A Little Prayer

For the last several years of my father’s life, just about every weekend, I would make a 45-minute drive toward the White Mountains to visit him at his nursing home.

I would stop at the front desk to sign the official log—my name and his, date and time—and the volunteer would stop reading their dog-eared book long enough to give me a “VISITOR” sticker for my shirt. I then pushed the elevator button and headed up to his room, trying to imagine what it was like to live there.

My dad’s days at the Veterans Home blended into each other, even with the Sunday concerts or sing-a-longs, even with Afternoon Stretch and twice-a-week PT, even with Jimmy the nurse joyfully dispensing meds and the LNAs pouring mid-day ginger ale.

When I walked into his room, my father’s face always lit up. He was most often in his leather recliner, legs propped on a pillow—he had contraction in his knees from all those years in a wheelchair.

I would ask him if he had been outside at all, and he would say “No.” I would ask what he had for breakfast, and he wouldn’t remember. Did he go on any field trips for ice cream? He’d say, “I don’t think so.”

But then I would tell him everything about our family I could think of. I would tell him about my latest work trip to Chicago, what his grandson was up to, or about the porcupine we we saw in our yard. I would tell him about a vacation we went on, or silly things the cat Kevin was doing. Sometimes we’d watch Bonanza or whatever was on the tiny TV in his room.

Around 11:52, two girls in scrubs would bring in an electric lift to move him to his wheelchair for his trip to the dining room for lunch. I would then kiss him on the cheek, tell him I would see him soon, and head out the door.

How did I leave him behind in that tiny, hot room every weekend? How did I manage to speed back down the highway to my charmed life at the other end?

Some weekends, it was difficult to pull myself out of life to find time to go be with him. It was also hard to face remembering that he was no longer the way he once was.

Now, years after losing both of my parents, you would think I might better understand why the joys of life are so high and lows are so low. But why do people have accidents and end up in nursing homes? Why is there so much collective suffering and trauma? Why are people so hurtful to one other? Why is there so much loss from this pandemic?

A friend of mine once told me her minister has a simple answer to this. He says, “Alleluia anyway.”

No matter how tough it seems at times, no matter how much we wish things were different, what will be will be. It is what it is. All we can do is to love each other—in the best way we know how—and whisper regularly, Alleluia anyway.

Memorial Day would be my father’s birthday. My Mom’s birthday and their anniversary would have been on May 19. Alleluia anyway, Mom and Dad.

Alleluia anyway, loss and suffering of people and all living things. Alleluia anyway, Mother Earth and climate change. Alleluia anyway, switchbacks in my son’s path. Alleluia anyway, COVID-19.

What do you need to say Alleluia anyway to right now?