Presies!

Short and sweet story for you today; it made me smile anyway.

I was working at the coffee house this morning, not totally thrilled to be working, but I was hanging in there. In walks this cute old man. I have a thing for old men- they are so sweet, usually in stylish old man attire and filled with random bits of wisdom. I just eat it up. Anyway, he ordered his coffee and out of his old book, peaked a new page of stamps. I also have a thing for stamps, I love going onto the USPS website and ordering cool stamps because that just tops off a hand-written letter, making it THE coolest thing, sure to bring a smile to the recipient's face. I commented on his new stamps and my love of stamps and how cool his were. We shared our love of stamps and talked about whether it was the year of the dragon or not while we poured his coffee. He went and sat down to his table of envelopes and letters and wrote away. A little while later as he was packing up his belongings and stamped envelopes, he walks over to me and holds one stamp out to me with a big smile and says "for you!" I smiled big and questioned, "for me? really??" and he smiles even bigger and says "presies!" I probably smiled as big as I could because this cute old man was giving me one of his cool stamps AND just said the word "presies" (short for the word presents, if you're late to the word shortening game).

Oh my goodness. He made my day.

Folks, it's the little things.

never did i think that karaoke could bring such joy

I went out for karaoke last night and loooooved it. I am always torn about karaoke. Actually, I am never torn about it. I have always detested the whole karaoke idea-standing up in front of tons of people I don’t know and then singing while they all stare at me is not my idea of a good time. One, I hate being the center of attention. Two, I am in no way a performer. And three, (I know this is the same as number one, but this can’t be said enough) I hate being the center of attention. However, I do love to sing, for myself or with others, but never for others. So, all this to say, it is a bit strange that I had a blast at karaoke.

But I did. I loved it.

I still didn’t like being the center of attention. Though I never was THE center of attention as I only sang duets or trios or whole group songs. Me, sing a solo? pishaw.

Our group wasn’t able to reserve a private room as those booked up quick, so we had to sing in the “community room”. Fear and anxiety took over once I heard that. Yikes. Sing in front of strangers? No way, Jose. We lucked out and there were only two other women in the room singing wonderfully in Chinese and then later moved on to rap and hip hop-but man, they were quite good. Other than those two, it was just our group dominating the microphone and playlist.

Around 10pm, this sweet old man walked in with our server, and she explained to him how karaoke works in the community room. I could not hide the big grin on my face and inside I was squealing over how cute this man was. His name was Suds (best name ever, right?). He walked all the way across town to get to this karaoke spot. He was in shorts that sat high up on his rib cage. He had very little hair minus the sprouts of gray along the side of his head and a very circular and dark brown toupee that just sat atop his head, and he soon after put in his pocket.

Suds jumped right in, holding strong on the mic singing “100 years” by Five For Fighting with karyn, I believe. I was just sitting there watching him sing at the top of his lungs and with such passion.

Half time goes by
Suddenly you’re wise
Another blink of an eye
67 is gone
The sun is getting high
We're moving on...
I'm 99 for a moment
Dying for just another moment
And I'm just dreaming...

I just sat there in awe of this old man singing karaoke with a bunch of twenty somethings on a late Tuesday night and everyone was enjoying themselves, singing and laughing and just sharing joy. Again, I have found that music really does bring people together and I love that.

And I guess I kind of love karaoke, too.

in awe of the human spirit

I love our Hospice multi-disciplinary meetings. We go over the patients one by one and hear from the nurse, doctor, social worker and chaplain about how each patient is doing. I love this part because I don’t get a chance to work directly with patients, as my role comes in after the patient has passed and I connect and work with their families. Thus, it’s really neat to hear about the lives of patients from the other side.

The mood vacillates between joy and sorrow and we discuss the ups and downs of patient care and situations. As we discuss patients and each person offers a piece of information from their lens, I am able to glimpse into their lives as well. They are no longer just names on a census, names of which I will reference in difficult conversations with their families. They become real people in the midst of their stories, near the end of their stories, with full lives behind them.

-The story of the woman who was growing more and more tired and weary with each day. She had Alzheimer’s disease and has been confused for the last several months, unable to recognize friends or family. Last Tuesday, she awoke with her son sitting by her bed. She was completely clear-headed. She recognized her son and was overjoyed to see him and be in his presence. They were able to visit and catch up on lost time and say goodbye. She passed away an hour later.

-Or the story of the woman who was barely alive. She was eating next to nothing and sleeping most days. She wanted to see her son get married. She held on like this for a month and a half. She was able to see her son get married on Saturday and passed peacefully away on Sunday morning.

-And the story of the man who went through an invasive surgery a while back and had a vivid end of life experience in the hospital. He talked about a vision of light illuminating a door. He heard voices saying that he needed to make a choice. He could walk through the door or he could stay. He chose to stay-his wife needed him. He loved life and wasn’t ready to go. His body is weak, but he fights to live each day. The social worker was helping him process this and asked him, “what would you choose today if the door were to present itself again?” He said he would walk through the door.

It’s incredible the glimpses of life that I get to see. It’s the human spirit. I’m in awe. People are resilient. I’m learning that over and over every day. People know what they need to do and they make a choice to do it.

Seasoned People

There is so much wisdom accumulated with age. I feel as though I should be wiser than I am at my ripe age of 25. I guess it is all quite relative though. I just listened to a podcast from Imago Dei last week and the speaker was a 92 year-old woman talking about her faith journey. I have always had a thing for old people. Well, let me rephrase that, I’ve had a thing for old people since I stopped having nightmares of elderly woman chasing me in the night, so probably since I was about fourteen. I love talking to old people. Also, I’m sure there are better terms or verbiage to classify this population, but I find the term “old people” endearing in its own way. Actually, I kind of like the phrase “seasoned people”, one who has lived many seasons…maybe I will use that. Anyway, back to my love of seasoned people, I love talking with them. I feel as though there is so much to be absorbed in every conversation. I also feel that when one has lived so many seasons, they realize their own wisdom and experience and wish to impart some of it to the world around them in direct ways through conversation or advice and indirect ways like the way they carry themselves or handle situations that come their way.

My favorite customers at the coffee shops I’ve worked in were always of the “seasoned” variety. They had an endless amount of stories to share and a love of sharing, which may or may not have been the most welcomed thing at 5am when my eyelids could barely be lifted and I could only hope to produce full sentences. Eyelids open or not, I loved hearing about their lives, their love stories, their travels, and the pearls they had picked up in the trials of life.
I always have my ears open for these pearls when I’m talking with seasoned people. They are privileged with perspective and the ability to look back on their life and see all the various ways that God worked in their lives, how certain decisions led to certain outcomes, how prayers were answered but maybe not in the way they had hoped. They can look back on their lives with different eyes. Maybe it’s those eyes that I crave, that perspective, a knowing that my life is on a path that will bring glory in the end.

This woman who spoke at Imago, who has seen 92 Winters and Springs, during her talk, in the most precious voice, said countless times throughout, “hang on” and “hang in there”. She talked about how the 20s and 30s can be a really tough time in our lives because by this time, we have had time to form expectations and dreams for what our lives would be and when we don’t see things turning out how we thought or we are faced with crisis or suffering, we begin to doubt and we begin to throw the idea around that we should give up and throw in the towel. “Hang on. Hang in there”, she says. You can’t see what God is doing, but you will. Hang on. In all of her words, I clung to those and will continue to cling to them. I will keep hanging on. And someday I will have the perspective and pearls to look back on my life and say I am so glad that I hung in there and kept holding on.

“Hang on. Hang in there.”