If you’ve
been reading my blogs then you know that last June I trained to be a hospice
volunteer. Two things came together to
move me in that direction. The first was
the truly blessed experience I had with my own mom in the last 5 weeks of her
life, the last few days of which she spent in a hospice home in Florida. By
itself, that may not have been enough to move me to volunteer, but the Lord was
at work in my heart in a way that moved me to do so. I’d been convicted some time before about how
nearly all of my ministry was centered in my church with my brothers and
sisters in Christ. I knew the Lord was
moving me to change that. So, when I saw
a flyer at my church from a local hospital’s Visiting Nurses Association advertising
hospice training, I signed up. The rest,
as they say, is history.
Since I began
I’ve been blessed to serve many people at the end of their lives. Some were in their homes, others in nursing
homes or other care facilities. As is
usually the case, I volunteered to bring THEM comfort or encouragement or
companionship, but in the process I am the one who receives the greatest
blessing.
A few weeks
ago, an Alzheimer’s patient I’d been visiting for more than 6 months,
died. Although communication with him
was difficult, even at the beginning, at the end it was almost non-existent,
yet communicate he did. Once, he affectionately
brushed my face with his hands, another time he blew me kisses when I was
leaving. Often he implied, in perfectly
lucid speech, that I surely had better things to do with my time than visit
him. As his condition deteriorated, it
was enough just to sit with him and speak to him, even though he rarely
responded. I was sad when I heard the
news that he had died.
Currently, I’m
visiting with a 97 year old woman. How I
love those visits! We talk about our
families and we chat about her life experiences. As I was praying for her on my way to my
weekly visit, I thought about what we might talk about. What I wanted to tell her is that when I grow
up, I want to be just like her!
One of the
things about aging that really bugs me is that the older we get the more our
conversation tends to revolve around getting old. While we may once have talked about world
affairs, books we’ve read, places we’ve gone, now we talk about our ailments,
our medications, our doctors, our surgeries.
Where we once may have experienced the joy of being alive, now we talk
about all the physical trials we have on the way to being dead. We’ve all been around elderly folk who do
nothing but complain about all this – as if it’s somehow a surprise. I don’t want to be that kind of elderly
person.
My 97 year
old friend is not like that and that’s why she is my role model for aging
well. For one thing, I have never heard
her criticize or complain about her family.
She’s so proud of each one and freely brags about them and their
accomplishments. Her lack of complaining
puts me to shame for all the complaining about people that I do!
She is
experiencing all the limitations of age, but instead of being taken by surprise
by them, or lamenting over all she’s lost, she accepts them as part of the
process. She makes the best of what she’s
still able to do by taking advantage of all that her living situation
offers. I can’t tell you how much
complaining I do over the most minor annoyances!
She is never
cranky, cantankerous, or edgy. She is
cheerful, gregarious, funny and wise, often giving me advice on what is to
come!
Whenever I’ve
tried to tell her how much I appreciate the way she has accepted the aging
process and how much it encourages me, she brushes me off. I love that about her too.
My day is
coming and I already realize many of the negative qualities in myself that just
might make me the kind of elderly person I don’t want to be! But my friend is teaching me, it doesn’t have
to be that way. I can refuse to complain
about my losses, my illnesses, my medications, my dependence on others. Instead, I can choose to accept the process
and in so doing I can be an encouragement to those around me, even when I’m 97,
should the Lord choose to give me that many years.
If you’re
reading this blog and you and I happen on one another in the years ahead and I begin
complaining about aging – feel free to smack me upside the head!
