By Tina Teng-Henson

(Continued from Part 3–>)

It took about half an hour to do the service, and I think that went from about 11:45 to 12:15. I forgot to say that as I moved through the building, I would give warm greetings and hugs to the patients I encountered who were assigned to me. 

There was Yv, who had been discharged from hospice, because she’d stabilized and didn’t need those services any more. I took a quick picture so I could text her daughter B who enjoyed those pictures. 

There was Ma, who was curled up on the sofa as she typically was, taking a cat nap. There was Fl, and there was Ro. Those last two are so sweet. Ma is probably worth describing separately at some point; her story takes some time to explain (for how she seems stuck in a moment in time, and in two relationships with a Father and a Sister that seems traumatic, related to babies).

In any case – we blessed the residents if they wanted it. I would ask them if they wanted me to bless them, and most of them nodded eagerly and happily accepted the sign of the cross on their forehead. As I anointed them with oil, I would speak words of blessing over them and look them straight in the eyes, with love and care. 

There was one Latino gentlemen who didn’t quite know what I was doing and afterwards seemed grumpy, a bit perturbed with furrowed brow. I must have moved too quickly, and he was now confused. I apologized for moving too quickly. I should have asked more slowly and waited. 

I wonder how often things like that happened in the building, with different caregivers speaking Spanish and others speaking English. I imagined with Alzheimers and dementia, many people would feel confused and upset at times, unable to remember details, surrounded by new people joining the community, caregivers departing. It must be a complex place to live, work, breathe, be. It made sense to me that L thought some of the souls had a hard time leaving the building. This was a place where they’d lived at the end of their lives. I knew in Hinduism, people leave windows open to help souls depart upon death. Many of these windows were shut, because people liked staying warm. The activities room felt stuffy to me as well. But I was able to open the windows on the dining room side of the building. 

In any case, I digress. We kept making our way through the building because I wanted to finish up by 1 pm to honor Rubin’s time. He needed to get to work afterwards, and I needed to go pick up my children from school.

I remember that it was at this point, I pulled out St. Patrick’s breastplate prayer, and we read a portion of that in the medicine room where Lara, the med-tech, worked. I prayed a blessing over her, and over the potential transition coming up, when L. would move on from her position and move to Seattle to be near one of her adult children and grandchildren – and Lara would take over. Then we worked our way through the other wing – making the sign of the cross over residents’ names on the plastic namecard – or on the doors themselves. Finally, we got to the other end of the hallway where the kitchen was.

In the interest of brevity, I’ll just summarize and say that we blessed the refrigerators and then went to the sink, where L said staff had seen the spirit of a little boy hiding beneath. Rubin and I crouched down to eye level to speak directly to where we imagined the little boy’s spirit might be. I spoke with tenderness and care, concern and love – encouraging him that he was safe and secure, and that it was time to go home. I told him I didn’t know how he got there, but it was okay that he was there, but it was better for him to go – so the staff could take care of the residents without getting distracted. 

Rubin followed up with his dad-voice, matter-of-fact, gentle, kind: “it’s okay, little guy, you can go home now!” (Continue to Part 5–>)

Tina Teng-Henson serves as a spiritual director and hospice chaplain. As a wife and mother of three, she occasionally guest-preaches and teaches. When she’s not volunteering at her children’s schools, she plays volleyball, reads, and writes.