Recently the Jackson county volunteer community shared in the grief of one of their participants whose son passed away unexpectedly. Bloggers Elizabeth and Debbie both chose to write about their experience.
Debbie - Seasons
The past week has been the most painful week in my 14 months with CAP, but out of that pain came something beautiful: a sense of peace and belonging unlike any I have ever known.
Recently when I stopped by to visit with Mary (one of my elderly participants) she invited me over to her neighbors. I had been over to this neighbors once before for a meet-n-greet, but this time Mary had other things in mind. Before I knew it I found myself singing karaoke to one of Mary's favorite songs: Brad Paisley's "She Don't Love You She's Just Lonely". To my amusement this was only the beginning. In no time our sing-along turned into an all out dance party. The flies on the wire and insulation exposed walls had quite a show that afternoon. It is not everyday that any creature gets to see a young lady and elderly woman dancing a disco style jig to "Hillbilly Rock" by Marty Stuart. I remember feeling so alive and carefree in the moment we collapsed on the couch in a fit of laughter.
Only a few short weeks later, I was with Mary and the same friend of hers again, but this time no one felt like singing. Mary's eldest son, Robert, had suffered a heart attack the week before. He had been flown to a larger hospital and pulled through two major heart surgeries since, but suffered a stroke during this last surgery. We sat in Mary's camper waiting on a phone call to legally confirm his death. I embraced Mary as she cried out saying that she felt as if she was in a different world. Later at the funeral service, an infant made its' presence known by letting out a loud screech. For a second, I wondered if the baby understood or could at least sense the heartache in the air.
The death of Robert hit not only me, but the whole Jackson CAP community hard. None of us had met him personally, but we all feel a deep connection to Mary and grieved for her loss. On the evening following Robert's passing my housemate Paige led us in a devotion that I will not soon forget. She opened with a reading from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. Upon hearing those words, I broke down.
What a blessing it is to know that I do not need to be strong and that I am not alone. I am surrounded everyday by people that love and support me. As the tears openly flowed our community ties grew stronger and the burden of pain grew lighter.
I do not know why things happen the way they do. I will never understand the ways of the Lord or the ways of this world, but I do know one thing: right now I am right where I am meant to be and that is enough to get me through my toughest of days.
"To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heavens: A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance" -Ecclesiastes 3:1-4
Debbie is a 2nd year volunteer serving as an Elderly Services Caseworker and living in the Jackson Volunteer Community. Opinions expressed in volunteer blogs are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of CAP or the Volunteer Program.
Elizabeth - The Beauty and the Pain
A yellowed leaf floated down from a tree top and landed next to my leg. I was sitting on the blacktop with my beat-up-Keds-encased feet tapping on the air in front of me. It was volunteer retreat, and the ever refreshing Janean had pulled out her guitar, which had led the Ukulele-toting Micole to join her in some impromptu tunes. The rest of us gathered around and added our voices to the mix when we knew the words.
“This song’s for you. And you. Well, it’s for all of us really.”
Janean strummed her guitar and started singing words that struck a personal note for a veteran CAP volunteer like me. And her.
And in that moment, I couldn’t help but smile and think about what a beautiful soul this blacktop musician was. And how beautiful it was to be sitting in this circle, in a parking lot in the middle of October, with several other equally beautiful people.
The next day was Sunday. I sat in a church pew in Berea and searched for the source of some unexpected post-communion music. I looked to the choir. They were stock still and not a peep was coming out of them. I looked to the front of the church, and discovered the source: the priest, gray-haired and hailing from the missionary fields, had pulled a harmonica out of his pocket and started playing “Immaculate Mary.” I couldn’t help but grin an “I’m-so-durn-happy-right-now” smile. It’s not every day that a priest bursts into spontaneous song. After Mass, I was unexpectedly greeted by Carlo, a former camp volunteer who was visiting friends for the weekend. More cause for grinning. More beauty to add to the Jackson House wall of gratefulness.
Monday. My birthday. I was at Mary’s house working on the roof that we had put over her camper and the porch that we had built on the front of it. This is the Mary that I have written about before. Mary of the kind you don’t forget. The Mary of music, pictures, stories, and smiles. But this day was different. Mary’s son lay in the hospital, dying. A heaviness had crept into her voice that weighed down her sentences and dropped her words at my feet. She wandered from the inside of the camper, where the ringing of the telephone bounced off the walls, to the outside of the camper, where she gave us updates on her son. I went home carrying the weight of her words and prayed for a man that I have never met.
Saturday. A sunrise hike had been planned, but was cancelled because a walk out the door revealed rain drops dampening the sky. I went to my room and turned on my computer, then found myself crying tears for a family that I have never met. A mother. A father. A one-year-old with down syndrome. The doctor sent them home stripped of any last vestiges of hope for a cancer healed by medicine. So now they wait and write of the heaviness in their hearts. I listened to the mother’s beautiful voice and cried to think that her daughter may not hear it for much longer.
Thursday. Mary’s son has passed away. I sat on the sofa while she sat in her recliner next to her breathing treatment machine. She told me about her son’s last days and showed me the pictures that she had picked out of him for them to have out at the funeral. A chubby elementary schooler dressed in his Sunday best, smiling for his school pictures. A teenager with shaggy hair and oh-so-stylish checkered pants, ready to go to a dance. A full-grown man sitting on the sofa in her old house next to his wife. He is the second son that she has lost. The first, Paul, is buried in her family cemetery next to her husband Jerry. She tells me that something happened last night that helped her in her grief. “You know, Elizabeth, last night I was sitting here in this chair – I have to sleep in it, you know, because of this COPD that I have – and suddenly I could just feel Jerry, and Paul, and all of them around me, right here in this room. And I just knew that they were letting me know that it was okay and they wanted me to keep going. And I woke up this morning feeling really peaceful.”I could feel one of those sad/happy smiles coming on. The type that curves up into your eyes and squeezes out the tears. I had not been feeling very productive this week, but I suddenly got the feeling that maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe, within that moment, I was just meant to be there to sit and talk with Mary.It is Sunday, and I am back in a pew again. Thinking about beautiful souls with a song to sing, harmonicas with hymns on their lips, children whose mothers are taken from them far too soon, and mothers who bury their children.
The world is full of cancers that eat away at families, of hearts that stumble and cease to beat, of weighty things that make even words heavy.
There is far too much pain in the world. And, unfortunately, we humans tend to add to it far too often.
But there is also beauty.
There are leaves that color asphalt, music that touches hearts, prayers that shine down love, and faith that can give peace even in the most devastating grief.
And I have come to realize that as I journey through this crazy forest called life, full to the brim both with bright colors to make me smile and roots to trip me up, that this, more than anything, is my purpose in life –
to do my best to add to the beauty, and never to the pain.
Elizabeth is a long-term volunteer serving in the Home Repair program and living in the Jackson County community. In the past Elizabeth has also served with CAP as a volunteer in the S.P.A.R.K. after school program and as a camp counselor at Camp Andrew Jackson. Opinions expressed in volunteer blogs are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of CAP or the Volunteer Program.
