T WAS EARLY ONE morning at CHRISTUS St. Patrick Hospital. It was dark outside, but busy and bright inside the hospital. I was dutifully making initial visits on patients who had been admitted since the previous afternoon. This was like so many other mornings…or so I thought.

One of the patients I visited was 89 years of age and “no bigger than a minute”– her tiny frame was practically lost in her big hospital bed. I introduced myself and asked how she had rested during the night. She answered with a sleepy voice but also with an emotional weariness that touched something in me. “I don’t know why the Lord still has me here,” she said. “I’ve lived a good life, but now I hurt most of the time.”

I said that I knew she had family who cared about her and that they are glad she is still with them. “Oh, I have a daughter but she is always saying I am going to be the death of her,” she softly said. I could tell from the wisp of a smile in the corner of her mouth that her daughter pampers her and that everything she does for her mother is a labor of love.

Our conversation went from one simple topic to another. She shared a little about her life and told me she had been living in a nursing home. “Don’t you come out there without visiting me,” she gently urged. She talked of days gone by and would often end a statement by saying, “but you’re too young to remember that.” Our time together was no more than 10 minutes, but I had other patients to visit, so at an appropriate point in our conversation, I started to leave.

She thanked me for coming, and as I reached for the door, her words touched me, “You had time for me.”

Father Brian King
CHRISTUS St. Patrick Hospital
Lake Charles, Louisiana