Life Is About Giving

Sundays are beautiful. Being in church and visiting the sick is a wonderful privilege. How incredible that dementia can preclude the memory of our past and present yet in the grace of a special moment one can seem intrinsically connected to the conversation, and interesting that different languages can limit communication but that affectionate and compassionate human gestures and mannerisms can speak volumes. It never ceases to amaze me how those who are ill and perhaps elderly, can still remember prayers, seem to maintain a loving relationship with The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit, and continue to graciously remember to thank the church for their Sunday visitation. And if that were not enough, how wonderful a feeling to hug each person and receive a stranger’s love back, how extraordinary a moment to impart a kiss on their cheek and feel their heartfelt warms lips on my forehead, how tender an experience to hold one’s delicates hands and feel the strength and faith that they have left, and what a bittersweet experience to wipe a tear from their face as one falls down my own. Life is not about me. Life is for me to give to another. I pray that I, along with the world, not waste our precious time foolishly. Thank you Mary, Valerie, and Caroline – our visit today was a joy and a blessing!