When I was in 7th grade, December of 1985, my junior high church youth group went Christmas Caroling at a nursing home. My father was one of the chaperones, the one who drove the over-sized maroon Dodge church van. It was supposed to be a fun Saturday night. As is the case with a group of pubescent kids, some flirting, some rowdiness, but in the harsh setting of conservative Christianity, also some singing and good works in the name of Christ. Christian teenagers out on a Saturday night! Whee!
We went caroling at a nursing home called Rest Haven. When we arrived, the director escorted us to an activity room, announcing, “We are pleased to welcome a group of young people from The Christian Missionary Alliance Church. They are going to sing some Christmas songs for us.” The director then led an applause for us that no one else cared to follow. Then we started singing Jingle Bells, a musical vista of sleigh rides for people who probably couldn't walk.
It was really sad. There were all of these old people, some asleep, some awake, some seemed to be asleep but then you would realize, Nope, they're awake. Usually one or two women would light up and beam with joy at our “Silent Night,” but the rest would not register any acknowledgement at all.
I didn’t like to sing and I didn’t like Christmas, but I liked old people. I was fascinated with old people. So instead of caroling, I just looked around, watched the old people, and wondered if someday in 2042, if I would find myself in this very same place.
That evening, as my peers and our youth group leaders were singing, I noticed just how depressing this place was. To my side, a nurse jostled an elderly man, waking him up and demanding that he listen to us. On the television, MTV was on. A Sting video came on and even though we were singing, a nurse went over and turned up the TV and stood watching Sting sing about the Russians. Other nurses went about their business, dispensing little cups of medicine, each one appearing to be rather brusque and rough towards the patients. It became apparent that none of these adults had any control over their own lives. At that moment I decided…
I DO NOT LIKE HOW THESE OLD PEOPLE ARE BEING TREATED. I DO NOT LIKE THIS PLACE.
The fact that I had a strong antipathy for Sting and the Police probably did not help. It just seemed so empty, to be singing these songs that would have no impact on the quality of these people’s lives. We were Christians, told by our church to do bold things, to ease suffering, and here we were singing “Joy to the World” while people were, at worst, being roughly jostled and scolded; at best, being ignored.
My church had raised me for martyrdom, quite literally. This was during the cold war, and in our church, the bogeyman of Communism seemed more real than anything else save Satan. The Devil and Karl Marx. We were constantly being fed stories about the "Evil Empire," and America's eventual demise at the hands of socialists, feminists, scientists and public education. We memorized the scriptures because when the communists took our Bibles away someday, they couldn’t remove those words from our minds. I was taught to take a stand for God. I didn't like the situation before me, this sad smelly activity room. If we Christians couldn’t take a stand against this pathetic tyranny of nurses and orderlies, how could we ever stand up to Mother Russia?
My youth group stopped singing and the plan was to breeze through the hallways, singing for those who had stayed in their rooms, those who were too infirm to leave their beds. “Watch out for puddles of urine on the floor” we were told.
As I was making my way, a hand grabbed for my jacket sleeve.
Standing stooped over with a cane was a really old woman. She had clear blue eyes and a cardigan sweater. She looked like a skinnier version of my own grandmother. This nursing home patient wanted to talk to me about religion, about Jesus.
I do not remember what all she said, but what I do remember is that her version of Christianity was very different than the product that was manufactured at my church. This woman seemed to have a sense of wonder and gentle respect at what Jesus had said. She was so very sad, but also open and kind. Likewise, her God was kind and loving. Years later as an adult, I would learn that what she was talking about was something called “Grace.”
She told me about how mean the old nurses were, how the residents were all mistreated at Rest Haven. She told me they took her Bible away from her to torment her. How they would secretly pinch the residents. She started crying, telling me the address of her home, a place she would probably never see again.
I stood there listening to this woman who was half preaching, half recounting accusations of institutional elder abuse, all through a veil of tears.
Then she asked me, “Please take me away from here and take me to church tomorrow.”
“Well, I err…can’t, I mean…you… have to stay here…”
“Please, I just want to go to a church on a Sunday morning. That is all I want.” She pleaded.
“But, but, you, um, How? You live here. I am sorry, but you have to stay here, maybe you could call a pastor or something?”
“Please. Pleasssssssse…” she kept saying, “Please take me to your church.”
This went on for a while, and I will never quite fully comprehend what happened next, but finally that nice little old woman wore me down, and I said
“OK.”
It all happened so fast, but I found myself giving her my arm and we walked down the hallway to her room. A nurse passed us and just kind of looked at me. I guess she just wrote me off as one of those teenage Christmas carolers, underestimating my intentions. Because little did we know, neither the nurse nor I myself, that I was going to bust a patient out of this nursing home.
The woman gathered some things from her room. I stood in her doorway purposely blocking the view and made small talk, a little louder than normal, trying to make it all look like nothing unusual was happening. Someone from church walked by and said, “Come on Darin, we are leaving now.”
