SonShine

I like to get up early on Sunday. I usually drink some coffee, read the paper, then go see Mom. I try to do this every Sunday because Mom can't tell if I'm there or not and I could never go or go twice a day and she wouldn't know which.

Since she's moved to the nursing home Mom has been attending church. Attending is probably the least appropriate term for what she's doing.

Mom's consciousness exists for seconds at a time. These seconds are very seldom connected now. If I sit with her, I often get a glimpse of her, of some familiar neuron firing, perhaps for the last time, and Mom looks at a sleeping old woman and then at me and says sternly: "You should help her." I tell her I will.

This morning I was confronted with very energetic, pretty doggone old volunteers who were busy wheeling residents, except for those who declined, to a room at the end of the hall. I found my mother in her high backed wheelchair, in a line, like a stately old jet at O'Hare, waiting for takeoff. I woke her. She sleeps most of the time and had no idea what she was in line for.

When we moved to Wichita in 1965 we were not a religious family. We'd lived in Illinois, New York, West Virginia and Ohio and it hadn't really come up in our conversation as a family. "Where's God?" I asked once. Mom said "God is everywhere." Mom was a Catholic girl who left the Church and her family to marry Dad, a divorced Non-Catholic. "In the potty?' I asked. I think Mom changed the subject. I was three and she could do that.

Southern Kansas - well, really most of Kansas - follows one evangelical Christian faith or another. Evangelicals must witness to others to fulfill God's plan for them on earth and so I was repeatedly questioned by all my new friends, who wanted me to come to their churches on Sunday mornings, or to Sunday school on Wednesday night. That's "church night." After not very long, my good friend Jay invited me to go to Olivet Southern Baptist Church with him. I was intrigued, and told Mom, who said, not missing a beat:

"Oh, didn't I tell you? We're going to the Unitarian church this Sunday. We already have plans." That's how Mom saved me from the Southern Baptists.

Given this history, I decided that I needed to step out of my comfort zone and see what this service was all about. An energetic old woman had already gotten me a chair right by Mom, who is really slumping in her chair, sawing logs. Big logs. Mom is 5' 10" and I can't lift her up in a chair without hurting her, so I asked one of the energetic old women to help me, but she wasn't allowed. "God will give you strength," I wanted to suggest.

I found some help and got Mom straightened up so she wouldn't be rolling on the floor. I was pretty sure that this was not going to be that kind of service. For a while, the energetic women continued to roll their audience in. Some were cheerful and responsive. Some, like my mother were somewhat less aware, or not aware at all. Mom, for instance was snoozing happily. One wonders why they couldn't have just rolled them from their rooms directly to the church room, without lining them up in the halls first, but I didn't inquire. God works in mysterious ways.

A husband and wife team led the service, eventually Both looked retired and energetic. The woman apologized that there was no piano but let the room in song , referring us to the SonShine Songbook, Large Print Edition. I found it at the SonShine Society website.
The energetic woman began to sing energetically in a voice that was quavery but strong and mostly in tune. Others sang along as best they could, songs about how Jesus suffered and died and how we should humbly glorify him and his Father God, how anyone can be assured of Heaven, how for every instance of pain and suffering there is, somehow a Plan. The plan involves me and Mom joining up, of course. Not much chance of that. Remember the Spanish Inquisition! I'm the strangest creature you ever have heard: my mother's a virgin, my father's a bird! Nananananana! During the second song, Mom woke up, and picked up her side of the Victory Edition SonShine songbook. She looked over at me and smiled a beautiful smile, one I remember from church a long time ago, holding a Unitarian Universalist Hymn-book full of not much better songs. She tried to sing a few words, then flickered out, a brief signal on an old television, and went back to sleep. But what a smile that was! It warms me up just remembering it. The minister talked to us about showing humility and bowing down before God. I thought about Mom's evil illness, how it's rendered her incapable of noticing that she's at a Christian service, or that I am with her. I'm humbled by this terrible disease and it's certain victory over my mother. I wonder how this could possibly be part of a Plan. What an awful plan. New plan, please! Still, that smile. . . the minister wrapped up and we all began to wheel ourselves out of the room. An energetic old woman thanked me for coming and I thanked her for having us.

I wheeled Mom back to her room for a long snooze. Was a time she'd have politely dismissed these folks and spent Sunday morning with a paper, or with a bunch of nerdy Unitarians and me. Now they can't convert her.

Hey, don't forget your SonShine pin!