It is six weeks into the new year, and Family Day weekend is here.
I bound out of bed, make my coffee, perform my morning stretches and appreciations, and now it is time to see what is next.
As the rose-coloured glasses come off, the honeymoon phase is over, and realizations set in. Most of us have come to the conclusion that 2022 is just another year! Time is the same and nothing has or will change unless we change it.
Yesterday I was hosting a sing-a-long of Christian hymns with a group of friends. It was enjoyed and well-received. This activity is one that I have learned to enjoy for very different reasons. Watching for signs of enjoyment and engagement is like watching for a hummingbird at the feeder. Doing the work I do, and working with the people I work with, signs of enjoyment are displayed in many ways and can be fleeting. As people age, their display of overt pleasure or joy changes.
As I played the familiar music and began to sing along, I was transported back to my childhood days where I would stand at the pew beside my parents and watch them lift their voices in song for the Lord. Many triggers, such as music and smell, create a flood of memories of days gone by. Our senses are what trigger memories, thoughts and ideas. We think that we think our way through life, when in truth we feel, touch, smell and taste our way.
I remember pulling out a scarf long after the death of my mother. This scarf had been packed away in a box with her costume jewellery. As soon as I pulled it out, the familiar scent drifted up and my heart longed for her touch. This smell was my mother. It was not perfume or smoke or cooking, it was all of it put together that made her. It was the scent of a woman who was my source of life and nurture. It was the scent of my first 50 years of life. I stood there holding the scarf up to my nose and fanning it in my face like a movie. A movie of my mother in all her humanness as it resides in my heart and mind. The first hymn I sang yesterday was Blessed Assurance, which was one of my mom’s favourites.
Like the scarf, the music and lyrics fanned in my memory the look of her as she sang about blessed assurance. A faith story that coloured outside the lines of what she had been taught so strongly from the many years of listening to my grandfather at the pulpit. The music filled my soul with peace and blessed assurance that she was mine always.
Many people struggle with certain hymns because the only time they hear them is at funerals. Hymns like Amazing Grace and In the Garden. Faithful pieces for the oldest old that they sang with vigour in the early years with all their children and community around them in the old wooden church pew.
Yesterday we sang a hymn known at funerals and as I looked over the group, I saw a woman leaning back in her wheelchair who, up to this moment, appeared to be sleeping. Then I realized the slight movement in her face and lips. She was singing along with How Great Thou Art. As I watched her, my mind drifted to yet another memory. I could see my dad lying in his bed at home many years ago. It was a Sunday morning and Mom and I were getting breakfast. He called out from his bed and asked why we were not getting dressed for church. I told him we were not going to church as we did not want to leave him alone. He had fallen the day before and we suspected a fractured hip. As we waited for further guidance, he was comfortable in his bed with us caring for him. He was upset that mom was not going to church so I suggested after breakfast we would have our own church service. After all, Jesus says, "where two or more are gathered, I am there.” I felt we could gather and bring him some peace.
I went out to the “summer kitchen” (the older generation readers will know what this is) and pulled from a pile a couple of very old hymnals and dusted them off. I brought them to the bedside and we pulled up chairs. I opened the hymnal randomly and How Great Thou Art was on the page. As I began to sing, Dad shifted slightly so he could stretch his neck a little and belted out the lyrics. Just like Dad that day, this woman in the wheelchair was singing in her heart and soul and the body responded. After that hymn, she settled back down and had I not seen it, I would not have believed she even moved.
There was another resident looking stoic and simply staring, wide-eyed and statue-like. As I played the next piece, that sings about this little light of mine, I noticed an ever-so-slight movement in her foot. This slight, gentle movement comforted and fuelled my own soul that somehow, I am making a difference in their lives.
I finished up and said my goodbyes and moved out of the room. As I looked back over my shoulder, I thought how much is missed when we are not truly looking. The whispers of life lost in the cursory overview.
Each day when I wake after I have looked through my favourite window to the east and my second favourite window to the south (it changes each day as to which window is my favourite), I raise the shades and am in awe of the gratitude I feel when I can say, “Now What?! What joy will fill this day?”
In the tapping of the toe, in the singing from the lost, in the longing in a set of eyes seeking comfort, and in the wandering of a soul trapped in a body overtaken with dementia, where will I find the light? The very light that matches my soul’s light and can dance in the spiritual space between us.
This week I was gifted in passing with a paraphrased quote. The quote originates from Kabir, a Saint:
All darkness disappears when you light the lamp in your own heart!
As I sing all the old favourites, with all their theological challenges, I do so with gusto. I know the generations who know these hymns and want to sing them are shuffling off this mortal coil. In my lifetime, they will be lost to the archives of the past.
This little light of mine is burning bright and I will never hide it under a bushel, no!, and I will not let anyone blow it out. I believe how great Art is and know that grace is amazing. I have the blessed assurance that what Jesus teaches me opens my soul to all religions and, most of all, love.
I will spend each day in a sweet hour of prayer and know that I have a friend in Jesus.
I just spoke deeply and profoundly with a friend this past week and told him I have a renewed and deep hunger to better understand the ancient texts and the teachings of those who have lived before us.
Olaf, from Frozen, says “water has memory” and we are made up mostly of water. Somehow, somewhere, in some way, I choose to believe the water that is in me has baptized me in past learnings and I am refreshed in the divine source, for now, and for always…Amen!
Cynthia Breadner is a grief specialist and bereavement counsellor, a soul care worker and offers specialized care in Spiritually Integrated Therapies with special attention as a cognitive behavioral therapy practitioner and trauma incident resolution facilitator. She volunteers at hospice, works as a LTC chaplain and is a death doula, assisting with end-of-life care for client and family. She is the mother part of the #DanCynAdventures duo and practices fitness, health and wellness. She is available remotely by safe and secure video connections, if you have any questions contact her today via email!
