Like to ski? Come to Colorado. We’ve got lots of the white stuff swirling around now.
Overnight, a major blizzard hit our area, and while it is beautiful, and it’s given many people here in Colorado Springs the day off (most businesses are closed, as is Interstate 25 in many parts), the only thing it’s good for is skiing. OK, so maybe also for taking a few nice photos for use on a Christmas card. Me, I’m a warm weather person and don’t care much for bundling up in bulky coats and boots.
A day off is a luxury. We pampered ourselves and sat outdoors in the hot tub with the snow blowing around us—great fun. At the same time, I am responsible for a 2-day book fair at a nursing home that started yesterday. Which means, today my books and display carts are stranded there, while I’m stranded here, soaking away my guilt over not being able to work. Not making sales. Not serving the residents of the nursing home. But I can’t change it, so I’ll just wait until the roads are open again tomorrow!
Nursing homes are a world unto themselves. I am always amazed and filled with admiration for the staff people who daily care for the elderly and disabled populations who reside there. They are indeed angels of mercy.
I slow down when I’m working in that environment. I tend to be a high-energy person who is always moving or keeping busy with things to do. I talk fast. I move fast. Not in a nursing home. How can I be speedy when those whom I’m serving do nothing of the sort? They’ve earned this time in their lives to take a day slowly. They deserve to be cared for: helped on with a jacket, served food, have their hair combed or blanket tucked in around their feet. I imagine each of them has cared for others at one time in their lives, and now it’s their turn to be the recipient of grace.
I find myself staring intently into the faces of the residents when I’m conducting a fair in a nursing home. I can’t help but try to see each person as a child, a teen, or someone who jetted off to a honeymoon, lived as a young mother or father, as an active adult who held down a job, played on a softball team, or danced the night away with a loved one. I can’t help but wonder what my fate will be when I’m in my 80s, if the good Lord allows me time on earth that long. Will I be in a wheelchair? Will I need to be fed my dinner? Will I need others to help me with basic issues of cleanliness?
I believe each and every person under the age of 60 should at one time in his or her life spend time in a nursing home. I know it causes me to think about what is truly important in life. When all is said and done, and one sees the end of life just beyond the daylight, I think what matters is the dignity people deserve as human beings and children of God. It’s about the respect and human compassion each of us should be given after living a long life. Our society tends to look at youth as the all-deserving, the “stars”—the Hollywood mentality of our culture—but it’s the elderly, fragile people who help me to focus on what it means to care for another human being.
If I’m lucky, I’ll live to be 80 or longer, and I hope someone will care enough to remember that I too was once young and vibrant. And when I nod to sleep in my wheelchair because I’m tired with age, and you think I can’t hear you talking, youthful memories will still swirl like a Colorado blizzard around in my head, and I'll remember the kind of person I was. It will just be my body that’s aged and weak, not my spirit.
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