Friday, October 10, 2008
9:50am-noon
Observation
Today I worked mostly with a lady named Ruth. She’s always muttering, and I couldn’t understand what words she was saying most of the time. When I did understand, she was always trying to tell a story. I can only assume the story is stuff that has happened in her life. She would talk about a “baby” a lot. She said she had a lot of babies in her house, but she couldn’t remember how many. She talked a lot about her brother John, who was in trouble. It actually sounded like he might have been a drug addict. She tried to tell me about how someone took the baby away. John took the baby. She misses the baby. Over and over she said, “It was hard.” She didn’t make sense, but I tried so hard to understand. From what I did get, though, it seems like she had a hard life. She would tell me about the baby, and her squinty blue eyes would well up, on the verge of crying. There were other times, where she would say something and just start laughing. I didn’t know what she said, but I would laugh too. Ruth seems like she has so many regrets, so many hardships that happened to her. It’s like she just needs to get it off her chest. She needs closure, I guess. There’s something broken within her, and I can’t fix it.
Introspection
Will I be the old lady, sitting in the nursing home, telling the poor college student about the things in my life that I regret? Or will I reach the end of my life satisfied?
I don’t like going to Cardinal Hill. In fact, I dread it. Today, though I thought about what the leader of Students International said in chapel on Monday. He talked about how when washing the orphan’s feet, he was washing the feet of “the least of these.” He was washing the feet of Jesus. Well, today, I painted Jesus’ nails. J I painted Ruth’s nails, and I thought about Jesus as I did it. It made a difference in my attitude. I still don’t want to go to Cardinal Hill every Friday. I can’t wait for the end of the semester, but for now, every week I hope I can paint His nails and read him Better Homes and Gardens. I pray that my attitude continues to improve.