As the woman was finishing up grabbing whatever she needed, I heard the director yell after my youth group, “Thank you!” and then all of my friends yelled back “Merry Christmas!!”
By the time she was ready to go, the hallways were mostly clear. The next couple of moments were very tense. I would go ahead in front and look for nurses. When it was clear, I would give her my arm and get her walking, leading her forward a little faster than she probably felt comfortable with. “Are you OK?” I whispered. “Yes” she said as she smiled up at me.
We went through a couple of corridor intersections, waiting to dodge a nurse. Finally we were getting closer. I couldn’t believe it, there was no one stationed at the front desk. Probably off watching “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” or some crap.
Now we were totally out in the open.
I whispered with urgency “We have to hurry now, we're almost there!”
As she held on to my arm and I looked down at her feet and her walker, worried that she would trip, we got to the front door, a regular swinging door, and my heart sunk, because I suddenly realized that it was probably locked and we would be stuck in that entrance way, with the nurse returning to the front desk any second.
“Shoot!” I grunted under my breath.
I pushed at the panic bar with one hand and with the other guided her waist, and…
Whoosh…the door opened. The door opened!
The sound of the busy road moaned as the cold December air wrapped itself around us. The glow of streetlights illuminated us, a skinny 13 year old boy and a bent-over 80 year old woman in white.
Like the Dead Sea parting with pharaoh’s armies behind us, God had surely provided us a way. God had delivered us to the promise land of the Rest Haven Nursing Home visitor's parking lot. And before that wall of water could come crashing back down, we made it to the waiting maroon church van.
“Open up the door! Open up the door! Quick!” I yelled. The panel door slid open and I saw all of the youth group, the group leaders and my father, their eyes staring with their mouths open. Just staring at us. Staring.
“Quick, make room! We have to get in and get out of here! Quick!” I yelled.
My dad said, dumbfounded, “Who is that?!”
“Oh, this is Betsy. She wants to go to church with us tomorrow. Betsy, this is my church youth group, that is father. Everyone, this is Betsy. That nursing home won’t let her go to church, so I said she could go to ours. But we can talk about this later, we really have to go, like now!”
My father stuttered, “She can’t go to church. We, uh, don’t know her. You can’t just take people out of nursing homes. You could get us all in trouble!”
“But she just wants to go to church, we can bring her back after church.” I explained.
“NO.”
“She can sleep in my room tonight. That is OK with me. I don’t mind. I’ll sleep somewhere else.”
“NO DARIN. Take. Her. Back.”
Betsy kept looking at me, then looking at my father, then back to me, waiting to see what her fate would be.
My father started to yell “DARIN! RIGHT NOW! YOU TAKE THAT LADY BACK INSIDE THAT NURSING HOME. NOW. I AM YOUR FATHER AND YOU MUST OBEY ME. YOU TAKE HER BACK INSIDE THIS INSTANT!”
I was no match for the fourth commandment. I realized that with my father in charge of the getaway car, there was no chance of actually getting away. And also, no one in the youth group had scooted over to make room. Betsy wasn’t going to be able to go home with us tonight, and she certainly wasn’t going to go to church with us tomorrow.
“TAKE HER BACK RIGHT NOW DARIN!!”
I looked at Betsy and she started to cry. I told her that I was sorry, that I was going to have to take her back inside the nursing home.
We shuffled back across the parking lot. The whole time I said to her, repeating over and over and over again: “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry…”
I opened up the door and guided her back inside the doorway. “I am so sorry I have to take you back here. I wish you could go home with me. Good bye.”
As I pushed the door shut, Betsy just stood there crying, tears running down her cheek.
I slowly walked back towards the van.
The van pulled out and I looked out the window, Betsy still in the glass entrance way, crying. I gave a sad little wave as we passed by, maybe she didn’t see me, but I think her heart was broken. I could see her just standing there following the church van with her eyes.
I had wanted to do what I thought was right, wanted to sacrifice myself like the martyrs who we were told smuggled Bibles into Russia. I saw my own moment and my own version, smuggling a frail octogenarian over the razor wire of Rest Haven's glass foyer. I would like to think that I was trying to help another person, but I think what I really wanted was to prove to myself and God, that I was a good person, a faithful servant.
Instead what I had done was to dangerously remove a nursing patient out of care without any real plan or knowledge of her physical needs. It was a case of reckless good intentions. Rising to a task that as a teenager I could not have possibly understood. I would like to claim the faith of a child, but it was the stupidity of a child. That woman wanted me to help her, but I was not the one who was capable of truly helping her. What pushed me and made me angry was that seemingly no one else was willing to try.
The church van drove away. My heart had already sunk out through my feet long ago. I just sat there in dark of the van, the giggles and intrigues of teenagers swirling around me as I looked out the window at the passing trees.
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