Site Title

I made my usual trip to see Frances today at the nursing facility.  I try to go see her on Wednesdays.  I missed last week because of an appointment, but she was in the hospital again for fluid in her lungs.  She has congestive heart failure.  She was brought back to her nursing home on Monday, so I was anxious to get out to see her again today.  Me and Samuel always enjoy sitting with her.  One of the things she asked me is "Has my son told you when I can go home?".  And then when I told her I would see her next Wednesday, she told me to call first "in case she had moved back home".  Home, for her, is a very small apartment in the same facility.  But it’s her bed, and her furniture, and her things.  I can imagine that home is a place she longs for.  And, yet, her son has told me that she will probably never go back home.  She can’t care for herself.  And he even said he’ll probably put her things in storage and allow someone else to have the apartment.  That’s not something he’s felt he could tell her just yet.  What kind of life is it if you can never go "home" again? 

It’s just been weighing on me heavily.  How dependent you become at that age.  Despite the life you lived and the things you did or the money you had or the people you knew, you end up (if you live that long) leaving this earth very much the same way you came in to it…completely helpless and dependent on others.

While I was there, her roommate (in the next bed) spilled some coffee on herself.  I ran to get some nurses.  The nurses came and were not very kind.  Frances told me that one of the nurses is "icky".  I asked her what that meant and she just made a face.  I made her promise to tell us if anyone was ever unkind or hurtful.  She promised she would.

So, I go every week.  For so many reasons.  One, because I love Frances.  And she loves me.  And she is my friend.  I go because if my Momo (great-grandmother) and Momus (grandmother) were alive they would go.  I go because of James 1:27, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction".  And I go because I hope that some day when I’m old, and those that I love are gone, someone who loves me will come and remind me that my life has meaning and purpose in this world…they’ll tell me about the garden they’re planting, and the azaleas that are blooming just outside my window; they’ll tell me about the weather, and they’ll remind of stories about the past…they’ll rub my hand, and reassure me; they’ll help me remember things and places and names, if only for that moment; and they’ll look me in the eye and tell me they love me.