by Allison Moore | Dec 24, 2014 | Uncategorized |
I was asked to do a little voice-over for a friend’s budding ministry at the church this morning. It focuses on committing to ‘intentional acts of kindness’ in the local community throughout the coming year. This could be anything like taking in the neighbors rubbish bins to reaching out to the homeless. I won’t list all the possibilities, as they are obviously endless. But what struck me personally, as I was reading the script, was this line: 6 out of 10 nursing home residents NEVER see a visitor.
When I questioned this, my friend told me that in her research, she’d seen some official reports saying that as many as 8.5 out of 10 nursing home residents never see a visitor. Whether it’s 60 or 80 percent, it’s still too high a number to wrap my head around. Everyone must have SOMEONE who loves them. Perhaps it just gets too depressing to keep visiting after so long. Maybe its even a matter of too many bridges burnt over a person’s lifetime. Who can know the complicated ins and outs of each human story? It’s just sad to think of all the loneliness in the world, heightened by the Holidays, which pull on the memory-heartstrings as a warm time of love and generosity and even magic.
Vernon’s dialysis schedule was temporarily changed around this week without my knowledge, so when Justine and I showed up to the nursing home, we were disappointed to find he wasn’t there. However, we were greeted by loud Christmas music blasting from the halls. And not only that, the sound of bells and a very clear (if feminine) “HO HO HO.”
The wonderful staff had organized one of their own “Santas” to give out presents to each patient… with elves and bells included.
Apparently some charity organizes a gift-buying program for invalids. I didn’t get the name of it, but got the gist that it was developed with some local shopping malls. What a difference some loud music and Christmas bells and a red velvet costume with a beard makes in a place. Oh the power of a changed atmosphere! And the power of surprise presents. And the power of REALLY? Just for me?
I don’t know what was in the boxes…I doubt it matters. These people aren’t in a place of needing many things. Or probably even caring about them. And most of these people will have family to bring some personal holiday cheer to them throughout the week. But it must mean a lot that someone ELSE cares about them. They are remembered. They are thought-of. What was just a small gesture for the gift-donators may have made more than a day to one of these strangers, may have made a whole season!
Later this afternoon, as I semi-patiently made my way out of the pre-Christmas parking lot of Trader Joes, I noticed the homeless mother-young daughter team (which I had felt such hopelessly mixed emotions over in my way in) had put their desperate cardboard sign asking for funds down for a moment as they delightedly worked to free a barbie from her box and tethers. Someone had given the girl a real Christmas present, complete with wrapping paper, it seemed.
And here I was again…not even the giver, but witnessing someone else’s giving. It reminds me that it really doesn’t matter if you never have enough. Yes, sometimes it feels like a bottomless pit, why even try to fill it? And so often we don’t get to experience the reactions of secret giving. But it multiplies truly…even for those random people (like me today) that get to witness it and experience it in our own hearts.
Visit a forgotten person nursing home. Give a barbie to a homeless girl. Feed the world. It’s all the same thing, after all. Start and sometimes the pit feels less bottomless. Weird. Merry Christmas!
I bet I’m going out on a sentimental limb with this next song. I love it, but I know Vernon would be rolling his eyes. What can I say, I’m feeling inspired!
Vernon wouldn’t think this is cool that I’m sharing this song. But since he isn’t here to stop me, I’m going for it. Can you believe it’s been 30 years? I think I may still have the 45 somewhere.
Anyway, Paul Weller is in it…come on that’s got to count for something, Vernon!
by Allison Moore | Dec 21, 2014 | Uncategorized |
“As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has–or ever will have–something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.”
Mr. Rogers
I lent the camera to Justine. This is what she saw.
“Part of the problem with the word disabilities is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can’t feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren’t able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.”
Mr. Rogers
What can I say about these pictures to express how full my heart is right now? One of my greatest goals for my child is that she would grow up to not be afraid of the world. A world filled with so many different kinds of people with such a variety of weaknesses, strengths, and backgrounds. I want her to be cautious and safe from all harm, of course. But I want her to not be afraid of people just because they are different. I want her to have a great love and curiously for humanity. It’s the way I was raised by my own parents and one of the greatest gifts they gave me. I would never have asked that the kids experience this usually-hidden world their father is in…but since they didn’t have a choice, now that they are learning about that world, I am so moved and inspired by how boldly they are embracing it. To walk forward in LOVE is truly the most excellent way.
by Allison Moore | Dec 21, 2014 | Uncategorized |
“Home is the nicest word there is.” —Laura Ingalls Wilder
I have been so busy tying up loose ends (and trying to untie some knots) before the end of the year that I nearly forgot to mention our good news. We found a house to rent…starting mid-January. Plenty of time to enjoy the piece of mind before getting everything packed and moved. That had been my biggest worry. Moving out and into places is no big deal. Vernon and I are pros at that. Its the period of unknown between two homes that is hard. So my biggest prayer in looking for a home (beside the wish list of specs) was “Please let us find something soon. Of course I know something will come up…it always does. But this time, I REALLY don’t think I can handle the stress of waiting till the last minute.”
