An
old-fashioned letter arrived in our mail box; it included an
introduction of the author and a polite request to attend our home
fellowship. She informed us she lived on our street and thought it
would be convenient to attend; she no longer drives. As it turned out
we don't meet in our home, but we offered to take her with us each
week. The following Friday as we backed the car out of the drive
heading west on our street to pick up our neighbor, we noticed her
quickly making her way up the sidewalk in our direction pushing her
walking ahead of her. She seemed excited to be going with us.
For
several months our elderly neighbor joined us on Friday nights,
sharing the frustrations of living in a residential home. She wasn't
happy. With some encouragement she found another residential home,
and though she finds living in small quarters with strangers
difficult this has proved to be a better situation. And she still
lives close by so we can still pick her up on Friday nights when she
is able to go to Bible study. She is enjoying our group; they opened
their heart to her and take her concerns and difficulties seriously.
It helps her to know we pray for her.
We
soon found out our friend has no family living in the area. Her
brother who lived a few hours away would come and visit on occasion,
but now he is moving to another state. When she asked her brother
what she was going to do when he is so far away, as her health is
failing, he said, “You are smart, you will figure it out.” She
has been weak and unable to come to Bible study for several weeks
now. There is no senior ministry at her church. What happens to the
elderly who are alone, in a strange house with strangers and losing
strength, feeling vulnerable and stuck both mentally and physically?
I ask myself this and similar questions several times a week.
I
am bothered by all this. We live in a world where people are living
longer leaving us with a much larger population of seniors. I am
challenged to begin searching for resources and wondering if this is
a forgotten group. Does anyone out there care about the elderly the
way they did when I was growing up next door to my grandparents.
My
grandma worked a full-time job and grandpa worked long hours farming.
When my grandpa's mother had one stroke after another it became
evident she was going to need someone to care for her. My
grandparents took her in and she lived with them for a number of
years. While grandma worked during the day, Gail Middleton, who was
older than my great grandma, would come and take care of her. While
she was living and active, my grandma visited the sick, regularly
called shut-ins to check on them, and visited friends and family in
the nursing home. She often would take my brother and I along. These
were often odd and uncomfortable experiences, but they helped us to
value the elderly—full of experience and knowledge—and to see
their great need to be remembered. Years later my grandma cared for
my grandpa until he passed away, and then her kids hired help and
cared for her in her home until her death. I grew up in a family
where the elderly were not forgotten and left to figure things out on
their own.
When
our elderly friend needs our help I often think about what my grandma
would do; I feel I have such limited resources for helping her, but I
am challenged to consider folks like her as the neighbor Jesus tells
us to love as ourselves in Luke 10. Tony Merida writes in his book
titled, Ordinary, “Therefore, I would define love something
like this: Love involves compassion that leads to action.
Jesus' compassion drove Him to wash His disciples feet, to serve
others, to weep over the city of Jerusalem, and to die as a
substitute for sinners. . . . Again, Jesus' life and death
exemplifies such love . . . He loved His neighbors; He loved the
least of these; and He loved His enemies. In Jesus, we know what love
is; it's the ordinary expression of one neighbor to another.”
Merida
writes in another chapter, “Christianity is personal, but it's not
individualistic. It's corporate. . . . It is easy to get excited
about a cause, but never actually [be] doing anything for a real
person. . . . Whose needs are you meeting with deeds of mercy?”
So
I am challenged to do what I can to show compassion to a woman, not
related to me, but alone and in need of care. Though I do not always
know what this looks like, it isn't always convenient and at times I
am certain there must be more I can do. It keeps me on my toes and my
“knees.” I am not a hero here, it is my call as a believer to
attempt to live the way Jesus lived and this is just one way. Also, I
am reminded one day I may be an elderly person and there are no
promises of the condition I will be in or the circumstances in which
I will live. Both my husband and I find ourselves in relationship
with elders who are suffering, vulnerable and sometimes afraid. We
pray, we visit, we pick up supplies and we give rides. The elderly
are only one vulnerable group in our culture in need of deeds of
mercy. We all need to ask ourselves, “Whose needs [am I] meeting
with deeds of mercy?”
Do
you find the elderly being cared for in your community? Who do you
know who is caring for an aging parent or frail spouse in their own
home? Can you lighten their load in any way? What have you found to
be some of the greatest needs of the elderly you befriend? I want to
say a big thanks to my maternal grandparents and to my mom for
teaching to respect and value the older people who cross my path.
No comments:
Post a Comment