The tired hands of my neighbor lie unresisting in mine. They are thin and cold, and don’t respond to my gentle touch. I know she will not rouse. It is close to the end of her life. So, I tell her about spring coming back to earth, of the foxes and daffodils in my back yard, of the snowdrops by my front door…

I read her Psalms from my phone, and sing my favorite hymn for soon-to-be Easter:

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain.
Seed that in dark earth many days hath lain.
Love lives again, as with the dead has been;
Love will come again as wheat that springeth green.

There is no response. I watch her chest rise and fall with her gentle breathing and smile at her relaxed face. “What a surprise she is in for!” I think, as I pick another old hymn and sing the refrain, because that’s all I can remember…

“O that will be glory for me,
Glory for me, glory for me;
When by God’s grace I shall look at His face,
That will be glory, be glory for me.”

Her nursing assistant comes in as I finish singing. Together we sing “Amazing Grace” and any other hymn we can remember. There is peace in the room. There is holy silence… Her family has been here since the early morning hours, they are waiting, tearful and sad… I have no fancy preacher-sounding words. I feel sad, too…

Some things pastors do transcend theology and exegesis and politics and committee meetings – they remind us of the work of the Holy we are Called to, and the gift of being present in the moment. They put things in perspective, for there is much more to experience than this earthly life… My heart is full of memories from other times of waiting… And God’s promises kept.

Blessed be.

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“It is such a secret place, the land of tears.”
The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint- Exupéry