Two prominent constants in nursing homes seem to be birds and the smell of urine. When the time comes for visits to cease, there is sadness along with a twinge of relief. I’d gone to my students’ Christmas concert and helped with both the adult and children’s musicals at church. I’d visited my parents’ church for the carol concert accompanied by a stringed quartet. At the Tuesday night Bible study, we’d looked up carols online and sung along with them since musical instruments were scarce that night. Despite the ambiance provided by the glow of a laptop’s monitor, even that didn’t do it for me.
Holidays are getting smaller. My cousins have married and had children, and my aunts and uncle are often with them. After three years in a nursing home, Grandma died a year and a half ago; Grandpa went in ’98. Mom’s side of the family ranges along the entire East Coast, so it’s just Mom, Dad and I. Instead of getting big presents for each other this year, we’ll be going through the World Hope and World Vision catalogues on Christmas morning. We don’t need anything, and we tend to buy what we want on our own. How much better to spend time together and think about the families we’ll be blessing with a goat or a few chickens?
So it’s been a good Christmas season thus far, and will continue to be. It’s just different.
Maybe I was reaching out for something when I joined my out-of-town friends to go caroling at nursing homes last Wednesday. We trouped through the halls with a bunch of high schoolers. Since they weren’t my responsibility, I spent my time being amused by the high schoolers—the boys who wanted to ditch out and play pool when we passed a table in Nursing Home Number One, and the boys who tried to walk through a one-person doorway together in Nursing Home Number Two. There was also the tall, mouthy one whose expressions and attitude kept a grin on my face most of the time. People like that are good to take along on such expeditions; even if you can’t sing, you have a stinking good time.
Most of the party had moved down the hall at Nursing Home One when a man in a wheelchair rolled himself to his door and beckoned us. Those of us at the end of the trail clustered into his room and overheard him say, “Listen, Mother; these people have come to sing to us!”
She lay in bed with attentive eyes as we began our humble version of “Away in a Manger.” I smiled across the room at her and saw my grandma in her stillness.
I love Thee, Lord Jesus,
look down from the sky
And stay by my cradle
till morning is nigh.
I pictured the miniature wooden cradle I’d made for Grandma on her second-to-last Christmas.
Be near me, Lord Jesus
I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever
and love me, I pray!
Bless all the dear children
in Thy tender care
And take us to heaven
to Live with Thee there.
Take us to Heaven to live with Thee there… Tears came as I hoped that people had sung to my grandma. Crowded into that small room in winter coats and gloves, it was a holy moment…giving those words to a woman experiencing one of her last Christmases.
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