Columnist Bill Herr taught high school mathematics and science for 32 years before serving as a volunteer and then as a staff chaplain at two nursing homes. In this series of articles, he writes about his experiences with elderly residents. He does not use the residents’ real names.
By Bill Herr
Early in my time as chaplain I went into the room of a new lady resident. I did not know that she had dementia. As soon as she saw me, she began cursing me. I tried to introduce myself but she continued cursing. After a few uncomfortable moments, I excused myself and left the room.
In the following days, I observed that her husband visited her every day. She would sit up and he would sit beside her and gently massage the back of her neck and shoulders. One day I entered her room and she was crying softly. I asked her what was the matter and she said, “I miss my husband.” I asked her if I could pray for her. She nodded and I prayed specifically that her husband would soon be there to see her. When I finished I looked at the doorway and there stood her husband. He had just arrived.
Columnist Bill Herr taught high school mathematics and science for 32 years before serving as a volunteer and then as a staff chaplain at two nursing homes. In this series of articles, he writes about his experiences with elderly residents. He does not use the residents’ real names.
By Bill Herr
Some of the kindest acts I have ever witnessed occurred when residents in nursing homes did acts of love and kindness toward fellow residents. One example was an exchange between Harry and Jim.
The 19th amendment guaranteed all American women the right to vote on Aug. 1920.
Despite that date, a brief notation in my grandmother’s diary reads: “I went to vote and Margaret and Florence went with me. Margaret is one year old, Nov. 2, 1915.”
The note with the 1915 date confused me. I knew that women did not receive their constitutional right to vote until the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.
I have been so fortunate in my life so far that I have had opportunities to share my love of books and the written word with the readers of this column on a semi-regular basis.
I began to write for the Icon when founder Fred Steiner asked me to review books that I liked, and I chose those contemporary popular fiction ones that I believed had a quality or message that meant something important to our current time and circumstances. I was lucky to find those books on the new books shelf of my local library, and sometimes I took the suggestions of my fellow book lovers. It was a joy to bring the book alive with my reviews, and I actually managed to read and write about each book in a week's time. That was how much I enjoyed the task.
When the new owner of the Icon took over, she allowed me to keep this column and even encouraged my writing. And the Icon flourishes under her management. I believe that I had more interested readers that followed me then. The support that I received made me want to write better and more relevant reviews than I had ever done before.
As you may know, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease recently. With the proper medications most of my symptoms have gone into remission, with a few exceptions. I still find it hard to swallow without choking, I sometimes have a tipsy way of walking that requires a cane, and my hands don't always do what I want them to, so I drop things.
But the worst symptom is the one which refuses to go away without some strong additional medication that I'd rather not use. That is my persistent insomnia.
Back in the misty, shrouded past of 1994 Stephen King published a weighty novel of 787 pages titled “Insomnia” (A Viking book published by the Penguin Group, ISBN 0-670-85503-0). That book means something to me and my condition that it didn't before.
