Joyce greets me at the door. It’s only my third visit but she opens the door before I can knock and welcomes me with her love. Smiling warmly and with a sweeping gesture of entry she invites me into the neat tiny ancient cabin that sits on a bluff above the Colorado River.
She shuts the door to the frigid January day and wraps me in one of her healing hugs.
Joyce is Grannie’s friend. She and her husband Dan have helped Grannie to be able stay in her home for almost 25 years. They were her next door neighbors. Grannie who was living alone was always warm and friendly. It started innocently with the neighborly “sweeping of the old lady’s walk” when a dusting of snow would make walking dangerous for her then it formed quickly into a friendship based on the simplest foundation of loving kindness and goodness of heart. Dan and Joyce couldn’t be more like family if they’d been born of Grannies own flesh and blood. About 5 years ago they left their own home and moved into the house because Grannie needed constant care.
Grannies house, when it had been built in the early 1900’s, had been in the country. On a bluff overlooking the Grand River Valley and the Colorado River, it is now part of the community it was once away from but it is still on the edge of town so visiting Grannie still feels like a visit to the country.
It is a Friday afternoon. I can't remember exactly what her hospice diagnosis was. There is a large tumor in her belly, not identified one way or the other since at the time it was discovered she was 98 years old and she did not want the doctors to dig any deeper. That was 2 years prior to my meeting her. She has had nothing by mouth but sips of water and liquid morphine for 6 days. She has been in hospice care for just a few weeks. Joyce walks me to Grannie's room and quietly opens the door. Grannie is in her bed just below a window that casts a Winters glow on her incredibly fascinating face, the only part of her that is showing above the quilts and blankets that cover her. She is awake and comfortably resting in her bed with Precious, her cat, who, is anything but precious.
I place a chair alongside her bed. Joyce has hung new sheer red curtains in the window by her bed and the light that comes through gives Grannie's face a rosy pink hue. Joyce tells me that Grannie's cat, Precious, who is anything but, likes to sit in that window and had completely shredded the old curtains to bits in her attempts to move the curtains out of her way. I can only well imagine.
Grannie smiles when she sees me and smiles even bigger as Joyce is telling me about Precious.I lean in close and gently hold the fingers of the hand that has crept above the quilt tucked up to her chin.
I whisper “Hi” and she whispers “Hi” back. I ask if it's alright for me to sit a spell and she says “Please do”.
Joyce silently leaves the room. I look over at Precious, who is anything but. She is on the far side of Grannie, stretched her full length, completely white, watching me, just the tip of her tail twitching. I know better than to extend my hand any further than Grannie's fingertips.
I say to Grannie that she looks so beautiful. And ask if she is feeling as peaceful as she looks.
She answers me with a smile that melts my heart.
I say, “No pain?” and she says “Well, I wouldn’t go that far” smiling again.
We sit for 30 seconds, maybe a full minute, just looking at one another. I tell her I am so happy to see her again.
She is smiling, but says nothing.
I say, “You are so ready to go aren’t you?” and she answers “Yes.”
I tell her I’m sorry it’s taking so long and that she is being so patient.
She says, “Yes, I’ll go when it’s my turn.”
“And you’ve had a good life, yes?”
“Oh, yes!” she says with great enthusiasm.
“And you have a warm bed to wait in, and kind hands to care for you.”
“Yes” she says. “Blessed. I am so, so blessed.”
“Do you need anything at all?”
And she answers me, smiling, “How could I possibly?”
Her response to this question moves me deeply. To be able to lie there and say the kindest things about her care and her life, so filled with gratitude for everything Dan and Joyce have done for her, to know her less than precious cat, Precious, will be cared for just as lovingly as she herself has been and for as long as she needs to be.
Joyce comes in and asks me if I can stay with Grannie while she leaves to pick her grandchildren up from school. I ask Joyce if she thinks it would be all right to ask Grannie’s permission for a photograph. She thinks it’s a wonderful idea. Grannie says yes and I get the camera from the car before Joyce has to leave to get the kids. The light is perfect and I take some beautiful shots of Joyce and Grannie together and then some of just Grannie and Precious who is anything but.
