A Song in the Night by Bob Massie

Author:Bob Massie [Massie, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-53576-2
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

The most demanding and moving part of my job as a part-time pastor was visiting the seniors who could no longer come to the church. I had twelve such “shut-ins,” as they were known, and I tried to visit them all every four to six weeks. This was a challenge, because I was living in Brighton at the time and it was a forty-minute commute before I could reach any of their homes. Yet I set aside the time to do it, and it was a profound and moving experience. I would study the map, drive to a person’s residence, and carry in a little packet with a Bible, perhaps a small gift or a bit of food, and the necessary equipment for home communion. I would climb the back steps to the kitchen entrance, which was usually open. Once inside, I would call out the name of the person I was visiting and advance carefully through the house, not wanting to startle or wake anyone. Usually the person was in the same place, often a comfy chair in the kitchen, dining room, or living room. If the television was on, I would ask if I could turn it off, unless the person was completely enthralled with a soap opera. And then we would simply talk.

At the beginning all I noticed were the superficial aspects of each home: the memorabilia on the walls and mantelpieces, the decaying furniture, the uneaten containers of food, which I would often clean up and move into the kitchen trash. Some homes also had a strong and unpleasant smell, since many residents could not control their bladders or make it to the bathroom in time. I remember one cheerful woman who sat all day in her kitchen in a huge comfy chair that was soaked with her urine. She could reach everything from her spot—her radio, her refrigerator, and her cigarettes. She was always delighted to see me and received both news and communion eagerly. After such visits I often called the city’s social services to request a professional evaluation of her needs. I thought she could not remain in that situation for long. People occasionally came by and cleaned her up, but then she sank into the chair again.

One couple in their eighties had not left their home for twenty-five years, and they had assembled a network, now dwindling, of people to pick up their groceries and other items. One day when I was visiting them, I saw an elderly woman vigorously vacuuming the dining room. When she finished, she took a mop to the floor in the kitchen.

“Who is that?” I asked Mr. Green, the husband.

“That’s my aunt Maude,” said Mr. Green, who was in his mid-eighties. “She comes to clean house every week.”

“And how old is she?” I continued.

“Ninety-five,” he said, without the slightest surprise. She had been cleaning up for him for decades, and he didn’t find it unusual that she was still doing it.

My oldest parishioners told me amazing stories about growing up at the turn of the twentieth century.

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