My wife’s elderly mother came to live with us near the end of her life. After she died, we wanted to give her hospital bed to someone who needed it. I called Rachel Powell at the local community center, and she knew a graduate student who had asked about one just the day before. I called Latasha that afternoon.
The famous sociologist Max Weber was intrigued by the New Testament Greek word kairos—a moment in time, the right time, just in time. If we seek them, those moments make us more fully human.
“Oh yes,” Latasha gushed. “My mother is 60 and under hospice care. She wants badly to come home, to die at home. We really need a hospital bed to make that happen.”
Before I knew it, I had committed to delivering the hospital bed on Sunday afternoon to Georgetown, 45 minutes away. That was not what I had planned. My expectation was to help someone load the bed at my house and wave goodbye. Besides, I had an appointment every Sunday afternoon—a standing appointment to take a nap during the football game. I was seething a bit at the inconvenience, wondering why Georgetown couldn’t take care of their own.
My neighbor, Chris, helped me load the bed and mattress into my FJ Cruiser. I punched the address into the GPS and followed the automated, composed voice instruction as I pulled onto the highway. Still, mine was a sullen attitude. I would need the 45-minute drive to mellow.
Moral theologian Jim Keenan defines sin as not caring enough to bother. I had cared enough to bother giving away the hospital bed, but I knew I needed to deliberately bother to step into this family’s life at a critical moment to look for the kairos.
The calming GPS voice directed me into a cul-de-sac. Gathered there was a gaggle of waving children and a smiling middle-aged woman who had to be Latasha. Together, we unloaded the bed and carried it into the cleared living room. “We want it here,” Latasha said, “so all who come to visit can gather to sing and tell stories.”
Chris had helped me break down the bed, so I suspected Latasha and the children would not be able to put the parts together again. Reversing the process, I had the bed up and ready in 20 minutes. I’d long since forgotten to feel bothered.
“You can never know what a blessing you have been to our family this day,” Latasha said as tears spilled from her dark eyes and dripped from shiny wet cheeks. “Mother has suffered for so long, and she doesn’t have the strength to keep fighting. Here, in her home, we can gather around her, make a family again, and see her off to eternity.”
Latasha hugged me, and children danced around us. I finally crawled back into the driver’s seat of my SUV. I hardly heard the GPS voice on the way home. Gratitude enfolded me like a weighted blanket, for I had been invited into a family’s pathos, their sweet suffering, and I had done nothing more than show up. Latasha had given me a kairos moment, that moment in time when I might be made more fully human.
By C. Ed Bryson | Nicholasville