A call for kindness

Two stories in one day.

I visited my sweet Aunt Debbie yesterday. I haven't seen her in over a year, what with this past year being full of weddings and babies and comings and goings, even though she lives just 45 minutes away. She's being cared for in her last stages of cancer in her own home, surrounded by the love of her children and the walls of her own bedroom of many years. Her face was as wrinkle-free and beautiful as ever, and though her mind seems to come in and out of conversations around her, when we focused on each other, our old love-fest was still there between us. I praise God for the beauty which surrounds her.

Chrissie has found a competent Jamaican woman, mother of seven grown children, professing believer, to live in the home and care for Aunt Debbie. I enjoyed talking with her after the wound nurse had left. Not sure my aunt understands all that the J woman says with speed and command and a very strong Jamaican accent, for I didn't. But obviously she has been taking care of my aunt for almost two months capably. Withholding any judgment I observed her feeding Debbie Chrissie's homemade chicken soup out of a large soup spoon. I might have given her smaller bites, but Aunt Debbie seemed to manage the contents. I might have wiped her chin more often, but Debbie didn't seem to notice, as she was intent on listening to my family news. I might have been dismayed if I'd witnessed what came later.

Chrissie arrived and it was decided to move Debbie to a chair that had just been delivered for the purpose of sitting my aunt up and moving her around the house. But how to move this six-foot woman with bed sore out of a bed she'd been in for two nearly two months was going to take a little planning and group cooperation. J woman seemed happy that the chair would be the antidote that would prevent Aunt Debbie from getting "Pneumona". We looked to her who seemed to know what she was doing on how to make this move. I stood by helplessly, though called upon to help, while J woman barked out commands, none of which I think my aunt understood. She also pushed us all too fast. Chrissie tried to forestall until her mother understood what was needed, and also had a chance to catch her breath with each move upward and outward. She made a plea that we go slowly so that Mom's blood pressure would have a chance to adjust. But J woman had charge of the situation. At last, grabbing my aunt, who was now sitting at the edge of the bed, she picked her up under the arms, rotated, and fairly shoved (dropped?) her into the new chair. To J woman's defense, she was trying to achieve our goal, and my aunt is pretty much dead weight. But now I was dismayed with her bossy disregard for the comfort of the patient. Wheeling Aunt Debbie out to the living room to see her favorite tree in blossom and taking her back to the bed before I left adds more of the same to the story.

From there I went to take my sister's mother-in-law to the doctor. She developed a serious blood infection last week that weakened her terribly before they caught it and put her on antibiotics. As we were on our way home from a trip north, and as Grace had been asking already to spend some time with "Grandma Janet" we decided to leave Grace at her home to help her out, watch over her, keep her company, until I came back to take Janet to the doctor and then to bring Grace home to re-enter her own life here.

We waited at the doctor's office for over an hour. Well, that's not a surprise and shouldn't be bothered with in this story. But once we got in to see the doctor, her doctor of many years, I was fairly taken aback at his manner, brusque, impatient, talking over her head to the nurse, throwing medical terms at us, and totally leaving Janet in confusion. I was only able to follow enough to help her later with my explanations because of my experience with my own father's health issues. This poor woman, alone since her husband's death three years ago today, grieving the death of her two brothers-in-law in just the past few weeks, already dismayed and alarmed at a health situation she didn't understand, was to be left in the dark, and possibly unable to manage the directions of the doctor, without God providing an advocate for her that day.

I don't get health care workers, low or high, who are not motivated by kindness and compassion. Well, I do get it. It's part of the fall, this doing a thing for the thing's sake, or worse, money's sake or career's sake, and not solely for the glory of God. May God bless those many people today who, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, show kindness to the infirm, the elderly, the confused, the alarmed, the helpless. May God grant us His kindness. And may He protect the helpless. He is mighty. Bless Him.