Serendipity

Unexpected Graces in Everyday Life (Part 1)

It is challenging to watch people I love age. Strong and vibrant people I looked up to for guidance have become harbingers of a future filled with frustration, confusion, and pain. It isn’t something I look forward to experiencing personally.

I took my 90-year-old father to a heart specialist in Georgetown, Texas. I stood awkwardly beside him at the window as he worked out insurance coverage and bill payment with the secretary. I asked myself, “Should I take a seat or let my father choose our seats?” I decided to let him decide. I turned to look around the waiting area and an elderly man in the seat nearest me asked, “Is that a Bible?”

I looked down at the book in my hand and said, “Well, it is a book about a Psalm in the Bible. It is about Psalm 119.”

“How old is it?” he asked.

Eagerly I opened the book to the illegible signature of the first owner and showed him the clear date “1864.”

He told me about his family Bible. It was the second one because something had happened to the first. Then he began to tell me how his family had first come from England to the United States in the 17th century. As is often true in discussions with the elderly, this story was followed by another. He told me he was a singer in the church choir and had been invited to go to Carnegie Hall next Christmas to sing. With enthusiasm mixed with dread, he said, “It will cost me a fortune because I want my whole family to see me perform!”

Our conversation wound down and I sat down next to my father. In a few minutes, another man came in for an appointment. After greeting each other, the first man began to tell the second about the book I was reading. “It is entirely devoted to one Psalm,” he told him. The other man looked up Psalm 119 on his phone. The pastor in me couldn’t help but walk back over and show them that Psalm 119 was the longest psalm in the Bible because it was an acrostic poem of the Hebrew alphabet.¹ They took the information in. Then the other man said, “Why, it jumps from verse 18 to verse 119!” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his eyes were playing a trick on him. He was confusing a punctuation mark with the number one.

I sat back down next to my father and the first man turned around to tell me that the man next to him, Gary, was also in his church choir and had a better voice than he had. I couldn’t resist suggesting they stand and sing a song for the waiting room. They laughed and said they could do “Amazing Grace.” Then the conversation went elsewhere.

My father went into his appointment at the same time Gary found that his procedure couldn’t take place until later that day. He rescheduled, leaned over to say goodbye to his fellow choir member, and then turned to me and asked my name. “Randy,” I replied. “If Randy sings with us,” he said, “I will sing the first verse of Amazing Grace. “Sure,” I said, hesitantly, and the singing began.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now I'm found

Was blind, but now I see.

Everyone in the waiting room, old and older, professional and blue-collar, healthy and struggling, joined together in song. For that one verse, we were united in something much bigger than all the differences between us. It was beautiful. It was healing.

After the singing ended, the nurse opened the door saying loudly, “Carolyn?” An older lady responded and began the challenge of getting up from her seat. A split second later another woman, behind the first woman who hadn’t heard what the nurse said, asked, “What?” The nurse responded saying, “I asked for Carolyn.” Carolyn, who hadn’t heard the other woman’s question, was confused and said again, “I am Carolyn.” The nurse then attempted to explain that she was talking to the woman behind her. Carolyn then said, as if it all made sense now, “Oh, there are two Carolyns.” Most people in the waiting room knew that there weren’t two Carolyns. But we all decided, along with the nurse, that it wasn’t worth explaining. What was most important to me was that the real Carolyn, awash in the confusion of the geriatric chapter of life, had joined us in singing Amazing Grace, word for word, from memory.

I know that aging won’t be easy. But this unexpected grace taught me that no matter how much frustration, confusion, or pain I experience in the final chapters of life, there will always be grace; past, present, and future; to lift me out of my struggles and into joy.

Walking with my father. See any similarity?

1. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Psalm 119 goes through the Hebrew alphabet, letter by letter, in groups of 8 verses. Each verse within each group begins with the same letter. 22 letters x 8 verses = 176.