Miss Callie

Long service day today. I was soooo tired. Again, I slept during the Starbucks break. Right after that I met Darci and we did calls until 4:00. We stopped at the Park Rose nursing home to see Callie Keeves. She is so cute, I am crazy about her. When we walked into the room, the other lady who shares the room had her TV on, and Callie was just lying in her bed, with her head turned to the side, watching the show. She looked tired and bored, like I probably would be if I spent all my time in a bed and couldn't read or listen to music or anything. Darci and I walked up to her bed, and instantly her face lit up in smiles. "Lord bless me, you came back!" she said.

We talked to her for a little while about the paradise. She has pretty severe dementia, and couldn't remember ever having heard about the paradise before. Her face lit up like a sunrise. "You mean I get to be there?" she asked. "I get to be in the paradise? What am I going to do there? I'm old! I can't even get out of this here bed." We told her she would be young again, and full of energy, and be able to run and climb trees just like when she was a kid. "Lord bless me, am I really going to be there?" she asked. "How long do I get to stay there?" We told her forever. I showed her the picture in the Bible Teach book of the people singing and playing music in the paradise, and she stared and stared at it, smiling. "When will it come?" she asked. "Tomorrow?" "We don't know when, but we know it will be soon," I answered. I told her to keep that picture of the paradise in her mind, and think about it until our next visit. "Will you come back?" she asked, and I promised I would. "And will you bring the book and read to me? I need to hear more about the paradise!" I promised to read her more out of the book.

Darci called her son, so that Callie could talk to him (she doesn't have a phone in her room. Also, because of her dementia, she forgets that he calls, and always thinks she hasn't spoken to him in months). She told him, "My friend came and told me all about the paradise! Oh, honey, it's going to be so beautiful, and I get to be young again and live forever. You need to be there, too!" It was so amazing to me, after having spent only a few minutes sharing good news with her, to hear her turn around and start witnessing at the first chance she got. I actually started getting tears in my eyes. It made me so sad to have to leave. I wanted to stay and keep her company. I hate the thought of her lying there day in and day out, doing nothing, and having nobody to talk to. She's afraid of the people who work there and won't take her medicine. It's too bad that she can't be taken care of by someone she knows and trusts.