Four Phrases

            For several years, I have watched the aging process dramatically change my 95 year old parents.  My mother is now confined to a wheel chair and suffers from increasingly severe dementia.  She can be counted on at least a couple of times a days to be inquiring where she can buy train tickets to Salem, the town outside of Boston where she grew up.  She would like to go there with my Dad to see how much her childhood home has changed and whether anyone she knows still lives there.  She used to want to take a road trip with him but now figures that the train is a better option.

            My father dislocated his hip recently and seldom uses his walker anymore.  He is legally blind and has a difficult time remembering and processing information.  Sometimes he gets tired of listening to my mother’s rambling memories, but he still loves her dearly.  He takes seriously those vows spoken over 70 years ago – “ in sickness and in health.”

            He wondered aloud to me recently whether one day the two of them might have beds that could be pushed together at night rather than be separated by the privacy wall currently in their room.  He would really like a double bed – but at least not feel like a latter day Pyramus and Thisbe.  Both of them are hard of hearing and cannot afford hearing aids. 

            Because of all those physical and cognitive challenges, my parents recently moved to a nursing home, leaving the assisted living facility that had been their community and support system for the previous seven years.  We think of a nursing home as one of the last stops along the way to the end of life here on earth – and for many of our elderly, it is. 

            For those women and men whose physicians clearly see death coming, there is hospice care.  Whether one lives at home or in a nursing care facility, hospice works with both the one who is dying and with his or her family to affirm and in an appropriate way embrace the inevitable passing.  However, for those elderly whose decline is at an infinitesimally slow rate, hospice never becomes a way station on the journey. 

            As an adult child and caregiver, I recognize that – hospice or no – 95 years is signal enough that life on earth is drawing to a close – and consequently, there are things that should be said and done.  In my parents’ case, their affairs appear to be in order.  Their wills are up-to-date, and their advanced directives are in place.  They want to die quietly and with dignity.  They want to be cremated with little fanfare – though I do not know where their ashes are to be flung to the four winds.

            Because the things to be done are mostly taken care of, I am left with the things to be said, of which the most important, I believe, are four phrases.  These phrases are simple ones but add a deeply spiritual aspect to a relationship with the elder to which we are bound.  Of course, life would be far richer if these phrases were spoken frequently and sincerely before the end.  However, they seldom are.  We seem to save them until the last moment or final days.

            FORGIVE ME – Forgive me my anger, my resentment, the grudge I have held all these years (so many years, in fact, that I am no longer sure what it was all about in the first place).  Forgive me the times I did not listen, I turned away, I had better things to do than spend time with you.  Forgive me my indiscretions, my faithlessness, my lack of support.  Forgive me…..

           

            I FORGIVE YOU – I forgive you for the times you were angry at me, gave me the silent treatment, pretended you did not see me.  I forgive you for the love you withheld, the joy in me you squelched, my tears you could so easily bring forth.  I forgive you for all the times you doubted me, when you did not treat me tenderly, when your pride led us to places we never should have gone.  I forgive you…..

            I LOVE YOU – I love you for your kindness, your energy, your love of life.  I love you for your body, the softness of your skin, those beautiful eyes always wide with wonder.  I love you for the sound of your voice, your laughter, the way you could always bring out the best in me.  I love you…..

            THANK YOU – Thank you for being my mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, spouse, friend.  Thank you for believing in me when no one else did, for encouraging me to follow my dreams, for sharing those dreams with me.  Thank you for loving me, for nurturing me, for all you have given me.  Thank you for just being you.  Thank you…..

            These four phrases, when spoken with honesty and a deep and abiding trust, make the final leg of a life journey so rewarding, so complete.  Surely they are a gift to be both freely given and humbly received.

The Spirituality of Aging

            In the church where I pastor, on the first Sunday in November (All-Saints Sunday), we traditionally remember people in our families and congregation who have died in the past year.  This year, we will remember, among others, a family matriarch, a mother whose daughter inherited her love for crafts, a longtime and long ago choir member with a beautiful soprano voice.

            For me, however, All-Saints’ Sunday is more than a day to remember.  Although not all people are blessed with the long and rich lifetimes they deserve, this day is also a time to appreciate that aging is a deeply spiritual process – one from which all of us can learn.

            Most elders I have known aged with a certain grit tempered with graciousness and a wisdom reflecting values and worldviews that come about just by living a lot of years.  We may not always agree with the values or the view, but they certainly nudge us into assessing our own perspectives. 

            If we are lucky, we are invited to participate in this spiritual process as we take the time to savor the “last times” with our elders, reconnecting with them while sharing life experiences.  All the elders I have known have taught me something – and probably more than I know right now. 

            Our elders remind us that everyone has a story to tell, but not everyone has someone to tell it to anymore.  These stories are the tendrils that lead us back through cultural and family history to our roots – and help us better understand who we are.  I found out recently that my great-grandfather was a beekeeper who cared for his bees without a smoker, gloves, or head veil.  Is that who my newfound hobby can be traced back to – an old world Swedish immigrant?  And my daughter’s independent spirit that has taken her from Southern Africa to South America? Surely that is her Canadian great-great aunt shining through, herself an educational pioneer and world traveler.

            In addition, many of our elders embrace a philosophy that says that life is indeed good – and worth the journey, wherever it may have led.  Innumerable elders have told me that their lives have been truly blessed – and, as their pastor, I have known those lives have seldom been easy.  Along the way, they have encountered financial hardship, lost a child or a spouse, experienced limiting disabilities, and endured health crises.  I remember Edie, unable to leave her nursing home bed but affirming that, no matter how rocky her road had been, in the end, God had blessed her profusely, and she had so much to be thankful for.  As she had aged, the cup became not only half full, but overflowing.

            Finally, I have learned that few words have the power of “I love you.”  Whenever I see hands gnarled by arthritis, I remember Leola, her knobby fingers pulling me close to kiss me goodbye that final time and whisper “I love you”, she fully understanding what I only could sense through my own tears at our parting.  Those words have the power to offer forgiveness and to bind us one to another, be it in this world or the next.  Say “I love you” every day – at least, that is what the elders told me.

            So – thanks to my beekeeping great-grandfather and to my great aunt.  Thanks to Rosie the matriarch, Pat the craftswoman, Sally the soprano.  Thanks to Edie and Leola.  Thanks to all the elders I have known – for the memories, for the wisdom, for the time.