a crown rather than an arrangement.
Up. Back door. End of the yard.
Declare this over yourself
- Chair by the window, you are not what I am. Proverbs 17:6 says children's children are the crown of old men, so by the Holy Spirit I am up and out of the back door with the smallest one before anybody offers me a hand, in the name of Jesus.
- Fear of being a burden in my son's house, you have never once been a reason to sit still. The written word gives an old man an office rather than a cushion, and by the Holy Spirit I take the office instead of the apology.
- Father, You called the children's children a crown, and You put that crown on the head of men who cannot lift what they used to lift. Your word says the glory of children are their fathers, so by Your Spirit I stand up at four o'clock, and I go to the end of the yard, and I go slowly.
Proverbs 17:6
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