Visiting Easter

 

Upon entering the room, I saw her lime green nightgown loosely encasing her frail body as she sat on her bed.  Her full head of white hair neatly combed, and her glasses sat on the nightstand.  It was only 6:15 p.m.

“I’m sorry, were you getting ready for bed?”

Even though I could see her aged, long legs beneath the night gown, she made no attempt to cover herself neither with blanket nor bathrobe.  “I always get ready for bed early”, Easter explained, “but come on in”.  She motioned for me to sit in her wheelchair, which sat near her bed, heavily laden with towels, tissues, and straws.

I sat down in the wheelchair, and she began explaining that because she didn’t have anything to do after supper, she usually prepared for bed and laid down.  She shared how she had once stayed in her wheelchair and sat in the doorway but felt the employees didn’t like maneuvering around her while going down the hallway. 

As I sat down and surveyed the familiar room, Easter, named after the holiday on which she was born, began her usual explanation of the hospital table that sat sentry at the end of her bed.  As she replayed that familiar story of how it sits at the end of her bed even though it’s in the doorway, she began her all-too-familiar conversation starter of explaining the items on her table.  When she got to the big, black Bible, she reached her thin, wrinkled arms across the bed and reached for it.  She held it up for me to see.  

“See these tabs,” she pointed to them, “a boy scout’s mother put them on for me.”  I repressed the urge to explain that I had done it--about seven months ago, while visiting Easter as part of our small group outreach to shutins, she had told me the story of the black Bible sitting on her table.  Her Bible apparently had become “lost” when she had moved from her home of many years.  Someone had bought her a Bible because she needed one for the nursing home's worship services.  “But” she had explained, “my Bible had little indents for each book and made it easy for me to find them.  Now I have to flip through this new Bible, and I can never find the scripture the Pastor is reading.”

I had made a mental note of the discussion, and before my next visit with Easter, I bought the books of the Bible tabs from the local Christian bookstore.  When I returned a month later, I explained to Easter what I bought, and sat and chatted with her for an hour while I painstakingly applied all 66 tabs to her Bible.  She was very excited!

Weeks later, a woman from our small group told me how Easter was so proud of the tabs, that she showed her what I had done.

On a subsequent visit to Easter, in a discussion with one of the employees, they too, told me how excited Easter was about the tabs.  While visiting with Easter, she told me how the Pastor marveled at her tabbed Bible, and she showed everyone how the boy scout’s mom had affixed these to her Bible.  I tried to correct her, “I did those Easter”.  But she only looked confused.

So now, months later when she tells me the story, why don’t I keep correcting Easter?  Because I didn’t do it for recognition.  I didn't do it for the ticker-tape parade or to hear the hallelujah chorus every time I entered the room.  I did it because Jesus tells us to take care of the widows and orphans, and I heard her express a need.  I listened and responded as Jesus would want us all to.  And I did it because, when I am Easter’s age and living in a nursing home, it is what I would want someone to do for me.

Kim  Taylor is an author and blogger living in Champaign, Illinois.