DarDar

Mother Teresa said, "everyone should die a beautiful death." She would pick up people off the street, take them to her mission, bathe them, wrap them in a clean sheet, maybe feed them if they could eat, and hold them.
That's what I long for, for that back room at the Infirmary. A bath to make them feel better, a fresh clean bed, a full belly, and most of all someone to hold them and tell them how much God loves them, and that they can let go, and go home if they are ready.
DarDar was lying pretty much comatose after a major stroke the day before I got there. They had her covered with an old wool blanket, and she was left alone to die. Sylvia walked back to her bed with me, and we stood gazing at her for a moment. She said, "she's travelin". I thought, yes....that's very true. I sat on DarDar's bed much of the week, singing to her. Sylvia taught me a song about going home, that DarDar would know.
"I'll soon be done, with trouble and trials
When I get home, on the other side
I'm gonna shake the hands of my elders
Tell everybody good mornin
I'm gonna sit down beside my Jesus
I'm gonna sit down and rest a little while."
Some of the time I sang Amazing Grace.
Sometimes I just talked to her or prayed over her. I told her it was ok..she could go home. Prayed that the Lord would take any pain away in her last days. I could hardly stand to leave her. It just seemed so wrong for her to lay there alone. A child of God....the apple of His eye....uncared for. The matron told me she actually sipped some tea from a straw the next day! How powerful is even the tiniest gift of love! DarDar was alive when I left to come home to the states, and I made Sylvia promise to sing her home. DarDar went home a couple days later, and I'm glad. It wasn't an emotion I thought I would feel. But when you think of what she traded for her temporal life....it makes you happy!
I want to find where they bury the residents and take some flowers. I know they are not there, but they beg to be remembered in my mind. I want to remember them....especially since I know I'll be seeing them again.