Tag: building relationships

• Who Will Carry Our Stories?

  This week has been full. One sister has healed in the hospital (well mostly on our initiatives) and another has been blessed with a long term care home bed so will be transferred to her new home today.

  

  As religious sisters, without the daily presence of families, and as age erodes memories, sometimes they arrive into a long term care home and their stories are not carried in. There is no one that has intentionally noted them, and if one is not a writer and records things personally, the stories are lost. In families there tends to be more intentionality to share stories and memories together, often with photos to trigger the connections.

  Are the stories important? Is how we lived our 90 years of life important to us as we age and sometimes forget our past? Or is it like a daily starting over, and the past is not really that present or important anymore?

  I think it is important. I think our touchstones with one another, our shared experiences and histories matter. I think they colour our lives and remind us of loving and being loved. They remind us of the providence of God woven through every breath we take.

  As I write up the story of this sister’s life I feel a sense of grief for her. Not because she has not lived a full and good life, but because the evidence of that is scarce. The evidence is not to affirm her beauty but to enhance it. To have common starting places and shared memories that are not just about details but about feelings, about the warmth in your heart when you look at old pictures and remember the joy of the moment, the sense of belonging you shared with others even if the dementia is robbing you of the the who what why.

  I am not confident about this, but I know when I brought some old pictures to look at with her there was more of a light in her eyes, not a struggle because she couldn’t remember, but a light that perhaps said I had a good life. I cannot get inside dementia, but I can try to access her heart by carrying some of the memories for her and help others to do the same.

  There is a time for everything, including being the carrier of others’ stories.

  October 18, 2024

  aging, art, building relationships, dementia, memories, photography, writing

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• Bridge Building

  Fridays seem to be the most interesting day of the week. This week I was sitting at the end of the hallway beside my friend who always wears his Confederation Bridge hat. I had just gotten a large garbage bag to gather some clothes from one of the sisters that needed to be given away. The clothes, not the sister!

  As we watched the hall way activity, an older almost 100 years old to be exact, little sister shuffled her way down the hallway. I think she must guide her way by seeing corners and walls as they meet the floor as she is too stooped to see directly in front of her. She wears a habit, and is beyond cute in stature and personality. She makes it to the end of the hall way, checks the time to see when her laundry will be done, and then plops onto the chair beside me to wait. (This is the same sister that will get the staff to wash clean clothes twice with her dirty items as they may as well have a whole load LOL).

  So here I am, sitting in between these two delightful people. We get talking about the big garbage bag I am holding and how maybe it could be used as a disguise for Halloween. Sister can describe in detail putting soot on her face for Halloween when she was 12 but forgets who I am each day, and my other friend is trapped in another time zone in which his life details are beyond fuzzy. Yet, laughter ensues as I bridge the conversation between the two of them. Simple joy received by a choice to sit in a chair at the end of the hallway. And my day and heart is once again transformed by the gift of entering the moment. Not something I am always good at.

  It does not matter that I reintroduce myself to sister each day, as she will always say something like “that is nice that you are here”. And my Confederation Bridge friend consistently lights up when I introduce him as “my friend.” Bridge building, isn’t that everyone’s call in a world where connections are so needed? Blessed am I to be in a context that invites me to bridge between people, memories, time “zones”…for everything there is a time…

  

  September 7, 2024

  building relationships, dementia

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