I admit it: I hate assisted living facilities. I’m highly uncomfortable and even cringey in nursing homes and their ilk. I take this as something of a moral and personal failure, to be honest. I’m actually not that anxious about death at all – my family would joke that I’m too comfortable with it. I think it’s the decline in mental and physical abilities, the loss of the ability to “progress” in those ways that I have trouble processing. That is what I’m most afraid of for my own self, and so I find it difficult to be around others who remind me of this reality that most of us face when we age.
When I was a little kid, my dad would take me to visit old folks in the nursing home. They weren’t family at all, but perhaps were old clients of Dad’s. We visited regularly enough that a bunch of the people we weren’t there to see got happy when we showed up, and they vied for our attention. My dad was good at talking to these folks and he’d sometimes read to them. It seemed like the highlight of an otherwise lonely week. I didn’t like the smell of the place, and these people in wheelchairs and their droopy, wrinkled skin scared me. Sometimes they pinched me and beckoned me to come near. I knew we were there to cheer people up, so I did my best. I got a small cup of vanilla ice cream from the kitchen while there, so that helped.
Far too young, my father went to live in an assisted living facility at the very beginning of the pandemic. He was only supposed to be there a few days a week, to give my mom a break and some help during the week. But then the pandemic occurred and they shut the place down. Suddenly he was a prisoner, not allowed to go out…for weeks. It was truly awful. Dad was, in some cases, decades younger than everyone else. He generally accepted being there, but I don’t think he liked it. When we went to visit, we couldn’t go in, so we had to peer through murky glass at each other, touching our hands to the glass. The only way to hear each other was to try to talk over the phone, and Dad was almost always terrible at that. Communicating was always hard, but it was now impossible.
About a year ago, I visited a client in an assisted living facility. My shoes squeaked as I meandered down the beige hallways filled with octogenarians convalescing in metal beds. I felt myself shrink back. I hated this; I wanted to be anywhere else. Then, I felt it: a small “voice” inside said, “this is some of my most important work.” Well, you can take that for what it is, but I have to believe it was the voice of God, Spirit, the great universal whatever-you-want-to-call-it/him/her. It certainly wasn’t me. Pretty woo-woo, I know, and I’m still pondering it.
I’m genuinely ashamed of the reaction I have to these places and I’m trying to work through it. I really wish I could just switch on a Mother Theresea approach, but it turns out that it’s not so easy. What I’ve noticed (thank goodness!) is that not everyone operates the way I do. Turns out, there ARE angels in our midst.
One of them was in the form of a young woman named Diamond. True to her name, she had a gorgeous smile and a sparkling personality. She was half my age, but would joyfully call my father Mr. Ed as she gently asked him if he needed anything. She truly appeared to delight when she saw my father. I remember barely being able to hold back tears when I saw her interact with him. I thanked her profusely for taking such good care of him.
I recall a young man with a very similar attitude. He was tall and strong and looked like a football player, but he was gentle as a doe with the residents. He too smiled a lot and would sing out occasionally. There were countless other encounters I had with staff that humbled me and split my heart in two with gratitude. Such magnanimity and grace cannot be found many other places, I suppose because there is not occasion for it?
Every time I visit, I am nearly brought to my knees by the kindness and grace – the staggering beauty – that the staff muster in their care. Seeing the way they love highlights my own cravenness, and I am humbled all over again. Theirs is the quiet strength that could rule nations, and yet here they are, taking care of people who aren’t family. At any rate, I strongly believe that staff pay should be double, at least.
It’s November and we’ve entered a season of bounty. I can be tempted to give in to my weak state and shrink away from the places where hurting and aging people convalesce, but if I did, I’d miss out on witnessing all the beauty that happens there. Beauty abounds. It is all around us, even – or especially – in the places we might least expect it. And the hope for myself and everyone around me in this season is that in witnessing this beauty, I can pull goodness and strength from it, and release it again to the world, like fireflies escaping a jar.
