Showing posts with label elderly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elderly. Show all posts

Monday, July 16, 2007

hands

Thunder, pelting rain and then brilliant sunshine and the temperature has reached 20 Celsius. This afternoon I visited with an older woman who is slowly approaching death. She was sitting up and they had wheeled her into the corridor. She never really knows who I am. It doesn’t really matter. Her small hands, all sinew, bone with large deep purple veins enfolded my hand. She seemed beyond saying anything until I recite the Twenty Third Psalm and she mouths the words along with me. We share time and prayer and soon I leave as she retreats into suspended animation. I have done a lot of things today, but that brief interlude was probably the most important.