Visiting a widow

Call me a super-literalist, but today I happened to read in James about visiting widows and decided to visit a widow: a woman who lived across the street for 20 years and ended up in a nursing home after a fall on the sidewalk three winters ago.

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27, ESV).

If you have ever been to a nursing home (I’m not talking about the ritzy retirement communities they now have that look like upscale condominiums), you will know that it is the smell that gets you more than anything else. It is not precisely urine or stale air or beige food, but a cocktail of all three that is identical in Philadelphia to the odor I experienced 40 years ago in Rhode Island when I worked as a nursing home aid between college years.

Mrs. G. was not in her bed but in the day room. I found her propped in her wheelchair at a card table where another woman also sat, though the two were oblivious to each other. The only other people in the room were a wheelchair-bound man alone in one corner, and at the other end, three men also in wheelchairs parked (by some staff person) close together but with each man in his own world. No one was speaking. How could they speak? A boom box located on a high shelf was blaring rock music, concession to the orderlies who shuffled in and out who no doubt hated the smell as much as I.

I made small talk with Mrs. G. and she with me, and then I went in for the kill and started talking about God. For this I lowered the volume on the radio and spoke in a voice I deemed fitting for octogenarians. I said that Jesus loved her, and a few related things I don’t remember.

Suddenly, from the corner of the room where the three men sat I heard a single clap of hands that broke the stifling air. And then again, and then again, but slowly, with deliberate and painstaking effort. I looked over and it was the resident leaning and drooling and nearly perpendicular to the floor. Then the man next to him joined in the best he could. The third man, also slouching uncomfortably, mumbled something I could not understand and reached into his shirt to retrieve a rosary bead necklace, showing me the crucifix at the end of it.

I got psyched. I started clapping too. We clapped to Jesus. I said out loud for all the room to hear that Jesus loves us very much and that we all will see Him soon and have new bodies—no more aches and no more tears. The day room, which had been dead, now came alive. After praying with Mrs. G. I asked the rosary man if I could pray with him. I held his hand and I could see that he was happy, probably as happy as he had been in a very long time. Afterward I wondered when the last time was that someone had held his hand.

I should have stayed longer. I should have made the rounds and prayed with each of them in turn. I had the thought of it, and only God’s Spirit gives ideas like that. In ages hence I do not know how God will see the situation. Will I meet these men in heaven? Will they introduce themselves with youthful bodies? Will I hang my head a bit as God reminds me of the king who struck the arrow only thrice and thereby forfeited a greater blessing (2 Kings 3:18)?

To my shame I tarried not so long, and have nothing here to offer in defense. All I can say is what I said before, that I don’t like the smell of nursing homes.