I am one…and our role is to visit those parishioners unable to attend church on a regular basis - perhaps because they are homebound, or in a nursing home, or caring for family members. Through our ongoing personal visits, we try to keep those parishioners part of the life of Epiphany and let them know they are still remembered and valued by us.
The visits vary from visiting someone at his or her home or nursing home and just chatting, bringing a copy of the Sunday church program for them to read or sometimes, if possible, we will have an outing: going to lunch, or taking a drive to see foliage, or a garden or a museum, or… running errands. I was once asked by my parishioner to buy her a new lipstick. When the saleswoman heard that the recipient was in a nursing home, she made up a lovely gift pack of other cosmetic items for me to take to her. I thought of the phrase, “the kindness of strangers.”
I have been an Epiphany Visitor for the past few years. When I began, I had assumed that I would be helping to provide the experiences of the outside community to the person I visited. But in fact, it has really been an exchange. Rather than me being the one bringing a sense of the outside world and the Epiphany community to the parishioner I visited, I realized my visitee was offering me a sense of her world and life.
“Alice,” my first visitee, was an 85 year old woman in a wheelchair, in assisted living. She had lived a life very different than mine in many ways. She had been born and raised in Colorado (to this day I have to look at a map to locate states between California and the northeast coast so she seemed rather exotic). She had ridden horses, hiked, camped, and moved to the east coast after college and marriage where she raised her family and had a career. She summered, still, on a New England island, despite the complications of getting the wheelchair on and off the boat and no cars on the island. Fearless, smart and funny, she was interested in everything. She had been very active in Epiphany and missed attending church. Through her internet connections, she kept in touch with friends new and old, was driven by friends to book club meetings, often apprising me of new books I’d missed and advising whether they worthy to be read or not. As her health failed, her humor and religious faith did not, and they kept her alert and learning to the end. Her death left a hole in my life.
My next parishioner had been born in the middle east, on the other side of world from Colorado. The tales of her upbringing, rich cultural background, education, and experiences of political change opened another world to me. It was as though I were reading a novel. Fiercely intelligent, independent, and deeply religious, she combined a strong stubborn streak with a sense of humor.
Another visitee, also in her 80’s, had been born in Oklahoma (I had to get out that map, again). When I first met her she still got about using a walker, organizing simple outings with friends to go to lunch or hiring a cab to take them all to a matinee. She spoke fondly of her days as an Altar Guild member, remembered being part of the rummage sales and Christmas Fairs’ planning and doing. Epiphany and her Christian community had been a big part of her life and she missed it and attending church, tremendously. Her cultural interests were broad; she belonged to a poetry club and invited me to join and her home was filled with wonderful oil paintings. When I asked about them, I was stunned to learn she had painted them some thirty years before. Her health declined and she moved reluctantly into a nursing home but to her surprise found the social life stimulating, and thrived there. She had monthly appointments to keep her hair colored and was very interested to learn that I knew a widower asking, “would I like him?” She kept me laughing.
Every spring the Ephiphany Visitors invite all our visitees to a gala tea held in Hadley Hall. Tables are beautifully set with flowers, there is laughter, music, and delicious things to eat. Transportation is provided if necessary. It’s wonderful to see this big group of otherwise isolated individuals all catching up, laughing, exchanging news.
I feel privileged to be an Epiphany Visitor, to have been invited to know people who otherwise I could not have. It has been a blessing.
Blessings,
Diana Obbard
Photo: Members of Epiphany Visitors
