Of Promises and Pumpkins

It has been said that grief is like a wave that you don’t see coming; one that drenches you from behind and threatens to pull you under. I was nearly pulled under when I was riding up on the elevator for my weekly visit with Dad. He recently moved to a nursing home. The walls of the elevator were covered with Halloween decorations including some child-like pumpkins. The faces were made from string and scraps. I saw my dad’s name on one of them. It was then that the wave hit.

Dad was an apple farmer, as was his father before him. On the 150 or so acres that were farmed, he grew all kinds of vegetables and fruits. There was always a huge garden; a garden that seemed to get larger each year. The surplus produce always found its way into the backseat of our car when we visited, or onto a neighbor’s doorstep. He grew peaches and pears, blueberries, raspberries and cherries. And he grew pumpkins.

Standing in the elevator and staring at that construction paper pumpkin, I was frozen and far away. I was in the pumpkin patch over in the Pond Lot on the farm. The patch stretched out along the top of the hill. In the fall, pudgy pumpkins were harvested and loaded onto the wagon pulled by the tractor. They were heavy, but my dad was strong. He climbed ladders. He built houses. He lifted children and grandchildren. He lifted bushels of apples, bales of hay and pumpkins.

How did we get from there to here? How did we get from the quickening outdoor air, scented with hay and leaves and pine, to this place? A place that is often too warm and sometimes filled with the smells of medicine and sickness. A place where my dad now struggles for breath at the least exertion.

In my work as a pastor, I have spent many an hour at the bedside of a nursing home resident who is my parishioner. I have led countless worship services in these places. And I have walked with families through the heartrending discussions about how to provide for their elderly family members. But I never thought it would come to this…to the day when my own father would have to be in a nursing home.

Like so many others, I said that I would never put dad in a nursing home. I was determined to care for him in my own home. It was a promise I made to myself. It was a promise I could not keep. My dad is a heavy man who has lost the use of his legs. I cannot lift the man who had carried and raised me.

I know I am not alone. There are no easy answers. Aging in place is preferred, but needed services are costly and not as accessible in rural areas. And sometimes, I will hear someone say what I said: “I will never put my father or mother in a nursing home.”

I get it. And I wince. I want to gently suggest that this is a promise that might have to be broken. I want to be able to offer grace that the adult son or daughter may not be able to find for themselves if that day comes. A grace that is still evasive for me. The sadness ebbs and flows.

So I keep visiting. Near the bed, my sister has hung a painting of the farm. And I bring whatever I can find that speaks of his life on the farm. In the spring, I brought May flowers. In the summer, I brought fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and green beans from the garden for him to taste. I brought bouquets of mint for the nurses. This fall, I brought brown-eyed Susans. But I didn’t bring a pumpkin.