A Visit with Bessie

When I got to her room, there were three visitors surrounding Bessie's bed. There were cards taped to the wall, a couple of flowering plants, and a balloon or two. One of the visitors was by her side, spooning bits of vanilla ice cream into her mouth. The little blue referral card indicated that Bessie was the mom of the hospital's compliance officer.  "Oh, I didn't know you had company," I said, and promised to return later. The visitors wouldn't hear of it. "She can really use a chaplain visit today. She's been kind of down. We'll go get a cup of coffee." I protested, but they prevailed. I settled into the visitor chair.

I don't know all of this lady's details, but we had the best visit. We started with what had brought her to the hospital and, clearly, she had been through a lot. She had had to give up many things that she enjoyed due to her failing body (if I remember correctly, she was 86), but her mind was totally intact. My patient spoke of having been responsible for the Thursday night dinners at the place where she used to live, and her eyes filled with tears as she described the pleasure of planning the menu, preparing much of the food, and shopping at the dollar store for seasonable paper plates, napkins, and table decorations. This had been a big loss amidst her many losses.

Bessie shared that she and her husband had recently moved to a retirement center and they had had a major cleaning out of 39 years' worth of accumulated "stuff" before moving. And when she got settled in her new digs, it turned out that outside the apartment's front door, in the hallway, there is a little shelf and the residents like to decorate their little shelves -- some seasonally and some just whatever. And this poor lady had nothing to decorate her shelf!

She had a bazillion stitches in her scalp and discolorations bruises in many locations, and her motor coordination (or lack thereof) was such that she had eaten her apple pie with her hands because she couldn't manage the fork. What was foremost in her mind was her undecorated shelf at home. Just what would the neighbors think.

I really, really liked Bessie, and we set a goal of her getting well enough to be discharged so she could go to the dollar store and replenish her knickknacks. And when I took her hand for prayer, she apologized that it was sticky, but she just had to have that apple pie!