All In a Day’s Work

Today is a need-to-write-it-out day.  Not that it was a bad day.  It wasn’t.  It was a good day, full of lots of different things that all fall under the same umbrella, which is my job, which doesn’t feel like a job at all.  

It started with a team meeting to discuss plans of care for our hospice patients, just like we do - every two weeks.  

I found myself with an hour to spare before my next visit, so I made an impromptu visit to a friend and recent widow.  She served me lunch and wondered how I do my job.  She encouraged me to use the bathroom before I left for my next visit, not to speed, and sent me with cookies to go.  I marveled at how she was caring for me while learning how to get through a day in her new life.

Next, a scheduled visit to a beautiful home in the country.  (I only sped a little.)  Bath and lunch were finished just in time for a living room concert for mother and daughter.  Conversation about how glad they are to be together in their home, and not separated because of COVID visiting restrictions was a welcome topic between songs.  

This, on the heels of singing Christmas-in-July carols in the rain yesterday with some of my coworkers and volunteers at a couple of nursing facilities - because the residents aren’t sitting in their living rooms with someone they love, and because we can.

Got a call on the way home from a relative of one of our patients who recently passed away.  She taught me a lot about faith and perseverance, and a little secret about making a wish when you see a red bird, and stamping it onto your hand before the red bird flew away - just like her Mom taught her.  I only taught her how to make a paper flower.  Anyway... 

They were cleaning out her room and wanted to donate some things, so I stopped by to pick them up.  I reclaimed the hummingbird feeder I bought for her and the plant stand she no longer needed.  No doubt they will find another hook to hang on and a plant to hold.  They will continue to do their part in bringing the little bit of joy they’re able, which reminds me all of the people I have the privilege of working with and the people that we serve— and know, too, so will we. 

Stained Notebooks

I’m sitting at my desk in my bedroom.  Feeling contemplative after talking with children who can’t be with their mother who is dying in a facility, and looking at graduation pictures of other children I used to watch play on the floor.

The notebooks I use for work sit quietly by.  Some are used up and some are brand new.  Side by side, I notice the difference between them.  The used ones seem to have thicker pages, wrinkles, rips, and coffee stains.  The new ones are crisp.  Simply blank and available for use, having no more of an idea what will fill their pages than I do.

I imagine what each of our books looks like.  Not a bunch of little books with lots of names.  But, a big book with only one name.  Yours.  Mine.

I purchased the printed version of this blog last November.  It is printed on 8.5 x 11 paper, weighs about seven pounds, and is over an inch thick.  When it arrived, I marveled at its substance.  Did writing periodically over seven years really amount to something that I could hold?  Something that would feel heavy in my hands?  

Can you imagine if the story of each one of our lives were actually written down on paper?  The number and weight of the pages?  

In the physical life, they are written in our bodies, our hearts, and on our faces.  Grandma Bert is the perfect example, and my favorite, as well.

Her birthday was May 16th.  She would have been a spicy 93.  Her story was written on her face.  Her beautiful face.  Her lack of education and finances, her abusive husband, a murdered sister, losing three of her five sons to traumatic deaths, including the Vietnam War, and all of the long years in between.  And she smiled in spite of it all.  Man, I love (and miss) her.  

I imagine the weight of her book, containing all of the stuff of her 86 years.  I would love to read it in its entirety.  

Actually, I would rather she read it to me.  

I believe she is in Heaven and I hope to see her again there one day.  Should that happen, I may ask her.  But, maybe it isn’t as important there as it is here.  Or maybe it is.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them...     Psalm 139:16

Becoming Secondary

Sometimes, there is a downside to working in hospice and it is different than what you might think.  It's not too much death or dying, but a hyper-awareness of time in my normal every-day living.

Nothing brings this home more than when I'm trying to track down my percussionist in the orbit of high school marching band when I can't get him on the phone.

Does that seem like a weird set of circumstances to bring the old sand-filled hourglass center stage?

I'm hoping I can explain, and figure it out for myself at the same time...

I get to meet people in the evening of life on a routine basis.  Very often, they've become secondary to the people in their lives for whom they were primary for a good long while.  Spouses and kids, mostly.  They were wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, and their best years were the same years I'm living now.  But, their people slowly moved on.  They were moved from the center of their lives to the periphery, and became someone to check in on, rather than someone to be included and enjoyed.

My eyes are wide open to this shift.  I'm becoming aware of the people in my life who may feel like they've been dropped in a secondary slot, permanently.  I am still primary for my children because I can drive and grocery shop and facilitate everything that is important to them.  But, I am inching my way to the periphery and every time I'm holding my phone and there is no answer on the other end, I know.

An unscheduled weekend rolls in and feels like a blessing and a curse because time together is so important.  But, finding more than two people who want to do the same thing is a chore and getting all five to agree is nearly impossible.

So, we compromise. 

At the river, a couple of us fished down the bank a little ways, I sat on an uncomfortable rock until my butt hurt and then filled a trash bag with other people's trash, while someone else threw rocks at spiders the size of grapefruits, hoping to pass a few minutes while noting, "this is the-most-redneck-vacation."  It seemed like the best bonding moment was our unanimous relief to be back home, savoring the memory that we created.  Mainly, that we didn't want to go back there any time soon.  No discussion needed.
 
