Let me talk to y’all about a lady named Miss Evelyn.
Miss Evelyn is an elderly woman I am a caretaker for.
Miss Evelyn recently had a fall that has taken her from being a completely independent 89 year old to needing help using the bathroom.
The fall as has also taken a toll on Miss Evelyn’s mind, making her struggle with short term memory loss.
Her world is scary. She struggles to remember simple things like “did I brush my teeth today” and “when is the last time I ate”.
The past several mornings I have spent with her she has been telling me over and over again how she is frustrated. How she’s done with the pain. How she’s ready to be with the lord.
I have tried encouraging her.
I have tried reasoning with her.
She’ll perk up a bit then fall right back into her miserable mindset.
The more I thought about her day to day, the more I realized she doesn’t have a whole lot of opportunity for distractions. She doesn’t watch much tv and very rarely do people outside of her family call or visit.
So last week I asked her,
“Miss Evelyn, what do you like to do for fun?”
“Play piano,” she says. (Something she is unable to do easily because of complications with her hand from the fall.)
“Do you like to read?” I asked.
“I haven’t read a book other than the Bible in years.” She said.
“Well, we’re going to change that. I know a book you might like.”
The more I described the book I had in mind for her, the more her eyes started to light up.
I gave her the book today. She hasn’t put it down.
She “went to bed” around 8pm, then a short hour or so later I hear her lamp click on and I lean in to check on her...
Where once she was waking up in tears from pain or frustration, she is now waking up to read because she is excited about something for the first time in months.
All of us know the feeling of not being able to sleep because you’re so engrossed in a good book.
We all know how the rest of the world seems to just trickle away.
It may seem so little, but it’s a really beautiful thing to see miss Evelyn so wrapped up in something other than the pain of what she’s going through.
It makes me very glad that books exist.
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