My Mom spent her final two years in a nursing home, confined to a wheel chair, suffering from dementia. No matter how many times I went to see her there, I never got used to it. I would see many of the residents spending the day in the hallways, just sitting existing. I grew familiar with each one of them and when someone wasn’t there, I had to ask the very difficult question….. In the two years that I visited, several of them passed on.
It’s such a helpless feeling, watching people suffer and fade away. There was not a damn thing that I could do to help them and that haunted me.
One of the residents, Bonnie, was quite animated and would always strike up a conversation with me. She asked my name and from then on, we became friends. Each time I went, she would wheel up to me and talk to me, and I must admit that it took several months for me to remember her name, but she always remembered mine! I was told by the staff that in addition to her physical illness, she suffered bouts of depression.
When God decided it was time to welcome my Mom home, I received a beautiful hand made card from Bonnie with the most beautiful and comforting poem that she had written. I was so touched. I sent her a card to thank her. I explained that I would love to see her, but right now it was too difficult to go back.
Today I received another beautiful hand made card from Bonnie with another poem inside. I hope I have a new pen pal!
Jesus turned this world upside down. Blessed are the poor, the weak, the persecuted, little children will inherit the Kingdom, death brings life…….
We need to pay attention to the ‘small’ things, which are really not small at all. Beauty, in a cardboard card with a rose drawn and colored with a red pencil. A poem composed by a women who struggles each day and lives inside the four walls of a nursing home. Hands that are wrinkled and old writing comforting and loving words.
True Beauty in Unexpected Places
Reflections on the Journey 
😦 cried a little, tears of joy and sadness