This new place is a ground-level, single-story home (no steps!) which will allow wheelchair access. Our town is pretty much a series of hills, so many of the houses in our price range are built up above garages or car-parks, and I’ve noticed most of the ground-level homes still have steps leading up to the front door. It is small, but we’ve lived in Europe…we can do cozy. Who cares, as long as it has three bedrooms, which it does. And though this item fell off my wish-list a long time ago: it has a little shed in the back, which could easily be an art studio!
Also…it’s blue! I always thought it would be great to live in a brightly colored house.
As if things couldn’t be better, our good friends Jeff and Cathy will be our landlords. Jeff is the mastermind behind the recent craft-market fundraiser, and it was only that very weekend that he got notice that the current renters would be moving out. Oh glorious timing!
He also told me that the original owners, the people he bought the house from a few years back, were in wheelchairs themselves. How’s that for a fun fact?
Now, all this talk about home brings me to Vernon, who has been bringing up talk of “going home” every single time I see him for the last couple of weeks. Visiting is becoming a little more difficult for me, as I don’t know how many ways to tell him he can’t come with us. Today he was so annoyed and hurt at me for not taking him with us that he shrugged off my hug and said he didn’t love me. Poor guy. It must be hard staying there all the time, but I think its a good sign that he is becoming aware that it’s NOT his home, its NOT where he belongs.
Today he told me to call his parents. “They’ll pick me up, just ask them!”
Sometimes I tell him he needs to learn to walk before he can come home, sometimes I tell him we have to move house first. Today, he asked how long it would be before we moved. “About a month,” I said.
“A month! That’s FOUR weeks! You can’t leave me in the hospital for four weeks!”
“Vernon, you haven’t been home for thirty weeks…”
Of course, that make him think I’m lying to him…another reason to get frustrated with me.
Here is Vernon trying to express how he feels about HOME.
He also sometimes explains how he feels ‘lost’ when we aren’t there. So to those friends who have been meaning to visit, but haven’t known when was the right time…I’d say it is the right time now.
I’m going to end this post with my favorite rendition of a wonderful song….about HOME.
by Allison Moore | Dec 19, 2014 | Uncategorized |
Perhaps I just needed to get a few frustrations off my chest in last night’s post in order to see more clearly again. Because today, I was able to recognize improvements in Vernon.
Justine has been able to accompany me on visits more frequently, and I can see that their relationship is strengthening. He is much more engaged with her than he was even a couple of weeks ago. She keeps trying to get him to make up songs (her favorite new hobby) and today, she even got him to attempt a game of catch with a soccer ball. It didn’t go well, but it happened!
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A high point today: Vernon going over Justine’s folder of take home work from her year Pre-K year so far. It was almost like they were sharing a moment that could have been at home.
I think he looks much more steady and focused. (My videography skills, not so much.)
Vernon told us a story about how some little girl had given him a pair of socks this morning with his name on them. He kept saying how weird it was that she knew his name. I was sure he was fantasizing again.
But then when an aide moved him from his lounger to a wheelchair, a pile of socks fell out….all with his name on them. Apparently some school children had come by to sing carols in the morning and had given everyone socks as gifts. That put me in my place!
I already mentioned Justine trying to get her dad to make up songs with her. The other day, he sang Christmas Day, Christmas Lunch on repeat for a a few bars, which was pretty impressive at the time. But today, he broke out with his own version of The Little Drummer Boy.
Progress indeed!
Maybe he’ll be ready to have a go at Monday Morning Karaoke soon. Anything is possible…Vernon is proving that for sure!
by Allison Moore | Dec 17, 2014 | Uncategorized |
“There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.”
― Lemony Snicket
That’s the thing. When does one know when to stop pushing for change and just relax and BE where you are? It takes a lot of energy to keep pushing, researching other options, hitting different walls in the maze, then having to turn left or right yet again…and still feeling that little has changed. But ever since Vernon moved to his current facility, I feel more frustrated in the sitting still than I do in the searching. I don’t know if that is a sign that what I am doing is right or not. I have come to love the staff at Newport Subacute, they are incredibly caring, and I know that Vernon feels safe in their hands. I also know that the complicated red tape of the medical system keeps them from giving him everything I want him to be getting.
