Moving Toward

Field Placement Week 7

I've been visiting a woman weekly who I first met at a worship service. Later, her name was given to me as someone who might want a visit. She did accept my visit that day, and I've visited her every week since. We've talked about a lot of things, mostly past and present. Future ideas remain largely unspoken. I sense she is moving toward the end of life. I can't say for sure. I'm not making a prediction. I sense something, and I think it is something like disappointment. Her comments have alluded to frustration with waning abilities, regret for things left undone, and a lingering sense of how her family needs her--needs she can no longer fulfill. In past weeks she has bounced between such comments and statements of faith and acknowledgment of things done. This week she seemed particularly bereft as though a large store of energy had been depleted and she had no means of replenishing it. After just a short time, she said she didn't feel up to a visit. I asked if we could pray before I left. She agreed.

In contrast, another woman I have visited is a woman who was introduced to me as someone "probably not long for this world". My exchange with her has been minimal, but over the past few weeks, I've witnessed evidence of feistiness that I interpret as very much alive in her world. From the first visit, she has managed brief but distinct awareness. I haven't had sufficient conversation to ascertain any reflection regarding moving toward her death. What I wonder about is whether she does in fact see herself that way. What is her perception of how close she is to death?

Another contrast is with a woman in the Memory Care section that, though appearing strong and healthy in body, indicates serious loss of cognition. What is her sense of moving forward? What is she moving toward? This woman seems to recognize me, greeting me with a big smile and holding lengthy eye contact, but I know it isn't me she is remembering. In fact, her response is likely to me as something new in her world that day. She is receptive and, in turn, responsive.

I move toward each of these woman, and others, each week in faith that what is happening that day for them is meaningful, is part of their personal story, is relevant in the larger view of things. I listen because I want to know. I respond because I value them as humans with whom I share earthly space. We breathe the same air. We are made of the same substance. We are moving toward the same ending. It may not appear on the outside as a "happy ending" or it might. It isn't happy I am after even though culture and society often demand such endings, ultimately, even if superficially. We only accept dystopia as a way of contrasting our own less-than-happiness. In this broad contrast, the Good News of Christ can be overshadowed by the here and now. Lady 1 above seems very much aware of the contrasts she bemoans. Lady 2 may bring her feistiness to bear in her effort to stave off the contrasts. Lady 3 perhaps has moved forward to a place where everything is here and now in the briefest form of that cliche, without contrast. Who among us--them and me--moves toward our ending with the greatest ease? With the greatest trust in the promise of life everlasting? With the greatest peace, despite the trials of our humanity?

Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to the span of your life? Where did we get the idea that more is better? What are we moving toward?