Presence Is the Best Gift for a Loved One in a Nursing Home

Credit: iguywrite.blogspot.com

We all know, whether we acknowledge it or not, that nursing homes are depressing places. No matter what they call themselves; no matter how nicely decorated and well-staffed they are, they are little more than repositories for the elderly and infirm. Some, of course, are more hospitable than others. But they are all, as Howard Mansfield describes in his powerful essay “Waiting (to Go Home),” “laboratories for cultivating suffering,” where people who are no longer able to live independently stagnate and wait to die.

For those of you who love someone who lives in a nursing home, the holidays are often painful and difficult times. On the one hand, there is the natural desire to be around youth and vibrancy at this special time of year — to enjoy the warm glow of hearth and home and family and friends. On the other, there is the knowledge that your loved one is isolated and alone, surrounded by what Mansfield aptly calls the “Godot-like absurdities of the nursing home.”

As I researched this piece, I came across dozens of pithy little articles with titles like “10 Great Gift Ideas for Someone in a Nursing Home.” And each one was more absurd than the next. They were littered with silly suggestions like boxes of tissues, hand lotion, drawing paper and note cards, as if the artifacts of normal existence could somehow bring comfort to someone who spends their days separated from everything they hold dear.

In his compelling book “Nobody’s Home,” Thomas Edward Gass says, “The dominant reality in our nursing homes is separation. Everyone here is torn away from home and families,” left alone with nothing but their thoughts. How much greater those feelings of isolation must be during the most festive time of the year, and how empty and meaningless token holiday gifts must seem.

Credit: angelsseniorliving.com

So what gift will have meaning for someone who lives in a nursing home? There are few things that are more meaningful and important than compassion, presence and time. “What would I do for the ill?” Mansfield asks rhetorically. “I’d give them light and trees and flowers,” he writes. “I’d open up all the paths to peace, to the childhood memories of roaming, to the person’s love of the earth. [They] will still die, but they will die on earth.”  

It’s not easy to be truly present with the frail and the elderly. They remind us of the ticking time bomb that is life. They demonstrate in full living color the stark reality of entropy — the inescapable truth that everyone and everything withers and dies.

But we all know that the true spirit of the holiday season is love. The gift-giving and celebrating is just an excuse, really, to celebrate the joy that is home and family and friends. Without those things, the holidays are nothing more than a reason to despair.

So, put on your brightest smile and your nicest clothes today, and go visit the nursing home where your loved one lives. Bundle them up if you need to, and take them outside. Let them breathe in the smells of the earth and revel in the sights and sounds of life. Take them on an adventure. Connect with them fully, and help them connect with the world. Give them, as Mansfield says, “the sun, the moon and the stars.”

It will be the most cherished gift you’ll ever give.