It is not enough.
I say this from the researched knowledge of my head and the strange intuition of my heart. Vernon needs more. He has such a chance to move forward mentally and physically in this stage of his recovery, but he is moving too slowly for my satisfaction. People tell me everyday that its so great how far he has come (I know I have blogged this before, it feels very familiar writing this now) but I can’t help but feel its not enough. We are seven months in…and he is only slightly further along than he was 7 weeks ago. Forgive me for being impatient, but its not enough. This is his big year for recovery, he has such a chance, but he needs more to help him connect the dots. I believe most of this lies in physical therapy. I believe that the challenges there will make him connect the necessary dots both in his body and his brain. I believe they are very connected.
“A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen
The quote above sums up the thought I keep returning to. There must be some hidden miracle here. I’m waiting for it to manifest. Maybe that is what all this time is for: just to make it a more valuable truth when it is finally revealed. Who knows? Maybe this ‘limbo’ period will eventually reveal the pearl created from the grain of sand irritating the oyster long enough. And we will all clap our hands and rejoice in our newly discovered treasure. Maybe I will even say: “Yep, I knew it!”
But till then, I pursue every lead. I found out this week that we may need yet another level of Medicare to get the kind of therapy I think Vernon needs. So I keep knocking doors, making phone calls…and waiting. And beautifully, God keeps placing seemingly random conversations in my path, guides to the next step, to the next phone call. The Tetris Game of the medical/insurance field isn’t over yet!
Justine was with me on my tour yesterday…and spotted her first rainbow on our way back from one of these interviews. We won’t read too much into it…but we want to! I know its a promise of…something.
Strangely, our first words on our return to the Subacute Center, were a friendly: “You need to take all those photos off Vernon’s wall. They might peel the paint. And that is a safety issue. Its okay if you use his tiny bulletin board, of course.”
So as I tend to look for meaning in things that may mean something ELSE entirely, I wonder if this the gentle onset of another move. I think it is…I just don’t know when.
“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Why is patience so important?”
“Because it makes us pay attention.”
― Paulo Coelho
by Allison Moore | Dec 15, 2014 | Uncategorized |
People have been incredibly generous and supportive of our family. We wouldn’t have been able to finish our year without donations. It has been an incredibly humbling and sweet experience to be in the position of so much receiving. But even as I’m receiving, I am thinking: “These people are teaching me how to act when someone else is in this situation. They are teaching me to be generous.”
It isn’t all money gifts, either. Its time, thoughtfulness, advice, meals, services, yard-work, etc. I cannot list every kindness that has been shown us in this season, but I’m thankful for every single one. I want to share a couple of intentional acts of goodness shown to us this very Monday.
My mom’s best friend, Marcia, has come over a couple of times to help me clean my house. She doesn’t ask me what I need (which is good because sometimes thinking about what I need takes too much energy for me to provide an answer.) She just calls ahead and then shows up at a convenient time. Cleaning is not my favorite thing and when I get busy, it’s the first thing to fall off the to-do list. Today Marcia raised her bar by hiring her house-cleaner to thoroughly clean our place. I felt so spoiled! It turned out that Marcia was giving a double-blessing as she knew that one of Maria’s regular jobs had been temporarily put on hold.
(The blurry pictures above just PROVES Maria was an angel! Don’t you see?)
If that wasn’t enough to help Justine and I enjoy our home more, my neighbor Andrew offered to hang up some Christmas lights to give the exterior a little holiday sparkle. I hadn’t even considered decorating the outside as we are going to be packing to move soon and so much else is going on. He said he knew that Vernon couldn’t be there to help us hang the lights, and since he had extras, he was happy to help us out.
We didn’t tell Andrew that even in his healthy state, Vernon has never hung Christmas lights! We took him up on the offer anyway. Shhhh…
Next thing we knew, he was up and down ladders, connecting thousands of tiny lights to the roof and garage. And the house looks great. How fun it will be to come home to a festive home each evening…and a CLEAN one!
I wanted to record these intentional acts of kindness today because its a testament again of how we have been so cared for…even in special little ways. Its also a reminder that we can easily just offer a creative gesture and it can make a big difference. We didn’t NEED either of those things today. Having a pretty looking home isn’t going to heal Vernon any faster or secure our future, but it makes us feel very special. Especially as we didn’t even ask for it.
Our family continues to be blessed beyond measure. It’s definitely turning out to be a memorable Christmas season.
One thing for sure, I’m definitely learning, through the example of others, how to be a kinder, more generous person.
