Meet my friend:
M A R Y
Mary is a loving and talkative 78-year old woman from Cape Town, South Africa.
She is a widow of 25 years with four grown children between the ages of 45-55.
She is currently living in a nursing home where she has a roommate also named Mary.
Despite her achy knee pains, Mary always maintains a positive spirit. She prides herself for being independent at her age. She made sure to tell me she didn’t need help from the nurses to take her pills or bathe in the morning, which in her eyes is liberating.
I am thankful to have had the opportunity to meet Mary. Our talks about her independent lifestyle, her husband and children, and the encouragement she gave me to always pursue growth in my inner beauty truly made our time together feel fruitful. She is a wise woman that exerts love, joy and peace in her spirit.
Keep Mary in yours prayers. She turns 79 years old tomorrow!
Visiting this nursing home helped me reflect a lot about what it means to get older. Now that I’m nearing my 30’s, I’ve become more aware and empathetic for the elderly.
Not only because they are a vulnerable population that our society shuns after a certain age (It’s as if they are told if they are not able bodied to work then they are no longer important to our society). Mostly because we are all going to get to that age, whether we like it or not.
Periodically, my parents and I joke around about me sending them to a nursing home once they get older. However, in our Mexican culture it’s an unofficial sin so just bringing it up can be a touchy subject.
The result of these jokes always end with two opposite outcomes. On one side, you have my sensitive mother crying her eyes out, feeling distraught that her children don’t love her enough to care for her until she dies. And on the other hand, you have my dad laugh it off and say he’ll just move to Mexico before that happens.
With all jokes set aside, now that I have had the opportunity to visit a nursing home, I know I could never send my parents to a place like that. I could not live knowing that my parents are not with my family.
Who can love my parents more than me?
Who can take care of my parents better than me?
All throughout the bible God reminds us that we are to always love and respect our parents.
In Exodus 20:12 it says, “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” Similarly, this commandment is repeated in the New Testament as a reminder to us to apply this to our daily lives.
The definition of honor is to hold to high esteem, high respect, to admire, or to know and do what is morally right.
For me, it means part of my duty as a child is to take care of my parents until they pass away. Whether they are mentally ill or whether I feel like they didn’t “raise me right”, it is my duty as their child to take care of them in whatever they need. I was given my parents for a reason, so no matter the circumstances I will honor them with the love of Christ.
Wouldn’t you want your children to do that as well?
I pray we become a generation of people that will take care of each other, especially our parents. Blessings come when we are obedient to what God called us to.
Let us always honor our elders, for they have the wisdom we need.
