When I began working at this new hospice 8 months ago, I kind of got into a funk. Without any patients yet, I was spending most of my time performing church services, doing bedside communion, and developing grief group presentations. It's not that I dislike these parts of my job, but I really thrive from one-to-one spiritual care. Ritual is important to me because of the potential to provide people with a powerful moment. I'm not really into writing and developing and planning it all out... but I also am finicky about what is said or done. So now I have a routine,a format for the services, and can now focus on providing meaningful moments for the residents.
This afternoon I went to a memory care assisted living place and went room to room. I ended up not giving a single person communion, but I had a lot of conversations, held hands, rubbed backs, said several Our Fathers, and prayed for about a dozen people and their families. During that time, I made people smile, I eased their hearts a bit. There was one woman, whom I visited several times before, who is no longer able to say the right words for what she needs or wants, but smiles all the time. I wanted to try to spark recognition in her mind and heart. After I said the Lord's Prayer for her, she showed no response. So then I decided to try singing. I sang a few verses of Amazing Grace. For the first time I saw her eyes get sad and teary while she looked as if she were remembering bittersweet memories. I can't tell you what a gift it was to reach her in that way.
This isn't the first time I've seen this response to that song. (No, it isn't from my singing, I have a fairly pleasant voice, I promise) Others with dementia have responded to Amazing Grace with tears and even sobbing. There is something sacred in tears. Instead of feeling like I was causing her pain, I felt like she was able to set free emotions that were hard for her to express anymore. When a person with dementia goes through a phase where she is paranoid, angry or violent, it disturbs us. It is painful to watch someone you love or who was so sweet turn into a stranger. And you can feel like the person is trapped in hell. But when it is all smiles and/or flat affect, I think we forget the person is still trapped in her own way. Those tears and sad, far-away eyes meant something to her. That song meant something to her.
So, for all the smiles I helped bring about today, it is the tears that I am most thankful for.
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