Dean's Prayer-Song

One way that I know Dean has worsened dementia, due to his brain injury, is that he now has a harder time with repeating the same song over and over. He did that a lot the first few years after his accident, but now it is one of the "symptoms" that has come back to haunt us.

I say haunt us, because although my voice is not solo quality either, I've at least been able to muster a decent enough sound to sing in choirs. I'm not sure Dean would fit in a choir. Let's just say he's able to make a joyful noise with a congregation. I'm sure his hearing deficit is mostly to blame though, because he does have a rich, low voice that I mostly love. (He did remind me the other day that he sang in a choir once. I'm thinking--high school academy, maybe?)

In any event, the song he seems to be stuck on recently is called "An Evening Prayer". It's a beautiful song. When I was "complaining" about his humming it all the time recently though--after humming my own different songs all day, in a futile effort to get him to change his tune--he told me that it's not just a song to him. It's really his prayer. When he said that, I gave up, and just let him have "his prayer-song".

An Evening Prayer

If I have wounded any soul today,
If I have caused one foot to go astray,
If I have walked in my own willful way,
Dear Lord, forgive!

If I have uttered idle words or vain,
If I have turned aside from want or pain,
Lest I myself shall suffer through the strain,
Dear Lord, forgive!

If I have been perverse or hard, or cold,
If I have longed for shelter in Thy fold,
When Thou hast given me some fort to hold,
Dear Lord, forgive!

Forgive the sins I have confessed to Thee;
Forgive the secret sins I do not see;
O guide me, love me and my keeper be,
Dear Lord, Amen.