Leadership Journal

What is it about nursing homes and hospitals that makes me squeamish? I thought to myself as I entered The Mira. This was home to a 98-year-old lady from the church and a man several decades younger who needed extensive care following a severe stroke. Is it the smells? Or does entering here force me to think about of the brutality of aging?

Ignoring the butterflies in my stomach, I swung open the heavy doors and set my course by the sounds of music from down the hallway.

Knowing that Dick loved music, I figured that if there were a gathering that included singing, he would be there. The sounds led me through double doors into a common room. People were dancing. Some shuffled awkwardly and others pushed wheelchairs about slowly, but you could tell that inwardly they were dancing with grace. I slid a chair beside Dick. Swinging my leg over the chair, I sat on it backward with my arms folded over the back, my chin resting on them.

"How are you today, Dick?" I ventured.

Our eyes met, locking in a silent gaze. Apparently no words could be found inside the man to express his thoughts. Silence, a long stretch of silence, was all that followed my greeting. I would try something else.

"Hazel was out to church on Sunday. She seems to be doing well."

More silence. Deafening silence. No apparent recognition of his wife's name or of church.

Maybe, behind his blue eyes was the desire to say something, but that desire was chained by a body that did not cooperate with its owner. I wanted to look away, to scramble for comfort, but that felt rude. After all, he seemed quite comfortable simply for us to keep looking at each other.

I wondered if he even recognized me. We sat together a long time. He gazed blankly into my eyes. I supposed he was running my image through his memory bank in search of a match.

I recalled my trips to Dick's farm, a testament to his creativity and ingenuity. He had taken the remains of a worn-out school bus and turned it into a functional sawmill. I can still point to posts holding up our lean-to and boards on our old chicken coop that were milled by Dick on that transformed bus. I pictured the homemade motor home in which they as a family traveled across the country.

It seemed such a shame that those calloused hands that could make anything mechanical work, that could fix anything broken, that felled trees and milled timber, were now soft, white, and shaky. In that moment I grew a bit angry at life, even at God, for allowing my friend to suffer as he did. I wanted to know that if I lived my life for God, as Dick had, that it would conclude with dignity. I —

"Are you going to preach now?" Dick interrupted my mental meandering.

I smiled and patted his back. It felt good to be remembered. But my heart was heavy from the acute reminder of the harshness of growing old. Am I going to preach? No, Dick, not now. But if I were, what would I preach?

Could I hold onto the truth that God is good, even when the evidence around me seems to contradict it? I definitely prefer living by sight, but so often am called to live by faith. With these thoughts rattling around in my mind, I left the dance to find Ruth. She was in a semi-private room down the hall.

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