There is a brief breeze as the air pressure from within the building escapes into the warm sky. The door slides shut, the breeze stills and I'm inside once again. I both dread, and look forward to these visits. The dread is easy to explain; who on earth looks forward to being encapsulated in a skilled nursing facility, a nursing home.
I sign in smiling at the lady behind the desk, we exchange normal pleasantries then I turn entering a different world. Sometimes that world begins outdoors, when the residents in wheel chairs sit outdoors catching a few sun beams. Mostly the world become unmistakable before making the left turn, but certainly after turning down the hall and entering another universe.
It is never hard to take that walk down the hall. Everyone of these residents have loved, laughed, cried, and been angry. Everyone of these residents have family who interact with them, or at least did to get the admitted. The humanity shared by each of us causes me to smile at the lady in the wheelchair, and she smiles back. One of the ladies always asks me if I am going. My response is the same, a genuine smile, and a spoken "yes", and then I take the turn by the nurses station.
Waving at Lily, the RN, I turn the corner and head for Dad's room. He is sitting in a chair in front of a TV that is tuned to ESPN, and a college football game. He is asleep, I gently put my hand on his right shoulder and speak my name loud enough for him to hear. Sitting on the bed, reaching for the volume control on the TV I greet Dad.
Dad entered this alternative universe a year ago when he went blind. Eye surgery was attempted, but the end result never changed. His sons and daughters in love attempted to care for him but that proved a full time job. A job you could only take if you quit your day job.
We moved him into an assisted living center. That was hard. That was hard for him, and that was hard for us. It was a time of accelerated challenges, and a learning curve at least one light year long. Dad's loving heart, his intelligence, his good humor stood him in good stead as he adapted to his new world.
Within a month he was making his way down the halls that he could not see. Within two months he was establishing new relationships, always showing the Love of Christ to everyone he met. Yet time is not an ally when important parts of our selves deteriorate. The steady decline, while nearly impossible to see while measuring with 24 hour yard sticks, becomes painfully apparent at longer intervals. When the body and mind decline in concert, the music goes off key, and sometimes things break altogether.
Dad had been fortunate to fall gently, tearing only skin and not bone. When the bones started breaking everything changed again. Five months of assisted living came to an abrupt end, and the family scrambled again to find a new universe, a new home away from home. After less than two weeks one final catastrophic fall removed Dad from vertical existence and put him in bed.
I sit gently upon the bed remembering first experiences with the bed alarm, the startled awareness of a siren going off because the sensor was reporting, incorrectly, that someone had fallen out of bed. We talk, in a slow deliberate way, leaving long pauses for secondary comments and space for grace to appear. This is not the way our conversations started so many months ago. My nervousness at being in a nursing home prompted me to fill conversational silence with words. Not all of the words were superfluous, not all of the words were wasted.
Yet a greater peacefulness suffuses the room as acceptance appears and sits with us. That acceptance may be more on my part than Dad's, yet it changes the chemistry of the moment, embraces the arms of grace that always appear when I raise my hands to the sky in surrender.
Today is not the day for spirited dialog....indeed, the synapses of silence confirm that fact.
Dad either sits in the chair, or lies in bed. His back injuries were so grievous they precluded any serious physical therapy. Besides, this is not a place that many return from. For many this is the last earthly dwelling place. For many this is the last home.
I still recall the conversations he and I had over the years regarding his probable future. The nursing home was not a destination to be anticipated. We speculated what might happen, and the possible sequence of events that might transpire. Neither of us had the imagination to forsee what actually took place.
He receives a stream of visits from his family. Some are able to make it almost every day, others including myself, drop by several times a week. More distant relatives make a journey of it, arriving in a full car after an hour or two on the road.
Dad's gratitude for a visit comes across in the gentle movements of his arm as he feebly waves them in the air. Sometimes his arms trace an ephemeral shape as his hand swings out, guided by the sound of my voice, to seek out a loving human touch. He marries those movements with low murmured compliments, questions about the family members who are absent from the room, and questions about what others are doing.
Before I know it, our time together has passed and I'm making preparations to depart. We go through our "goodbye ritual", which to my eternal delight includes a final parting phrase: "Au revoir". My footsteps retrace the path taken earlier, neither the hall nurse, nor the ladies in their wheelchairs are in sight. A quick signature in the book, a wave at the lady behind the the front desk, and I step through the sliding glass in a mild breeze. Outside the warm sun is still shining.
Sent from a tiny DEC MicroVAX.
