The vigils have been absent for awhile. God strikes and he strikes hard. A ninety-eight year old man, his hundred year old wife amidst an amazing family. I am humbled to be welcomed into sharing. I met the man this morning, coming upon him with a Rosary and two Our Lady of Mount Carmel scapulas gracefully adorning his pillows. Our Rosary shared arose to relevancy. His son arrived from Delaware as we finished. Silence apart of sitting together. During the Rosary, a severe bruise and swelling upon the man’s forehead, marked in the center by a bloody cross shaped gash, became my visual repose. This man is special, many stories shared. I will return after work, sharing another Rosary, adding a Divine Mercy chaplet, in honor of a namesake a St Joseph prayer elevating. The decorating Rosary and brown scapulas were supplied by a grandson. His story sounds unique, now attending school to enter Lutheran ministering,  he cherishes his grandfather’s devotion to Catholicism. Here are written thoughts from the young man, shared by his father. Absorb the words, thoughts, and impressions–experience your soul expand, fresh breaths of life coloring death.

Dear Dad,

This is a reflection I wrote yesterday morning to remember and to mourn.

Yesterday was the Feast Day of the Transfiguration, when Jesus’ face and clothes shone on the mountaintop. This was a mountaintop moment.

Transfiguration on the third floor

It sounded like a child banging on the large glass windows. Twice the panes reverberated. I looked up from the salt crystal covered sidewalk, hands in my pockets, mind three floors up where Grandpap lay in bed. It was Aunt Joann and Uncle David. They had arrived at the hospital at the same time and were walking the same pace. We met at the sliding doors and took the elevator up together. I was grateful to have navigators for this new part of the journey.

A week ago, Craig and I had left the hospital at the same hour I was arriving this Sunday. Last week, we sat by Grandpap’s bedside in the twilight light of the ICU. He hadn’t eaten for four and a half days. His tongue was parched like a pot sherd. There was a white fragment in Grandpap’s mouth. We thought it was phlegm. The doctor pointed it out and the nurse scooped out the partially dissolved Communion wafer. Was the chaplain or priest already in at 8:30 in the morning? Manna in this desert, bread from ravens, water from rocks as pictures of a lone palm with gentle waves lapping at its roots, now brilliant Echinacea flowers, now a farm flip on the hospital’s television channel. Quiet waiting.

I remember the strong warm grip of Grandpap’s right hand holding both my hand and Craig’s as we prayed the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary for and with him. I felt held in prayer by him and Craig. The three of us were wrapped in the Holy Spirit’s comfort in this beautiful moment.

I thought that I could be OK with this goodbye as the riptide of our scheduled lives pulled us out and back down I-71 South to Columbus. When Dad left me a voicemail detailing Grandpap’s release from ICU to a medical/surgical step-down floor then back to ICU and the poor prognosis the doctors unanimously agreed represented his situation, I had to return. I had to be there.

Halfway to Cleveland, I called Aunt Elaine. Our call was interrupted by an incoming call – the hospital. Twenty miles further down the road, she called back to say that the hospital would be releasing Grandpap later in the day to Vista Springs and Hospice Care.

This and a lifetime of memories are what I brought with me into that third floor hospital room. Most of the day is a blur. I see Uncle David leaning over Grandpap with a spoonful of honey thickened apple juice. “Here are your apples. You wanted apples.” Grandpap opened his mouth to drink.

“Throw it out,” Grandpap wheezed. “I want to go home.”

“You will go home at 4:30. In a few hours.”

Around 1:15PM, in the metallic strip on the hospital room door, I saw the reflection of the little pink hedghog pom pom on Grandma’s purse then her little black Mary Jane’s and her sweet smiling face as Aunt Elaine wheeled her into the room. Grandma smiled warmly and reached back to hold my hand. I noticed the Valentine scarf she was wearing, her neatly curled hair and the knit cap she wore on the crown of her head.

“Dad, your Valentine is here,” Aunt Elaine called out to Grandpap.

