Sitting on my back porch with my morning coffee on a sunny Memorial Day morning, I am becoming more aware of how easy it is to forget.
We forget birthdays and anniversaries. We forget meetings, doctors appointments and scheduled lunches. We forget the grocery list. We forget to put gas in the car. We even forget to deliver on the things we, with good intentions, promise to do for other people.
I helped a group of Firemen last week. Once a year they take the men and women from a local state home to Six Flags. These firefighters, along with their families and friends, give a day out of their busy lives to remember some very forgotten people.
At the beginning of the day, everyone arrives early and gathers for last minute instructions about dealing with the residents of the state home. The residents will range in their ability to communicate and move around. Our job – to make sure that they have a great day away from the routine of their “normal” lives – to give them a day to remember.
As the buses pull up to the back entrance, those residents who are mobile start pouring out of the buses. You can see the excitement all over their faces as they can barely contain the emotions of getting to enjoy such a cool place. They remind me of my kids – excited and energetic when getting to go some place special.
The volunteers begin to pair up with residents and move slowly towards the meeting area before heading into the park. A few of us hold back and begin to unload the residents in wheelchairs – carefully helping them down out of the bus. That’s when we meet Becky for the first time.
Becky is an elderly resident. While she can walk, the wheel chair will make her journey around the park much easier on her twisted legs. Without any teeth and the ability to communicate, we quickly learn that whatever Becky lacks, keeping her from a “normal” life, she makes up for in raw energy and excitement. Whenever her wheelchair stops in front of a ride, she is quickly struggles to get up and in line for the ride. Rides that twist, spin and turn do not seem to scare her in the least.
After a few hours of slowly moving from one ride to the next, we find a table to sit at and enjoy our lunches. Becky has a “ground” lunch – which means that everything is basically mashed up to account for her lack of teeth. I realize that she will need me to feed her. We quickly get everything set up and I begin to do something that seems very unnatural – spoon feed an adult woman. And in that moment, I become very aware of my surroundings.
You would think that I would be aware of what people might be thinking as they watch a woman being spoon fed by a man half her age. But that is not what has become apparent to me. Sitting there, feeding Becky, I become painfully aware of how she and I have just been forgotten by everyone else walking by us in the park.
I know, they didn’t really forget. Many are just choosing to walk quickly by and not respond. But not responding seems to be the same as forgetting – at least the visible actions are the same.
It is easy to see how we can loose details and events. Things get crowded out of our busy lives on a regular basis.
It is not so easy to see how we “forget” people. What must really exist in our hearts that we respond with such callous behavior as to “forget”.
Who have I forgotten on a regular basis?
Am I content to allow this kind of behavior to continue?
Maybe it is not such a bad thing. After all, I am sure that I will long be forgotten in the future. Maybe this is just how life was meant to be lived. Maybe Jesus did not really mean it when he said,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
