The radio has not worked properly in the car for a while, and the repair people at Toyota can’t seem to figure out why. The only station it picks up is a classic rock station. When I turned it on, I heard sort of a haunting, strange song with unexpected lyrics:
Teach me how to speak
Teach me how to share
Teach me where to go
Tell me will love be there
Oh, heaven let your light shine down
That song has been on my mind lately, because I find myself not being very sure about speaking or sharing things that are going to be helpful or beneficial. I wish I could be like my dad, who had a gift for visiting the sick and ministering to them in hospitals and nursing homes.
Heaven help me!!
Last Tuesday, the church folk gathered at the nursing home for a Valentines party for Bob and Pat, two members who are residents there now. Pat did not come because her condition had suddenly deteriorated. She was having pain in her legs, wasn’t eating, and couldn’t get out of bed. There were too many people there to visit with her, so I went back the next day.
This time she was her recliner, and so I sat next to her, and she grabbed onto my hand like a vice grip and did not let go. She had talked to her granddaughter in Indiana earlier in the day and told her to come because she didn’t think she was going to be alive very much longer. Her granddaughter had said ‘Hang on grandma. Don’t die until I get there.”
As Pat was telling me this she began to cry, afraid that she was going to die before her granddaughter got there. I started crying right along with her. Not sure how helpful that was. I found myself frantically trying to figure out what I could say to her to give her some comfort.
I told her the story about Richard’s father, who was in the facility in 1993. We were on vacation, and got a call from the staff that we needed to come back. He had pneumonia and was dying. It took us several days to get home. Richard immediately went to the nursing home to see his father. He died about 15 minutes after Richard finished visiting with him. The staff at the nursing home told us they were convinced he had “held on” until Richard got there.
So, I encouraged her to “hold on.” And she did. Her granddaughter came and had a good visit with her. Hospice took charge of her care and began administering pain medication, and probably some sort of tranquilizer as well, because yesterday, Richard and I went to see her, and there was quite a change. The “old” Pat, who loved to talk and had plenty of stories to tell, was gone, and in her place was “zoned out” Pat, with sort of blank expression on her face and who couldn’t seem to complete a thought or respond in the conversations we tried to start.
No one wants to see her suffer physically or mentally, but it is almost like saying goodbye to her before she is actually gone.