Joyce leaves, Grannie rests and I sit with my hand gently on her side. Her eyes are closed but when the Cabin's front door squeaks open so do her eyes. A man comes quietly into her room. He is old and stooped, has missing teeth, is wearing worn but clean ranchers clothes. For a brief moment I wonder if we are all in a dream and this is her deceased husband coming to check up on us. I introduce myself and offer to go to the other room so they can visit and he says ‘No no. No need. I just wanted to say hi to Mary.” He reaches over to her leg and gives her a little shake and says quite loudly, “How you feelin’ today, any better?” (Which I find so cute since the woman is clearly dying) and to which she responds, “A little” (Which I find even cuter.)
He says to her “Now you get better Miss Mary. You still owe me a dance on the back porch!”
She smiles. He bow. And then he leaves.
It all happens so fast, and at the same time so slowly, after he’s gone I wonder if it even happened at all.
After that I just sat, watching her rest and listening to Precious purr all stretched out along the other side of the bed. I started to sing, slow and quiet, a new song we’re learning in the threshold chorus…
Open my heart, let Holy love flow through me
Center my soul
Upon the path of peace
Make of my life
A melody of love
Singing alleluia oh Great One alleluia
I sing this over and over and over, sometimes humming, sometimes with words. Grannie is there, hovering, resting, peaceful, grateful, beautiful and patient.
Joyce comes back with the kids, strikingly beautiful 6 year old twin boys and their 9 year old sister. It is tradition that Fridays are sleep over night at their grandmother’s house which is also Grannies house. The kids come in to say hi to Grannie and to meet me. They then retreat to the kitchen, the center of activities in this house, to paint and have snacks. I stay another moment with Grannie then I lean in close and say:
“Grannie, I’m going to go now. As much as I would love to say I will see you again, I’m also knowing that that isn’t what you are hoping.”
She smiles at me. “So let me just say again what an honor it has been for me to have this time with you and how grateful I am to you.”
To which she says “We will see each other, we will meet again. Thank you, thank you”
I leave her room with a prayer in my heart that God hurries up and doesn’t make her wait too much longer and a tear in my eye because I know when she goes, I will miss her. It was like she was on the runway ready to take off and just waiting for clearance.
Grannie lived 7 more days like that. I did not see her again. The day she died, Joyce and Dan chose to wait to call Grannie’s hospice nurse. They gave her a ceremonial last bath, dressed her in fresh jammies, put fresh sheets on the bed, combed her thin white hair, and then they called for the nurse. When the nurse came back to the office she told me that the sensation of love and calm in that house was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. This quiet, unobtrusive, gracious family was there to show us along the way just how precious (no pun intended) how precious and natural an end of life journey can be.
This was one of those chaplain experiences I hope all chaplains can one day have. Being in the presence of someone so filled with peace at the end of her long life was an inspiring opportunity. Grannie’s energy was soft, encompassing, strong and warm. There was something so organic about her, a true pioneer spirit. A woman, 100 years old who lived almost her entire life on a ranch. She birthed her only child, a daughter, on that ranch and then heartbreakingly buried her there as well. She lived through the discovery and invention of so many things we all take for granted. She was so sweet. She was present. And she was grateful. I believe she was as at peace as she seemed, that she was safe and loved and comfortable. That she trusted her caregivers to take care of her and then to care for her beloved cat just as they had cared fo her.
She had an aura about her that reminded me of Mother Theresa. She had told me the first time I met her that she was “Right with the Lord”. The way her voice and eyes looked when she told me the ranch and the land were her church. The way she twinkled when she laughed, about her life and the animals and the crops, putting fried onions in apple pie. And the way her voice softened at the long ago memory of her daughter and her daughter's death.
The experiences I had at her bedside were sacred moments in my own life; as a chaplain, a wife, a mother. Her room was a sanctuary from which she was making the journey of crossing over to join her husband and her sweet baby girl in a new and different way. And I will never forsake the trust and the love with which I was granted access.