Sunday kept us altogether for breakfast and Mass, but separate for the rest due to attractions that couldn't be resisted and commitments that needed to be kept.  But, fortunately for me, my plans included sitting poolside and holding a baby for a couple of hours which seemed to slow time a bit.  Gratefully.

Unless I am hitting Sonic at Happy Hour, there are few things my boys are interested in joining me for, and doing things as a family is, well, usually a compromise for most of us.  So, I sit on the futon as long as anyone will sit by me, deliver pigs in a blanket to a fort in the woods, change my schedule to steal a lunch date at Subway, and go to the skate park when it's almost dark because "they have lights, you know".

I know I am becoming secondary.  Just in little moments for now, but they are coming more frequently and I know they will keep coming, as they should.  Occasionally, someone will notice a little tear and recognize that I'm not okay and while I'm trying to find the words to explain, they decide they didn't really want an explanation, anyway.  And I'm relieved, because I couldn't really explain it, anyway.

Unplanned, Unbound, and Undeterred

I'm just listening to the rain and thinking about life --Reflecting on a few things from the past couple of weeks. 

I've attended three funerals, watched a last breath, attended a fundraiser to end human trafficking, saw Unplanned, met one long-suffering person among many, and am trying to keep up with my Mom from two states away, as her bones continue to crumble and she finds Jesus in her bruises...

Recently, I attended a fundraiser for Unbound - an international organization to stop human trafficking.  Thank you to my beautiful and passionate co-workers for paying for the table and inviting me along.  I couldn't imagine wearing a semi-formal anything to something related to human trafficking, so I didn't.  I wore the same clothes I wore to work.  Probably the weakest protest ever, but I was eager to field any questions regarding my choice of dress. 

I heard some real life stories, that looked far different from anything I had previously imagined.  People from near and far "farmed out" by people they loved, for money, drugs, or whatever.  Over and over and over again.  And yet, the victims find God bringing good from it.  They are grateful, and I am in awe.  I wanted to throw up, cry, and jump for joy.  I didn't actually do any of those things, but I was still glad I was just wearing work clothes.

A few days later, I watched Unplanned.  I felt like I'd just come home from a long, hard day at work.  Some chips and dip and a Pepsi later, I felt about the same.  I'm not usually an "emotional eater", but sometimes I make exceptions. I wanted to see the movie because I felt it was my social responsibility to do so, and because it was based entirely on people and events from the town where I've lived for the last 12 years.

As a child with my parents, I remember going to an abortion clinic to protest.  In my adult life, I went once to pray with my women's group, and much later had an opportunity to have a single conversation, which ended with one changed mind and one new life.  So, I've thought about abortion, shown up a few times, and prayed about it off and on over the years.  But, throughout my adult life, it's been the abandoned people in nursing homes that have made me weep. 

After watching the movie, I guess I felt equal parts guilt for not doing more, horror at the magnitude and the details, sadness for all of the lives lost and irreversibly scarred, overwhelmed at the thought of "taking it on" and yet, exceedingly grateful for the ones who have, and do.  I thought about Abby Johnson, and the guilt she felt for being complicit in over 22,000 abortions, how she accepts God's forgiveness for that, and how I can, too.

In contrast to those who suffer and die because of other peoples choices, I meet multitudes who are suffering for no apparent reason.  Their bodies hurt them.  There is no solution in hand, no end in sight, and they are okay with that. 

Suffering with chronic pain since he was a child and a host of medical diagnoses, one of my patients has a body that is decreasingly able to supply his limbs with the amount of blood they need to function.  Some limbs have been lost, some still need to be removed, and more will need to be removed in the future.  And no one comes to visit. 

I probe him for his secrets which explain his peaceful acceptance of all that he's suffered and his plan to suffer still more.  He simply says that he's still here, so each day, he has to wait to see what God has in store for him.  God is the only one who can release him from this life, or provide relief in the meantime. 

I believe suffering has redemptive value, but he doesn't.  I expect that he wishes God would "hurry up".  But, he doesn't.  He just waits.  Without impatience or expectation, and yet with all the hope and trust he needs to do what God is asking him to do - come what may. 

And this reminds me of someone else I know.  My mom.  She's been wheelchair-bound for 25 years, until last Monday - when she came abruptly to a flight of stairs, flew out of her wheelchair, and landed at the bottom.  She broke her leg in a few new places, but it was already broken in others.  Years of not bearing weight on her legs are taking their toll. 

But, you won't hear her going on about that.  What you will hear, is how it was a miracle that she didn't hit her head, or that her 400-pound-wheelchair stopped at the top of the stairs and didn't tumble down on top of her, killing her on the spot.  She's convinced God and his angels "set her down", and was further convinced when she found herself, Jesus, and an angel in a bruise that covers her entire left arm.  Good luck talking her out of it. 

My niece observantly pointed out to her that "She finds Jesus in everything."  Not a bad way to go through life.  She's in this weird saintly place where she is eager to suffer and feels very blessed that this happened during Lent.  A special suffering during a special time and "To God be the Glory"!

I espouse the theology behind all of this, but to see it lived out is mystifying, at best.  Thank you, Mom. 

For all who have suffered in your body, mind, or spirit because of someone else's choices or for no apparent reason at all, you are not alone. As you look around, I pray that you can find people who can speak into your pain.  In the meantime, I offer what I have - stories of people, who like you have not been spared, but have thrived anyway.  God be with us.  Amen.