Murray Smith
One day we went to visit an older lady who in earlier years had been a significant force in our community. Her days of expending practical care for others had ended and needing a little care herself, she had gone to live in a rest home.
Taking a potted flowering plant, we asked a staff nurse where this lady was. Surprisingly, my wife and I, with two of our kids, were ushered into an area behind coded locked doors. I was told the lady we sought was in a memory loss unit – it didn’t sound right. Still, the nurse insisted the lady I had named was the elderly lady we had been ‘presented’ to. Even making allowance for deterioration, I knew clearly this was not the lady we sought – she, by that time she was eagerly reaching out to claim ‘her’ pot plant.
Significant mis-communication had occurred – for starters, I had driven to the wrong rest-home… then the nurse’s strong accent and insistence, led us to the wrong lady. Attempting to make room for others in life always matters.
A young man whose job became redundant, temporarily supported his little family working as a newspaper ‘delivery agent’. The entrance to the mailbox of a particular house where newspapers were delivered was blocked, so he went to knock on the door.
After waiting, a frail old man slowly opened the door and the young delivery guy asked,
“Sir, why is your mailbox blocked?” The old man replied, “I blocked it on purpose.” The old man smiled awkwardly as he said, “I want to ask something. When you deliver the newspapers to my place each day, could you please come and knock on my door and hand the newspapers to me personally?”
The paper deliverer replied he was willing to do that, but was puzzled and asked, “won’t this be quite troublesome for both of us and a bit of a waste of time?”
The old man said: “I’m home every day. Sorry to bother you but I’ll pay you $50 every month for knocking on my door with the paper.”
The old man continued. “Should you knock on the door one day and there’s no answer, please call the police.”
Shocked, the young man queried why he would need to do that. With tears coming to his eyes the old gentleman replied “my wife is gone and my son doesn’t come to see me. I live here all alone. Who knows, one day I may die!”
He continued, “I never read the newspapers… I just look forward to someone coming to knock on the door.” The old man then asked for a special favour, “This is my son’s phone number. If one day you knock on the door and there’s no answer, please give him a call…”
Are there single or lonely elderly people around us? Life’s busy-ness frequently distracts us from attending to things which matter most… whatever else we achieve in life, nothing matters more than showing love and care to others.
A famous Bible passage states it plainly… “without love, I am nothing”. (1Corinthians 13)
