the best of this daily examen

today was one of those fascinating paradoxes of ministry. i have been visiting edith for a good while now - 8 months or more. she's, oh, 83 or so, and in the meantime we've been through moving from an independent apartment into a nursing home, a foot break with many infections and follow-up surgeries, a hip break and follow up recovery from that including loss of appetite and general crappiness of life.

tomorrow is edith's birthday. we announce these in the worship service the previous sunday, and when i came across her name i contacted vicki who has been visiting edith as well and taking her to doctor's appointments and trying to figure out what to do about shoes. vicki was already taking edith to a doctor's appointment at 1:15 today, so we decided to meet at perkins for lunch beforehand, and a lovely woman from the care committee provided a blushing calla lily. we had a good lunch though miss edith wasn't as talkative as normal. she did eat quite a bit, though, which is very good for her. actually, as we were getting into the car she was just chattering away like she had no appointment at all. it was fun.

this evening as i was stringing yarn from my house on which the sweet peas can hang, i got a call from vicki. apparently the whole rest of the afternoon edith was just over the moon so very surprised by the lunch and that i was there to help celebrate it with her. in the course of this conversation vicki learned that this was the first time that anyone had taken her out to eat for her birthday since her husband died 15 years ago... on her birthday. hmm. vicki and i decided that we were decidedly humbled and honored.