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A few years ago, one of our residents with dementia was moving to a nursing home because her needs had become more than could be handled in a retirement community. It was an unusual situation, and I was helping the family pack her things while they had taken her for a drive. I had a good relationship with Shirley (not her real name). She would do things like steal toilet paper from our public bathrooms and then bring it to my office to show it to me, saying, "I want you to know this is mine and I am not stealing it." "Yes," I would say, "I realize it is yours." Shirley would smile smugly and walk off to her apartment, happy for another few hours. Every once in awhile her family would come in, find twenty rolls of toilet paper under her bathroom sink, and return it to us. Now Shirley was gone. She had been a teacher in her younger years, and was a very intelligent and well-educated woman. All that was left of her now were two dressers, a bed, some living room furniture, a dinette set, and a few dishes. Oh, yes, and a copy of Deepak Chopra’s Ageless Body, Timeless Mind. The irony of the title did not escape me. I wonder if she had read it or if her family had left it there. As I packed her things into a cardboard box, I felt very sad. Here was a woman who had lived over seventy years, and her material property consisted of some pants and blouses, underwear, socks, a few books and photos, and a bit of furniture. All she was taking with her to the nursing home was the clothing on her back. I wondered about all the things she had purchased in her life. Where were they now? Did she own a house somewhere? What good was it to her, except to be sold to pay for her care? What about her jewelry? She had siblings, but she had no children. Who would get her favorite necklace and earrings? She didn’t even have many memories, and the more her dementia progressed, the fewer she had. What does Shirley have to take with her from her time on Earth? Shirley’s legacy is the good she did for others, what she gave to her students and to her loved ones. What she took with her was the growth of her soul and nothing else. And so it is for you and for me. When we leave Earth, we will not take our possessions with us. We will go as we arrived, unless we have been kind and loving to others. One of my residents told me that when she moved to an apartment from her house and was trying to decide what to take with her, she would look longingly at items and then tell herself, "If you were dead you wouldn’t have this, so let it go." And she did. Look around your home or office. What can you take with you if you die today? That is what you should treasure above all else. Krysta Gibson is the general manager of the Merrill Gardens retirement community in Monroe, Washington. She can be reached by telephone at (360) 794-4284 or by mail at P.O. Box 1236, Gold Bar, WA 98251. Her e-mail address is <krysg@earthlink.net>. |
How often
have you heard the saying, "You can’t take it with
you"? If you’re like me, you’ve probably nodded
your head in agreement and then moved on to your next thought.
Working in a retirement community has forced me to stop and ponder
this a little more deeply.