Room with a View
Psalm 90 and the 5th-floor coffee lounge
Last Thursday, my mother and I met two of her friends for coffee in the fifth-floor coffee lounge of their building. As my mother likes to remind me, it’s good coffee, and it’s free. “What’s not to like when it’s free?” she always asks, repeating one of the stock phrases she has not yet forgotten. I always agree, then pour her a Styrofoam cup of French vanilla.
Since I moved my mother onto the memory support floor of the building last October, she is no longer free to move about the building independently. Of course I have the freedom to take her off the floor, and these fifth-floor coffee dates will hopefully become a regular affair. It’s good coffee, and it’s free, which are at least two reasons for this afternoon visit. I also like seeing Martha and Betty (not their real names) and appreciate how patiently they communicate with my mother, who cannot consistently attend a conversation. As people familiar with the pathology of dementia, there is a strong correlation between hearing loss and memory loss, and despite fitting my mother with hearing aids more than a year ago, then returning more than a handful of times to the audiologist to troubleshoot her continued difficulties, this is yet one more crooked thing we can’t set straight (Ecc. 1:15). So we talk loudly—and repeat ourselves many times over.
More than two and a half years ago, we moved from Toronto to Cincinnati to take care of my mother in her decline. (Taking care is not exactly the right word, given I’m not her full-time caregiver. I suppose it’s more accurate to say “looking after.”) I’ve often been tempted, since our move to Cincinnati, to rue the relationships I have not built since our arrival. Given the margin I try keeping for this role of “looking after,” I’ve chosen not to be an active member in our boys’ school community. I wave to my neighbors—and rarely invite them in. I don’t belong to a book club or a gym, and I can’t participate in all I might like to at church. I love people, feel energy from being in a crowd, but I sense my limited capacity to invest. I know what this season is about: watching, waiting, walking alongside.
It’s a relief to know what you’re choosing because it informs what you’re neglecting.
Yet for all the relationships I haven’t built in Cincinnati, when I show up at my mom’s building, there are so many residents I do know by name. I know G.—and remember to see about the bruising she sustained from a recent fall. I know M.—and see she will need reminded that it’s cold outside and perhaps not the best day to be wearing knee-length pants. I know C.—and realize there will have been a bit of a damper on Christmas, given that neither her son nor daughter have children. “It was just the four of us, and we all fit in the apartment.” I know R.—and recognize her own growing confusion over days and times. “I’ll text your daughter a link to my mother’s special clock,” I say. These are my mother’s people—and they’re mine, too.
I also know so many staff by name—and have quickly grown to have my favorites. I love E.—and the care with which she cleans my mother’s apartment. She tells me that her housekeeping cart has anything I could even need, so I seek her out often and she supplies. A hook for a Christmas wreath. A stain stick for a dirty shirt. I love J.—and the way my mother brightens to see her and compare their nail polish colors. “You have red, too!” my mom says. “And mine sparkle,” J. says, inviting my mom to bend closer to see. I love A.—and the care she takes in shampooing and blow-drying my mother’s hair. I knew I’d be forever indebted to A. when she started shaving my mother’s chin. I pray for these staff, asking God to refresh those who give of themselves generously.
I have been reflecting on the limits of my relational life recently as I have been preparing to teach Psalm 90. It’s a psalm that invites us to pray that we would gain the wisdom for numbering our days. This is a psalm to remind us that God is outside time: never panicked, never hurried. From everlasting to everlasting, he enjoys time-plenty. But this of course is not my experience. No, I am human, mortal, and bound by time. My life is a watch in the night. My time is swept away like a flood. Life is a dream half-remembered then forgotten, a blade of grass that flourishes and withers in a single afternoon. A human life is too short, and it leaves so much undone. We must live within the limits of our bodies, our places, and even time itself.
I talked recently to G., who told me that “100 doesn’t feel any different from 99, 98, or even 89”. Still, I can’t help but see that we suffer time and its changes though I don’t find myself despairing with this dose of realism. In the fifth-floor coffee lounge on a Thursday afternoon, I grow clearer on what matters for today.
“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,” the psalmist writes. “Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us.”
The coffee is good, and it is always free.
Speaking of relationships, check out Alli Patterson’s new book, Blueprint for Belonging. Alli is a Cincinnati “neighbor,” and I got so excited last summer when we met for coffee and she told me about the book. Taking cues from the life of Jesus, Alli identifies the 5 relationships that Jesus needed and that we need, too.
Speaking of time (and how we seem to have none), check out “Digital Christianity,” a recent podcast series produced by the RYM (Reformed Youth Ministries) podcast. Minding our digital distractions is one sure way to “find” more time!
If you find you need an invitation into a better story of time than the one time management tells, check out my book, In Good Time.
this is beautiful, Jen.
"These are my mother’s people—and they’re mine, too."
What beauty. All of this. Thank you.