Shall we sing?

            I’d need to prepare myself, Betsy told me. Barbara was slow to take to strangers. She could be very stand-offish with people she didn’t know, especially at first. I assured Betsy I’d keep my expectations low, and would pace myself completely according to how her mother greeted me.

            Betsy and I were, therefore, quite surprised when Barbara matter-of-factly came up to me on that cold winter afternoon and took the scarf from my neck.  She put it directly around her own throat, and then proceeded into my arms to embrace me warmly.  How could I not fall in love with her?

            On that afternoon, she introduced me to people as “her friend.”  Only once in her remaining months did she ever call me by name, but often when I arrived at the Reminiscence Unit of the lovely facility where she lived, she would take a deep breath, and say with great feeling, “It’s YOU.”

            Betsy arranged for a schedule that allowed for either herself or me to be with Barbara nearly every single day, so Barbara could always have contact with someone who loved her.

            Even as Alzheimer’s ravaged her, she retained flickers of her artistic brilliance and her sense of humor. When I put an art book into her hands, she came to life.  She’d look at a photograph of a 1920’s painter, and remark, “What a shrewd character he is.”  For anyone who knows Alzheimer’s patients, this is an inconceivably difficult statement to make on many levels, let alone at her advanced stage, when she could not even accomplish sitting down—or swallowing—with ease.

            One small example of her wit and personality came through when she was trying to get a nap (impossible) one day.  She could not be left alone safely at that point, so I stayed quietly nearby in a chair, to make sure she didn’t fall when she tried to get up.  She tossed and turned for about a half hour, then suddenly she sat bolt upright. 

            “Shall we sing?” she asked. Then she laid herself back down.

            Barbara instinctively knew I was leaving for my 3-week vacation.  She started failing more quickly the week before I was to leave.  Of course, she'd been failing for months, but I know her accelerated deterioration was not a coincidence.  There were other factors, but this was at least a part of the timing of her death. 

 I sat for part of the vigil with Betsy, and said my good-byes to my dear friend.  Betsy and I prayed with and for this remarkable, dear woman as she stood on the brink of eternity.  We told her, with tears running down our faces, that it was alright for her to go on to our loving Lord, to re-join the husband she had been inconsolably grieving for, to be free of her weakness at last.

            Betsy just called this week, 2 years later, and we reminisced.  What a gift of God Barbara was in my life.  I thought you’d like to know her, too.
--P.S. I'm adding a few hours later after writing the above: I just remembered that I used to sing to Barbara when she was very agitated, and it would sometimes help her to get calm enough to sleep.  She loved to hear the old hymns of the faith.  Or, she'd love to hear verses from the Psalms.  Sometimes, she'd look me deep in the eyes and whisper, "Thank you so much."  I think she was talking to the Lord at that moment. I am humbled to have been present with her in those precious times.
Looking for that blessed hope; and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. Titus 2:13
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