happy promise day image

happy promise day

He is always in my heart

As a Hospice volunteer, I'm told I can not responsive to stimulation of the patient's nursing homes. He will not accept anyone else. He does not talk. He does not show emotion. When I visited, even though it was July, I 'played' Christmas Carols from a tape ... something ... something we're all familiar with, we can relate to. She has dementia. He has forgotten so much. He has forgotten how to survive. I hold her hand. I look into his eyes. I talk to him as the music plays. As I watch, I see a smile on his face. I hear he tried to speak. I hug her. I remind him that he is a 'child of God' is. I remind each of us gifts. As we hear songs of his birth, I remind him that he died for us. He hung on the cross of Calvary for our sins.

happy promise day image

I'm his friend, tears streaming down her face, glance around to see if. Why? "He never smiled or talked so long ... I do not remember," he says. There was every day for 8 years on the clock. But not everyone was there, she said she did not respond. So he just sits with him. He, he, frankly, he did not know what to do. He was lost. Anyone who has seen the plight of his health diminished over the years, but he never let down his faithfulness. He always was for him a loving presence. Now, again, he saw her in a sweet lady, "a spark". He smiles.

Most every time I visited after I'd find him ... in his room, talking to him, telling him to hold his hand, but he left "I love you" and hugging her. It was not much response ... but that 'little bit' He reached for it on that vision. He was about to leave, she reached behind her to hug me. Then he said to him, "I love you" as he has many times before. He did not respond. She walks past him to leave, he turned back and said, "He knows I love him, do not you, girl?". There! Suddenly, a loud 'yes' to the wind. He said. He left. He could not stop. He could not compose himself. He then confirmed what we all know. He heard. She loved. He was trying so hard to express himself,

happy promise day image

I did not make a difference? Yes ... but only because I had been trained to believe that our sense of hearing is the last to leave. I believe that leaned heavily on his friend and learned from me. No one ever told him what to do, how he could make contact with her, that she could hear him even though he did not respond, so he had delivered. But he never gave up on loving him. He never gave up coming to check on her.

Now she responded. It's a smile, a word here and there ... ... against him, he put into his hands, his fingers are little steps. But all of it is communication. He was all along. Because no one was listening to him? There was no one to talk to him? I'm assuming. But all that has changed.

One night, I sat in a chair next to her bed and told her how lucky she is to him each day, how much he loved him had to have come to remember! How I loved her! How much he loved him! I knew in my heart that he could not understand me. As I said, I cried. I let my emotions. She squeezed my hand as I saw his eyes with tears roll. He heard. He remembered the love and compassion, even though he may have been forgotten over the years, all else.

happy promise day image

The situation is different ... but that's the way God is on our side. We forget him. We put him aside for the things of this world. And we believe that he is not hearing us when we call to him, he does not. He is our guide and our protector. He continues to show our love and compassion, but we have to open our hearts to hear him and to feel his warmth. Only then can we really share with others ... This is the woman who is to be reminded that God was still with him, as may be required.

I stayed with her the night she died. His face, with "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding," glowed with my last breath he took. Philippians 4 describes it well.