Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Singing (10/31/05)
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TITLE: Mrs Reilly | Previous Challenge Entry
By Pamela Dougall
11/07/05 -
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Pearl is a little girl again and she is calling out “Dad”, “Dad” Daddy”, over and over. She’s frightened! She doesn’t want to die, not yet anyway. Constantly she proclaimed that she wanted to live to one hundred. “I want to make history for our church!” she would tell us. Nobody from our church has lived to one hundred years, and so far, she has been the most likely contender. Like an athlete she talked her goal. She proclaimed her goal. In the early stages of dementia, her goal became an obsession. She fretted over her goal when the slightest ache came upon her body, because she was blessed with good health. She’d phone me for reassurance, “Will it take me?” she’d ask. And I’d pray for her headache or upset stomach and reassure her with her own oft repeated words “God’s got His hands on you!” I knew that her time of dying would be of the Lord’s choosing. She’s not going to live another ten months to make her goal – unless the Lord chooses to miraculously restore her.
She is dying and she’s fighting. Dementia has almost taken over of her mind. There are patches of recognition and response to reality. The other day when I went to feed her, she was calling out repeatedly for her Daddy, upsetting the staff and patients, by the noise, not the sentiment. When I started to say “Bye”, that anonymous person who had lifted up the spoon to her mouth to provide her with life sustaining food, suddenly became her loved friend. Her eyes showed me her love as she clasped my hand even tighter and looked directly into my eyes imploringly. She wouldn’t let my hand go. There is still strength in her grasp.
We can’t sing together any more. Actually, we didn’t sing together. She sang and I listened and expressed praise when she finished, sometimes after the third time of the same hymn. Mrs Reilly loved to perform to an audience even if it was an audience of one! I sang our favourite hymn to her the other day as I choked back tears and controlled my breaking voice. Never have I sung “Jesus Loves Me This I Know” before and she hasn’t taken over the singing. A few months ago, she was being difficult for the nurses so I started singing “Jesus Loves Me”. Mrs Reilly took over and sang it. She sang it over and over for fifteen minutes straight. I know it was that long because I timed it.
There’s one hymn that will be in my thoughts at her funeral. Up until about six months ago, Mrs Reilly was able to sing the five verses through word perfectly and in tune. On occasions, her memory was amazing. One evening, about four years ago, I took her out for coffee with another friend, and Mrs Reilly decided to sing her favourite hymn “There Is a Green Hill Far Away” in the open of an underground car park. She had applause at the end of her perfect rendition from the fellow car parkers who had gathered to listen. My friend and I joked about setting ourselves up for street ministry with Mrs Reilly. We’d have had no trouble getting a crowd to gather.
It isn’t for me to choose the hymns that will be sung at her funeral. Her unsaved daughter and our Pastor will do that. But there will be no need any longer to sing:
“That we might go at last to heaven,
Saved by His Precious blood.”
Mrs Reilly will be singing in glory, home at last!
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