Finding Jesus Again

Monday, October 25, 2010

Cord was with Mother when I made it back about 8:00 on Sunday night.  She was already asleep, so I didn’t bother her but just made my bed on the living room couch.  I did talk to the night nurse, who told me how she had managed while we were gone.  She agreed that Mother could not live there anymore in her current mental condition.

Mother was happy to see me the next morning, seemed to know who I was.  Michelle came in to see us.  She agreed that Mother couldn’t stay there anymore, so I told her we’d be moving her out by the end of the month.  Mother fretted a little when I told her we were going back to my house after lunch in the dining room.  While she napped, I went to the office and told them they could give her prize room to someone else.

At dinner, Chris, the chaplain, came up to her at Table 8 and asked her if she’d like for him to pray.  He says the most exquisite, personal prayers.  I wish I could remember exactly what he said, but mostly that he prayed she would feel God’s presence and love, even in her state of mind.

All of her friends came by her chair to tell her goodbye.  She smiled and said, “OK.  OK,” without really knowing who they were or what they were saying.  A few had tears in their eyes.  Mother got lots of hugs.  She didn't understand the significance of all the goodbyes when we left this time.

Right after dinner, as promised, I brought her back home.  “I’ve been here,” she said as we walked past the flowers in the front flower bed. 

“This is where we’re going to stay,” I told her.  “We’re not going back to the Baptist Village.”

It took a while for me to make it clear.  The rest of the afternoon I kept telling her, “This is where you will stay.  I’m going to go get all the rest of your stuff and bring it here.”

As I was making homemade chicken and noodle soup for dinner, I brought her into the kitchen with me.  She sat on her walker as we talked.  All of a sudden, she had an epiphany.  “You mean I’m going to live here?”

“Yes.”

“And you want me to?”

“Yes, very very much.  We all do.”

“And you’re going to take care of all my stuff?”

“Yes.  We’ve moved everything here.  I gave Cord some of your furniture, and I packed some of your clothes to donate to charity, but everything you need is here.”

“And you want me to stay here?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good.  That’s good.  That’s good!”

When we all started gathering around the table, Mother wanted to know, “Is this all that’s eating?”

“No, we’re waiting for Chloe and Jerry.”

Chloe squeeze between her Daddy’s chair and the china cabinet to sit in her seat.  Cord was right across the table from Mother.  She watched him fill his spoon with soup and start to take it to his mouth.

“Wait!” she said.

Jerry followed Chloe’s path and went on to his seat at the head of the table.  “OK.”  She held out her hand to me and stretched the other across the table to Cord. 

“Do you want to pray?” I asked her as the rest of us joined hands.

“Do you want me to?”  She searched my face with her eyes.

“Yes.”

She said the sweetest prayer.  Most of the words were wrong, but we’d all heard her pray so many times, we knew what she was saying.  God did, too.  “…and bless this food and the hands that prepared it,” we interpreted.  “Amen.”

I know no one’s eyes were dry after that prayer.

The soup was delicious.

That night when it was time for bed, Jerry pointed out that he had brought in Mother’s Bible.  He told Chloe to read something to Mother from it.  Cord said, ‘Start with Genesis.”  But I said, “No, the 23^rd Psalm, her favorite.”

Chloe didn’t want anyone else in the room with her when she read to Grandma.  “That didn’t make a lot of sense but it was pretty,” she decided when she finished, heading toward the living room.

I caught Chloe’s hand, and we went back to Mother’s bedside.  Mother took my hand, bowed her head and said her bedtime prayer to Jesus.  So sweet, so touching.

Jesus was always so real to her, her personal Friend, her Savior.  I was so relieved she had found Him again today.