In the past few days there have been some profound events and pensive time which has culminated in the desire to place these thoughts into words. This may be a long post–buckle your seat belts–I hope it will be helpful and insightful for the both of us.
Grandpa’s been recovering from a recent heart attack in a nursing facility for about a week now. As much as we would love for him to be home, I’ve taken advantage of the fact that grandpa is roughly 30 minutes closer than usual.
Visiting grandpa, taking the time to converse with someone who is over 65 years older than me, has proved to be precious and insightful(Earlier conversation: Here).
The first visit with grandpa, since his transition from the hospital, had what seemed to be a rather peculiar element. It was Sunday and my Uncle and Grandmother arrived shortly after I pulled up a seat on the couch in his room. Grandma, a retired nurse, has yet to lose her knack as a caretaker. Before long grandpa was out of his chair and out in the hallway on a nice (but labor some) afternoon stroll(exercise). Halfway through the journey we stopped to rest at one of the lounge areas beyond the dinning room. The hallways were busy, filled with carols from carolers who had stopped to pay guests a visit at random. Conversation amongst us family members was meager at best; grandpa was still catching his breath. Then something happened that I didn’t expect, we met Loretta. She walked her walker right up to our three person posse and asked if there was room for her. Surely there was, and within moments of sitting down her stories began to stream forth. They were colorful tales, painted with the brush strokes of experience. She’d been at the home for almost 5 years now, was unable to adequately care for herself, yet unwilling to be a burden on her three children.
She was proudly polish, and heartily shared the stories of her travels. She went to several countries, mostly in Europe, after her kids had finished school. She went alone, fearlessly, and visited Poland last as icing on the cake. On her way, she felt it important to visit one of the death camps of World War 2. A whole day affair, starting with a conversation in Polish with a native cab driver; to walking amongst the grounds, gazing into the showers and stepping foot into the furnaces. Looking up wide eyed, she said simply, deeply, “That really happened.” Before we knew it Loretta was off, off to walk the halls, or sit in a chair in the living room with a look that showed far more glaze and far less of the gleam we had seen.
Days, later I was back in grandpa’s room sitting across from him, trying my best to talk over the blaring TV in the corner of the room. “I think you’re doing the right thing, Sam” was the first thing out of his mouth as I entered the room. We talked more about this and that, gradually grandpa started to share his experiences abroad. At nineteen, right out of high school grandpa had been drafted and sent off to the south pacific. Most folks nowadays don’t graduate at 19 and the case was the same back then. In a providential twist earlier in life, grandpa had become ill, causing him to miss an entire year of schooling. Come 18, the selective service was more interested in those who had graduated from high school. This lapse of a year, saved him a trip with his peers to the Battle of the Bulge, and instead sent him to the Philippines.
He shared at one point, they visited a place that was a part of the Batan Death March. He commented on the smell, said the flies were so thick they broke the stalks on the plants they infested by sheer weight. Word pictures of men ravaged by dysentery, beyond exhaustion, forced to keep moving. Some broke, collapsed, no longer able to be stabilized by their comrades. With shattered hope, they cried out to be mercifully relieved from this agonizing hell. Then silence. Grandpa looked at me, and it was a look I’d see before, one that seemed to say “That really happened.”
The mood in the room just hung there, stagnant. What could the future hold, when it had known the truth; the reality of these atrocities and the possibility of countless more to come? These things, horrific events showed a side of man, that would much rather remain hidden, the sinful side. As I continued to hang on the bleakness of the situation, grandpa spoke with moisten eyes.
He said, “That is why you are doing the right thing. You are bringing the answer, the hope of Christ, to a world unable to save itself.”
The fall of man is not something with which to take lightly, or by doing so risk cheapening the grace by which we are saved. No, for we must consider sin in it’s truest light, and understand that the problem is not so much around us as it is within us. Until sin is dealt with on a personal level, how can we expect our surroundings to change?
To wrap up my thoughts, I will refer back to a person who has already been mentioned, albeit briefly: my grandmother. Grandma’s world is shrinking. That’s what dementia does, slowly, noticeably, it steals away the people who we know and love. Grandma remembers I’m going to school in Youngstown, but is still surprised to hear I’m going abroad. Being away from grandpa has been especially hard. She’s a homebody to begin with and isn’t able to live on her own while grandpa is in the hospital. It breaks my heart to hear that she packs her suitcase each day carefully placing it near the door with the hopes of going home. She’s not quite the same sharp head of nurses that once meticulously monitored the ward of Wooster hospital. In spite of all these things, as she was visiting with grandpa the other day she noticed some one in the hallway in need of help, which she promptly offered.
How can it be that even when our personhood is stripped away, compassion is still present?
Was it always there?
Or was something dealt with, a sinful nature, sometime ago? A work undertaken that has continued to this day.
I hope, at the end of my days, I will find that knowing Christ is magnificently deep, far deeper than what I can even fathom today; a renovation over a remodeling. It is my prayer that we would not accept a change of paint and a rearrangement of the furniture, as if to sweep sin under the carpet of our lives, when the entire soul is at stake.