The last time we visited Grandpap in this same hospital on a pain management floor, Grandma looked at him and got mad. She demanded to leave the room. Because of her Alzheimer’s, she did not remember who the man in the bed was at the time. Aunt Elaine is “she takes care of me” and Grandma is single in her own mind.

“He’s very sick,” Aunt Elaine leaned down and sadly reported to Grandma.

“Oh,” Grandma sighed.

Aunt Elaine, Aunt Joann, and Uncle David sat together on the little couch at the foot of Grandpap’s hospital bed. I was to Grandpap’s left in a chair. Grandma was holding Aunt Joann’s hands warming them up.

“Your hands are so cold. I go like this and like this,” Grandma instructed rubbing heat and warmth into Joann’s left hand pressed between both of hers.

Grandma turned to me and smiled.

“Grandma, my hands get cold, too,” I told her.

She held out both of her hands and took my left hand in hers. She held my hand and rubbed her left hand over my palm. “I go like this and like this.”

“Your hands are so soft, Grandma. Would you like to rub Grandpap’s hands?”

She looked at me and at Grandpap. He looked back at her. “Yes.”

Aunt Elaine pushed Grandma’s wheelchair closer to the bed. I scooched back my chair.Grandma reached over the bars of the bed to touch Grandpap’s hand then through the bars to better caress his hand, rubbing her smooth hands over the bandaged space where the IV was on the back of his left hand. She rubbed his hand and forearm, her fingers brushing over the “DNR” wristband, along the bruise spots from his second fall.

Uncle David’s face reddened and he began to cry and walked briskly out of the room. Aunt Joann followed smiling at Grandma and Grandpap. Aunt Elaine and I looked at each other through tears of joy, grief, and wonder.

“Oh,” Grandma sighed with deep compassion. “There. Like this and this. Here,” she said as she released Grandpap’s grip on the rosary he held. She replaced it with her fingers.

Grandpap whimpered in relief and joy at her touch.

Grandma fawned over him, adjusting the hem of his hospital gown and then bringing the cotton blankets up over his legs and neatly folding the blankets back. At once with determination she lifted her right foot off of the wheelchair footrest. I pulled both footrests up following her lead. She lifted herself up out of the chair and stood, steady and determined holding onto the bed rail.

She looked at Grandpap’s face. She caressed his forehead, smoothing back his thin hair, touching the bruised knot on his forehead from his most recent fall. Then she kissed his forehead saying, “There.”

She sat back down in her wheelchair.

When Grandma and Aunt Elaine left to get Grandma her coffee, I noticed a change in Grandpap’s breathing. His eyes were now slightly opened, his breathing rattling. Upon their return, his breathing worsened. Time froze in the silences between his breaths. At 4:00, the three of us gathered around his bed.

“We love you, Dad.”

“We love you, Grandpap.”

“Anne, your wife is here. Elaine your daughter is here. Justin your grandson is here. You are not alone. Your angel is here. God is here.”

Aunt Elaine caressed Grandpap’s left arm as she held Grandma’s hand. I touched his right shoulder. The strong warm right hand that had gripped Craig’s and my hand in prayer a week ago was swollen and immobile after his recent fall out of bed.

“Our Father, who art in heaven…” we prayed, one voice leading when the other was weakened by tears and sobs.

Grandpap made it to his home at Vista Springs. When I left last night, the nurse aide Allison was feeding him potroast and thickened ensure. We are in a waiting pattern. The riptide of emotion keeps calling me back to be present when there is nothing else humanly possible to do.

I believe that Grandpap was waiting for this moment of reunion after eleven days of hospitalization the tip of the iceberg of years of health issues, Grandma’s suffering from Alzheimer’s and the emotional distance that had been a chasm between them. Seventy-five and a half years of marriage, a lifetime together since their childhood growing up across the street from each other in Meadowlands in one kiss.

I will always carry the beautiful moment of Grandma caressing and kissing Grandpap’s forehead in my heart. In that moment they were both transfigured. Grandma was stirred out of the frustration of Alzheimer’s and Grandpap out of his suffering to truly see each other in loving compassion.