by Tom Shane
Tom Shane was at one time a chaplain/counselor at Prairie View and later in the Chaplaincy Department at HCA Wesley Hospital in Wichita. He wrote a weekly column in the Newton Kansan.
He wrote this article about John B. Goering but with circumstances changed to provide confidentiality. The vignette was presented at a conference for chaplains.
Permission was granted for it to be shared.
The pictures on the dresser were as silent as the room itself, and yet even in their silence, they spoke chapter after chapter of John’s life. There were ten childen, all still living except one. And each child was remembered in picture and each one surely had a story to tell. And there were more grandkids and great-grandkids than one could possibly imagine. And they too had a place on the dresser.
And off in the far corner of the room under the T.V. set lay the as yet unfinished knit stocking cap which John promises that one day he’ll still yet finish. But there is no hurry. At ninety-five years of age, one learns that life need not be rushed. It has its own pace. Things will get done in their own time. With or without John’s care or effort.
Still, it’s not as easy to be ninety-five as one might think. Oh yes, the pace is slower. There are surely fewer deadlines to meet. And there are some small benefits.
J: “Do you know, that these days I don’t even have to make my bed anymore. Every morning I get up and go to breakfast, and when I come back to my room, my bed is made and my clothing picked up and put away. It’s just like magic. Someone just does it for you.”
And there’s that business about the walker. Darned if it doesn’t slow one down even as it enables one to walk. It stands alone in the hallway almost as if it were a sentinel guarding the door. These days, John goes nowhere without the silver walker.
And as I sit in the folding chair beside John’s own brown leather chair and I watch as we talk. And I wonder if John even knows that these days he trembles so much. His clean white shirt still shows the remnants of his breakfast: a few Rice Krispies cling to his shirt like polka dots. And a glob of deep red jelly sits just to the side of a button which somehow never got connected through the buttonhole But no matter, any of that. These are just simple reminders of who John is these days.
What’s ever so much more important than soiled shirts and walkers are his stories.
His German heritage still lingers in the long ago set sound of his voice as he welcomes me to his room and it colors his tongue with enchantment.
Oh what tales he tells.
- John never ever once ran out of gas on a date, but there was that one time when the horses (who knew the way home he said) went miles the wrong way after one date.
- And even the cobwebs of time and grief have not dimmed the still sharp memory of that crisp winter day when the youngest boy was hit by a car as he rode his bicycle and was forever crippled and broken in mind and body and spirit. John looks back to yesterday as he remembers this tale and he seems to stand again in the very same housecoat and slippers as he raced the sleet covered small town streets only to find the bitter trauma of his broken boy before his eyes.
But the years slipped by or have they raced? One this day, John remembers and takes stock of himself. One does that a lot at ninety-five: that is, one looks back and remembers and sometimes celebrates and sometimes grieves but always tries to understand what it has all meant.
It has grown to quiet in this early morning room. And I watch as all ninety-five years worth of John slip back deeply into the brown leather chair in his room. He’s long ago worn a place for himself in that brown leather comforter. It fits his body like an old pair of shoes. To be sure, I’m not able to tell where John ends and the chair begins. Each is covered with endless cracks and crevices and lines. The edges of the overstuffed arms of the chair are frayed and bits of stuffing show. It’s all wearing out. John and the chair. And who would have thought that such a worn out old man could ever be such a mentor.
I’m caught unaware and am moved to tears myself as I watch my old friend’s face as first his ancient eyes glisten with the filling of his tears which then so quietly spill from his deep set eyes and slip down and along the endless lines of his face and spill to his shirt and join the Rice Krispies and jelly. And it’s all right.
J: “I’m no good to anyone anymore, I know that. I’m too old. I’m just a burden to people these days. People need to take care of me. There’s not much I can do for myself anymore. But one thing I still can do: I can pray for others, and that I do every day.”
Oh my friends, life pushes and pulls us into the awfullest of places and circumstances. Sometimes we go limping and cursing and angrily so. And once in a while we go willing and can accept it all.
But John’s awareness is ours too: sometimes we do feel worthless, a burden to others, of no use to anyone. Sometimes the agony of our own life’s journey is just too much. And we know the bitter sense of feeling unable to be useful to anyone. We seem stuck in our own brown leather chairs of life unable to do or be for anyone else other than a burden.
But always we can pray for each other. We can believe for each other. We can love each other. We can sit alongside each other. And we can share the emptiness of life with each other. And when life is rich and full and joyous, we can celebrate with each other
Old John taught me that, early one morning as we sat after breakfast. And I hope that John prays for me just as I hope we pray for each other
TWS