Recent Devotions | Devotion Archive

Devotions

New Year’s Reflection

“Time is a little different here.” Such were the opening words of advice I received from staff my first day on the job as a Parish Ministry Consultant. With that, I was introduced to Iola in a group home.

It is lunchtime. Iola is in the kitchen, grumping behind a mask as she sucks oxygen. She holds her “babies”: a purse, a plastic doll, and a yellow radio without batteries.

I’m told Iola is nearly 80-years old, she’s blind, she has developmental disabilities, and most importantly, she’s proud. She needs oxygen three times a day, and she hates it. Her heart is little more than a bag of mush, the pacemaker worn out long ago.

At last she is freed of the oxygen mask. Time for the new guy (me) to feed her. She sets her blind eyes upon me crossly, daring. I can hardly blame her when I see her food. As instructed, I set apart her babies until she finishes the bothersome task of sustaining her tenuous life through the imparting of a few nutrients. This confiscation does not win her affection.

“We’ll get right through this in no time,” I lie, forgetting the advice. I hear a chuckle from hovering staff.

Iola sits at the table in a defiant stoop. Her hair is a gathered assortment of wisps, dandelions in full seed awaiting a breeze. I, like her, enter the fray. I offer a small spoon full of the whipped . . . stuff, tenderly hold it to her mouth like feeding a babe. Her mouth clamps shut. I nicely ask her to open. She shakes her head. I coax, plead, bargain . . .“babies” after food! I tell her she’s beautiful. Tell her she’s stubborn.

A voice behind me says she has to eat it, all of it, all-three-bowls-no-excuses or she’ll suffer dehydration pangs later. Panicked, I trick Iola with a question and clumsily shoe-horn half a spoonful in. The other half takes flight. An oversized kitchen clock jerks with each relentless second; one swallow has taken a couple hundred of them. I sit back, calculate the remaining spoonfuls, dismayed. Time is a little different here, I remember. I relax my shoulders, adjust the chair, wipe the sweat off my temples. I too am stubborn.

The staff is merciful and regales me with stories of Iola. She has out-lived hospice for reasons nobody knows.

Visitors come and go, shifts change, and my right elbow is sore. Iola is enticed to talk by my attentions, so I force in food as she speaks.

A whisper: “She must eat or death will be painful.”

Iola gets frisky, combative, coquettish. She now likes my irksome company. We laugh. We sing. It’s a miracle. She shows off, careening through the Lord’s Prayer. After two hours the bowls are empty. I am tired. I wheel her to her room, and we put her to bed, a hard-earned mercy.

Staff walks off, saying, “The poor girl’s worn out. Every meal we wonder . . . is this the last one?”

The last supper. I stop in my tracks. A last meal, a last laugh, a last gentle touch to the face. A last prayer prayed, a last song sung, a last male to be attentive and think her charming. I watch her, asleep on one side, spending last holy breaths. Spend, spend, spend . . .

I ask if I can stay to feed her supper.

Psalm 90:12
“Lord, teach us to number our days aright, that we gain a heart of wisdom.”