Lent 10

Tonight, I sat with a woman who was sitting with her mother. Her mother will die tonight. I do not know how long it will take, when she will draw her last breath, but I know she will not live very much longer. As I sat with these two women, I watched the daughter, and the only thing she did the whole time we were together was rub her mothers hand, massaging her fingers, touching her fingernails, one by one. She would hold and squeeze her hand, pat her wrist, hold up her hand next to hers like a child measures her hand against her mother's. She never let go.

I have always been drawn to hands. Most of our emotions are expressed through our hands. Fear, anxiety, anger, grief, joy, warmth, love...all these, through our hands. The chaplain's ministry is often a ministry of touch. I put my hand on a shoulder to say, "I'm here." I put my hands over another's to say, "It's okay, you go ahead and cry." I sit with people as they wring their hands, as they shake their fists at the sky. I use my thumb to smear oil across a forehead or the tips of my fingers to place water over the lifeless child I hold in my arms. The intimacy of touch, the expression of our hands is something I want to remember today.