Room By Room

While working as a hospital chaplain, a family calls you in. The patient has four adult kids who are desperate for a breakthrough. Their dad can’t live on his own anymore and needs care that can only be had in an assisted living facility. You would rather help people die on the trauma unit all day long than have this conversation-one that reminds you of how hard it is to grow old and helpless in this country.

“Well, I’m not moving!” he says before you can sit down. It may be your least favorite conversation, but it’s your favorite kind of patient-the old, stubborn kind whose defiance insists that though they are a sputtering star, they still have something to say.

You learn his wife just died. You hear how much he loves her, how their home is the only place where she’s still alive. You learn that he was an architect and together they designed their house, drew it out on butcher paper before a single brick was laid. 

“Walk me through your house,” you say. “Tell me everything about it.” And he does and as he does he tells you, too, about his wife. 

And room by room he says goodbye.