The Nursing Home

by Maura Colleen McKeegan

A woman rushes through the door after me and catches me as I’m leaving.

“Hey! Wait! Can I ask you a favor?”

We have met several times before. She is the activities director here at the nursing home where I bring my babies every now and then to visit the residents. She is always friendly.

“There’s this woman down the hall who really likes to have someone say the Rosary with her, and the staff, well, we just don’t have the time. Do you have a few minutes to pray with her?”

Of course I do! I’m happy to be needed. I’ve just been meandering through the rooms, stopping where the residents are awake, but feeling a bit lost. This is how it usually goes. I’ve tried to ask the staff before whether there is anyone they think could use a visit. But they are busy and they don’t know. At last, here is my assignment.

I bring my 2-year-old daughter, Grace, and 4-month-old son, Finn, back inside, and the woman leads me to “Mabel.” Mabel’s eyes brighten as we enter. The director tells her we’re going to pray with her, asks us to walk her to lunch when we’re done, and leaves us to it.

Mabel smiles, we smile. She pats the couch for Grace to sit, pulls a stack of greeting cards and letters from a drawer, and places them in Grace’s lap, handing over without a hint of concern the personal treasures she has saved for years. Grace seems to understand their sacredness and leafs through them with gentle wonder.

I learn quickly that Mabel has a processing problem with her speech and can’t get out a sentence without stuttering and usually can’t finish her thoughts. But when we begin to pray the Rosary, she can say every word.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth . . . Mabel is watching Finn. And in Jesus Christ, His Only Son, Our Lord . . . He moves, she twinkles. I believe in the Holy Spirit . . . He coos, she grins. Her eyes never leave him.

Our Father, who art in heaven . . . I glance at the pictures on her coffee table. It must be about the 1970s in this one; the hairdos and clothes and the sepia tint of the photograph give it away. She’s in the middle, sitting on a couch, holding her husband’s hand. She was rounder then, less fragile, her face flushed with healthy color. They are surrounded by children, six of them. Three boys and three girls. They must have heard the Brady Bunch joke a thousand times, I think.

I wonder about the day the picture was taken. Maybe it was Thanksgiving, and she had spent all day preparing dinner for her family. Or Christmas Eve, just before they headed out to Midnight Mass. Or her birthday, and her family had gathered to celebrate her life. Does she remember?

Hail Mary, full of grace . . . She’s smiling at Grace now, who is still mesmerized by the cards. I glance down at one. Dear Mabel, I’m so sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written. I think of you all the time . . . I wonder who this person might be—a grade school companion, an old neighbor, a friend from church, a sister. So many cards.

Blessed art thou among women . . . Finn is clearly taken with her. She makes faces at him, he laughs. She has a mother’s touch.

And blessed is the fruit of thy womb . . . Watching them, I imagine the day Mabel came into the world as a newborn baby, her father’s trembling hands tracing her little face, her mother weeping and laughing in the transcendent mystery of maternal love. I envision her parents beaming at one another as she takes her first steps, speaks her first words. I see her as a little girl drawing pictures for her mommy and racing to hug her daddy when he arrives home for supper at the end of a long day. At night, by her bed, they hold their rosaries and pray together.

Then, later, she is all grown up and her father’s hair matches her white dress as he walks her down the aisle to meet that handsome man who holds her hand years later in the photograph. She endures childbirth six times and brings three boys and three girls into the world. She makes her children’s lunches and packs them in paper bags, irons her husband’s suits, and hides Christmas presents until the children are all asleep in bed. She loses the woman who gave birth to her and the man who gave her away at the altar. All along, she keeps her rosary in her pocket and her fingers rarely leave the beads.

When her grandchildren arrive, she flies hundreds of miles to cook dinners, fold laundry, and change diapers all over again. She is there at their baptisms, their First Communions, and their Confirmations, her creased fingers strumming the worn wooden beads. When the mailman brings a card for her, addressed in careful big block lettering with several erasures, her smile lasts the rest of the day. Dear Grandma, I’m sorry it has been so long since I’ve written. I think of you all the time . . .

Then one day, she answers the phone and no matter how hard she tries, she can’t say “Hello.” It takes a month in the hospital after the stroke for her to walk again. The sentences never return.

Holy Mary, Mother of God . . . Grace is fidgeting. Mabel instinctively reaches into her pocket and pulls out a colorful little handmade rosary. She hands it to Grace, who whispers, “Thank you!” and rolls it between her tiny fingers, examining every glistening bead as if she were appraising diamonds.

Pray for us sinners . . . I’m horrified as the beads from Grace’s rosary go skidding across the tile floor in every direction. As I stoop to pick them up, Mabel touches my back to stop me. She shakes her head vigorously and gestures for me to sit down. When I do, she pats my head approvingly.

Glory be to the Father . . . Finn is drooling everywhere. He doesn’t have teeth but he will soon. As it was in the beginning . . . Mabel, still praying every word, wipes her own drool from her chin as she leans in to nuzzle Finn. World without end . . . And between them, I see the mirror. It reflects the two of them: moving, twinkling, cooing, grinning, making faces, laughing, drooling toothless puddles. Neither has words: He not yet, she no more. Bald in patches, they lean forward and touch foreheads. I know you, their dance seems to say. You’re just like me.

Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. We finish the Rosary and smile at each other for a silent moment or two before we walk down to the dining room. The nursing home is dark and the hallway lined with men and women who once were babies, children, brides and grooms, parents, grandparents. They sit in wheelchairs, wear bibs, utter guttural groans, and follow us with their eyes as we pass.

We reach the dining room and begin to say our reluctant goodbyes. Mabel hugs us each multiple times and as we walk away she watches our every step as tenderly as my own grandmothers would have. I’ve known her for 20 minutes, but the lump in my throat is real. I swallow hard. I have never gotten used to the fact that in a nursing home, each visit might be the last.

I always think about life when I leave here, and particularly on this day. I think about where my dear husband and I will be in 50 years, and where Grace and Finn will be in 80. Where yesterday these thoughts would have brought me anxiety, today I am at peace, because now I see that we will not be sailing uncharted waters. I gaze into Finn’s eyes and see my reflection; I hold Grace’s hand and a verse runs through my mind: The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

It may happen that in my old age I am unable to walk. I may drool, moan, and say the same set of five words over and over again. I may live in a world where no one understands what I am trying to communicate and where I am utterly dependent on others to feed, bathe, and clothe me.

But I have lived in that world before. It was 32 years ago. And it was the prelude to a life that has held more joy than I ever could have imagined. And when it happens again, when it is as it was in the beginning, I can rejoice, because it will be the prelude to a new and even greater life, where the childlike are taken by the hand and welcomed into the bliss of eternity.

I hope I see Mabel again this side of heaven. But if I am not given that chance, still she will have taught me one of my finest lessons. Undaunted by her limitations, she waits with her lamp lit, doing the only things that matter: She prays, she smiles, and she loves. I don’t believe she was my assignment, after all.

I think I was hers.

Maura Colleen McKeegan writes from Steubenville, Ohio.

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