Page 40 - Senior Link Magazine Spring 2018 - Online Magazine

HONORING SENIORS

“In-between”

by Kara Leslie

Rev. Kara Leslie is an Episcopal Priest, who works as a Chaplain with
Interim Hospice. She also has her own private counseling practice.

She is in between…well really, we all She responded, “Well, I was picking So, what is most important in this “in-
are. We are in between our first breath bolls one day, and a family doctor came between time”? I do not know for her,
and our last. We spend time having up and saw me and said, “You have so I ask. Her answer is simple, yet so
someone care for our every need as strong hands and seem stout. Why don’t powerful. First, she communicates with
infants, and then we end our days you come work for me? I will teach you her eyes, and then her lips move and
needing someone to help us in many of everything.” The next day she went and speak the word…God. I am completely
the same ways. We might be in between never picked cotton again. captured by the clarity of her faith. She
graduating from high school and goes on to say, “You know, Jesus loves
retiring. Unfortunately, we might be She is usually sitting in her recliner me.” Yet again. I behold the miracle of
in between one crisis and another, even wrapped up in a blanket with tissues in her beauty. In the midst of her “in-
if they are unwanted or unexpected. her hand. A few years ago, she broke between time”- her first and last breath,
Our lives are spent in between one her hip, and that is when her life started speaking and silence, walking and
experience and another. to decline. She tells this story over and laying in the bed, and regardless if she
over in each visit. Her hands rub her leg knows where she is or who she is - she
My sweet friend is in the middle of as she says, “I hurt my leg, and it doesn’t completely understands with all her
dementia. Some days she talks a lot; work.” She calls it her bad leg. Gently, heart, mind and spirit that she belongs
others days she sits in silence. Her words she strokes it, and her countenance to God. What else do we need to know?
do not always make sense, yet I love dims. I called the
her stories because they are from her family after our
heart. The facts do not really matter; it first visit, and they
is the gaze of her eyes and the love with told me she injured
which she shares that mean the most to it many years ago,
me. Recently she began to talk about her but that is not how
early years; then she said, “You know, I she remembers
am as old as mud.” I responded, “Yes, it. At one time
maybe, but you are also as beautiful as a she could walk
miracle.” the long halls of a
hospital, but now
She went on to tell me she was a nurse. she struggles to
(I recall a recent mealtime when I was stand as she retells
present to help her eat. She likes ketchup the story of her
and puts it on her chicken, so I asked the broken leg, reliving
attendants to get some for her. During it every day.
the meal, they brought her a pill, and she
politely put in her mouth. As a nurse Her body and
herself, she knows exactly how to get her mind are
out of taking her medications, so as soon slowly slipping
as the nurse turned her back, she spit the away. She is not
pill out on the table and tucked it under at the beginning
the edge of her plate. I watched, and she of dementia, nor
smiled and gave me that sneaky head is she at the end.
nod. After a few moments, I asked her to This cruel disease
please take the pill; she picked it up, put has affected both
in her mouth and I got a glare.) her physical and
mental capabilities
Back to our conversation, I asked her, and sadly, there
“What made you want to be a nurse?” is more to come.

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Lubbock Senior Link