The saints that walk among us

I drafted this post about two months ago and never got around to publishing it. Today I realized that it was still sitting here unpublished so I have added a paragraph or two and here it is.

When mother was in the hospital dying she said something that stuck with me “I can see the face of God in the people around me.” She had a Faith that I will never have but I have some understanding of what she saw.

Shortly after mom & dad moved out of the house to their Broadway apartment we convinced them that they needed a companion / assistant. It wasn’t easy to convince mother for a couple of reasons. I think the primary reason for her was always that she didn’t want to spend money on frills. She also didn’t want some stranger in her home. We were lucky to find Diane Neale’s Neale Elder Care service and she very fortunately had someone working for her who had a vague family connection to one of mother’s nieces. That helped ease the transition and over time mother came to depend on Diane’s service.

Initially it was one of Diane’s employees that handled mom & dad’s service. She would come in maybe every other week and do a bit of ironing or go get a few groceries and sometimes went with father to an appointment when mother wasn’t up to the trip. I’m not sure when it changed from being an employee to being Diane that handled mom & dad’s account but by the time mother died last fall Diane was the contact. She has been an absolute angel since then.

I can’t imagine doing what she does but we are so fortunate that there are caring, loving souls like her who devote their time to the elderly and infirm. When I stopped in at Dove House yesterday there was Diane bent over father’s bed chattering away cheerfully to him. Having a conversation with father has become a pretty solitary affair lately but that doesn’t seem to faze Diane and I always have to remind myself that father is just one of her many clients. She has to maintain that cheery disposition in the face of daily deterioration in the lives of her clients.

During father's recent hospitalization Diane has been the only constant presence in his life. She sits quietly watching him sleep, peppers his nurses with questions about his care, provides updates to Chris & me, feeds him, brings his mail and a host of other little aids to life that we have come to depend on.

Diane is not the only angel in father’s current life. The staff at Dove House are exceptional. The place could use a coat of paint and there’s a cracked window here and there but what it has in abundance is loving care for the residents. Father is about the middle of the pack – there are people who are physically worse off than he is and there are people who are in better shape. All of them get individual care whether they are confined to bed or aimlessly wandering the hallway dementedly asking when they can go home.

Father used to quote Ted Eide, a retired farmer from the Kenaston hills who said “there’s only one way out of this place” when he found himself in a similar home in Saskatoon. Unfortunately the Dove House residents are all likely at their last residence on earth but they have been fortunate to land in a place where the staff are cheerful and clearly focused on doing the best for their clients.

Some members of the so-called healthcare system spoke disparagingly about Dove House before we moved father there and it’s not hard to understand why. In a system that focuses on cutting corners, pushing paper and following the rules, Diane Neale and the Dove House staff go against the grain by actually caring and giving of themselves. We are all the better for their existence.