Storytelling

Almost everyone has had a loved one that has been stricken with an illness and confined to a bed indefinitely. It is something we all hope to avoid and often we wonder how that dear one can possibly endure the passage of time to be so confined and isolated from the world in which the person had once been so actively involved.  Sometimes we wonder  how is it possible to survive the boredom of such isolation?

Family members and friends have a beautiful gift they have available, but too often fail to create, then share.  It is a gift that can develop a mutual understanding and bonding that might not have even been dreamed of before the loved one’s affliction and can be especially precious at a time when energy is failing. It is the gift of storytelling and the recalling of experiences of people, of former times and places and of details and nuances that before had been unnoticed.  It is a gift that anyone can have or develop and is mutually surprising.  We have heard it often said “that all we are, in the end, is our stories.”  And that is true, for without our stories, we are little more than a big blank space.  So, to alleviate that sense of blankness and isolation and depression that patients so often have to cope with, when they are shut off from the world in which they had once been so active, caregivers who are willing to take the time, can become storytellers.  In so doing, they can open up a new world of depth in their relationships and do it with renewed insights, memories and imagination. For those who know that they must soon leave this life, it is essential that there should be the opportunity to review at least life’s essential events before bidding farewell to them!

My sister Velma had been especially kind and thoughtful to our family when my wife, June, and I, with our five children, including two infants, finally arrived in Ontario, Canada, from California.  We were utterly fatigued upon arrival and Velma brought a meal to us at the house we had bought, sight unseen, before we had left the Golden State.  We were somewhat disoriented, to put it mildly. A few months later, we were still having difficulty in getting our feet on the ground, when Christmas time came, so she invited all of us to her house for dinner.  Her kindness and generosity had no strings attached to it and we deeply appreciated her support when we had felt at a loss. She was the soul of generosity.

Almost two decades later, our dear sister Velma was being overtaken by a developing paralysis that eventually would be totally disabling and require her to be placed in a nursing home.  We grieved for her, for it seemed that she was too young to suffer so, but we were thankful that the nursing home was only a few blocks from our house, just a walking distance.  That meant that we could see her every day, to bring her cheer and a bit of contact with the outside world.

Velma had spent part of her life as a missionary in Egypt with her husband, Norman.  He had died there of a heart attack and she then retuned home with her four young children.  I had known Norman, her husband, as a boy and we had thought highly of him.  I had also known some of the other church missionaries there, so there was now ample time to talk about her work in Egypt.  Velma, because of her disability, could only whisper the occasional comment and she could not make a complete sentence.  So I would talk about Norman, the qualities of his personality, the other missionaries, what I had learned about Egypt and the annual summer vacations at their church’s summer camp on the Island of Cyprus.  Sometimes I would massage her feet. Foot massage is something that bedridden patients almost always appreciate.  Often June would join me and she would sing familiar hymns or old ballads.

When we began to recognize that Velma would soon be leaving, I would more frequently take her back to another time and place.  It was to some of our shared earlier childhood journeys and memories of long ago, such as the days in the old one room country school.  But one of our favorite memories would be the afternoon trips to the lake on a hot summer’s day.  I recalled how our brothers and I would hitch Skip, the old gray mare, to the milk wagon, and some of us, Velma and I and our older brothers and sisters, would go to South Lake for a leisurely afternoon swim.  It was about 1½  miles distant, part of it on  back roads.  There we would tie Skip to a tree in the shade.  It was less than a ¼ of a mile to the lake. In memory we would stop to notice the different kinds of birds, their colors, their songs, their nests, etc.  We remembered crossing a small bridge and noted the minnows in the stream, the different flowers, the trees and plants along the path, the smell of the woods and so many points of interest and so many details that we had never thought to pay attention to when we were young.  The boys and girls long ago changed clothes separately out in the bushes.   I reminded her of the body-length woolen swimsuits with skirts that went half way to the knees that everyone wore.  All of us swam for a while at the beach, then our older brothers and sisters went to swim over to the “diving rock” where the water was so deep no one ever went to the bottom. We younger ones just sat and watched.  Not one of us ever thought about any dangers.

 I recalled for Velma another evening, in the winter, on the big flat below the house that had just frozen over with glare ice after a big mid-winter thaw. So we called some of our neighbors’ children and told them that the ice was good and invited them to come over to skate.  I would ask Velma to remember the names of some of our neighbors and friends.  Later  we would all come in the house and make pop corn over a roaring fire on the old cook stove and talk about the friends and days of  long ago.

It was obvious Velma was failing and then, June and I both knew that it would be our last evening with her and that her death would be within hours.  This would be our last time together, so I took her back to our earlier memories.  It was long ago and early spring, perhaps late March.  The country roads were breaking up, still there was some snow and deep ruts, not suitable for cars.  It was Sunday morning and we were all getting ready to go to church.  Dad had hitched Skip and Dick, a young team of grays, to the spring wagon.  I recalled how it was a two-seater with some of us younger ones having to sit on the older ones’ laps. As we passed by our neighbors’ gates, we remembered each of the family’s names and their children we had known.  We had gone to school with some of then.  Especially we spoke of Roy and Hubert who were our age, and had grown up, and had gone off to fight in World War II, then died in action.  Now, most of the neighbors that we knew back then had died or moved far away.  In memory, we arrived at the church and we remembered the smell of the pine trees surrounding the church and the roaring fire in the big box stove in the church.  Other people were standing around the stove to enjoy the warmth of the fire, for they too had arrived by horse-drawn vehicles. We recalled the names of our Sunday school teachers and the other kids in our Sunday school classes.  And then the church service and the preacher’s sermon that seemed like it would never end.  Church was a real part of our life from long ago as we remembered it.  And little parts had shaped us in some ways to become who we were in later life.

Knowing that this would be my last moments with Velma, I remembered our childhood at bedtime when we were dressed for bed.  Mother would come and sit by our bed as we knelt, to hear each of us say our goodnight prayer.  I then held our sister’s hand and I repeated that prayer:

“Now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

I bade Velma goodnight and kissed her goodbye, knowing that her children would be arriving soon. 

What a beautiful privilege and blessing it was  to take Velma on journeys, to her memories of life of long ago, to reconstruct scenes, by my storytelling, when there had been beauty, love and laughter.  For her, I had created scenes that became almost as real as life itself had been.  And I had that rare privilege of sharing some of her life’s stories with her, even as her life was slipping away.  You will find great beauty, and provide great comfort, if you open yourself to become a storyteller for and with the dying!

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