For many elderly, the final chapter of life does not unfold as they’d hoped.
By Missy Buchanan Special Contributor
Her steel gray eyes followed me as I walked into her room at the nursing home.
Her name was Ruby, and she was my 95-year-old friend who only recently had moved from the comfortable senior residence where she’d lived for almost 20 years.
I had met Ruby during my daily visits to the senior residence where my 91-year-old mother lives. Ruby is among the elderly folks there whom I’ve befriended over the years.
She had been the unofficial matriarch of the center, where she played bingo every Tuesday and Friday afternoon.
The move to the nursing home had been a difficult but necessary decision made by her next of kin, a brother-in-law just a few years her junior. Now Ruby searched my face in silent desperation.
She didn’t want to be there. The look on her face told me she wanted to be back in her cozy apartment, surrounded by her collection of porcelain figurines and friends who had become her family.
And how I wished it could be so.
On several occasions Ruby had shared her wish to die in her sleep in her own bed. She wanted to live out her last days with little frenzy. But the final chapter of Ruby’s story was not unfolding as she had hoped.
Over the last few months, her independence had slipped away as urgent physical problems increased. There were multiple falls and increasing dementia. And now it had come to this: a twin bed and flimsy curtain to separate her from an unknown, incapacitated roommate.
But during the last few weeks I had heard Ruby respond to unexpected life turns with her signature line. “It’s just one of those things,” she’d say, adding a slight grin.
I stood at the end of the bed and stroked Ruby’s swollen feet. Nurses and aides hurried about while the TV blared some ridiculous reality show. I wanted to scream, “Can’t you see my friend is dying? This is reality.” Muting the TV, I searched my thoughts, feeling painfully inadequate. Then remembering how Ruby took great pride in wearing red lipstick, I took her favorite shade and lined her parched lips. It was all I knew to do.
Each morning for the next two weeks I sat at Ruby’s bedside, reading aloud from the Psalms and offering prayers. Prayers for courage. Peace. Relief from pain. But on this day, I was all prayed out.
The words just wouldn’t come as I looked at Ruby’s tired face. Her eyes were closed, mouth slightly open. In truth, she seemed more dead than alive. She was now under hospice care. My heart was heavy with the responsibility of watching my elderly friend slip away. What more could I do?
And so I sang. I sang every hymn I could recall, giggling out loud over a mixed-up verse or two. That’s when a smile crawled across Ruby’s face. Her eyes flickered open. She had heard my imperfect attempt to lift her spirit. But somehow she had lifted mine.
Ruby died the next day.
I believe there are holy moments when we realize God’s hand has been at work, weaving lives together for His purpose. Ruby needed a friend to come alongside her in those final difficult weeks of ambulances and IVs. I was honored to share her sacred journey, as far as I could go.
But the journey was not fun. It took me places I didn’t want to go. To cold emergency rooms and halls tainted with the smell of urine. But what a glorious journey it turned out to be!
Ruby was right. It was just one of those things. A God thing.
Ms. Buchanan is the author of Living with Purpose in a Worn Out Body: Spiritual Encouragement for Older Adults (Upper Room Books), due out in 2008. She is a member of FUMC in Rockwall, Texas.
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The move to the nursing home had been a difficult but necessary decision made by her next of kin, a brother-in-law just a few years her junior. Now Ruby searched my face in silent desperation. 
The words just wouldn’t come as I looked at Ruby’s tired face. Her eyes were closed, mouth slightly open. In truth, she seemed more dead than alive. She was now under hospice care. My heart was heavy with the responsibility of watching my elderly friend slip away. What more could I do? 
