Tonight, I saw one of the best examples of love that I have ever seen. While visiting my grandmother at the nursing home, I watched a woman take care of her husband. The woman is there every time I come. But I had never stopped to watch her until tonight.
The woman evidently comes every day and spends hours with her husband who has been reduced to a shell of his former shelf by two strokes. I watched the great care she took in feeding him, smiling at him, she even
tasted the food (which looked horrible).
Even though she is in her sixties, I could tell that in her day she was a beautiful woman. She probably stopped men in their tracks. But now she is taking care of a man that many would have abandoned. And she seems to cherish him as much as ever. That is what I found so hard to believe. Many take care of disabled relatives out of a sense of obligation. But she seemed to be enjoying it.
I don't know her name. But she is truly living the vow "in sickness and in health." I want to be able to love like that.
She saw something different than I saw. I saw an old man who didn't seem to be too responsive. She saw the love of her life. I wanted to cry.
Until tonight, I dreaded going to the nursing home. For starters, no young person likes to be reminded of their own mortality by seeing others suffer the pain of old age. More personally, I hate to see my grandmother struggle in her twilight years. But that all changed tonight as I saw how this woman cared for her husband and had one of my best moments with my grandmother (Granny) in years.
I don't like the fact that Granny is there. But she needs constant care, something that I am not equipped to give. She is constantly in pain as her body wastes away from old age and really bad arthritis. Neither of her arms work well. Granny can barely feed herself. She needs help getting dressed, going to the bathroom and doing basic things that most of us just take for granted.
But tonight seemed different. Even though she was in pain, I sang hymns to her, talked about life and helped her travel back in time by bringing a movie to watch. We watched "Singing in the Rain" with one of
her good friends from the nursing home. I think she enjoyed the movie because it seemed to take her back to the days of her youth (even if only for a moment). It was encouraging seeing Granny go back to a time when she felt the most alive.
My encounter tonight has shown me that you can find hope even in a nursing home if you really look for it. God is moving through people and relationships all over the place. If God can be seen in an inanimate object like a sunrise, how much greater can his glory be captured by one person sacrificially loving another?
Sometimes we are called to lift people out of where they are to see the beauty around them. That may be one of our greatest gifts that we can give someone - hope and vision to see the beauty that had been previously blocked by the problems and pain of life.
