♪♫Take my hand, Precious Lord, lead me home♫♪

The beginning of this week was fairly tragic. Over the weekend I received news that this wonderful 85 year old man I knew, whom I conversed with 3 mornings a week when he came to pick up my cans to recycle had died. This in and of itself wouldn't be too tragic... except that he didn't die from being 85 years old. He was run over by a skid loader while unloading his truck at the recycling center. The driver of the skid loader, I guess, failed to see the man or his 3/4 ton pickup truck behind him, and backed up, pinning the man between the skidloader and the bed of his pickup. He died at the scene. What a horrible way to go, especially for such a kind hearted and relatively fast paced 85 year old man. But Jack was called home to the Lord. May he rest in peace.

Got to work to see signs all over discouraging visitors to the 3rd floor (the floor I work on) because there were confirmed cases of Influenza B. Great. My work computer has also been called home to Jesus. It hasn't worked in the last week and a half. A fairly stable resident of mine had died over the weekend. Two more were actively dying. So Monday I sang to them bedside. Tuesday started with Jack's funeral. I agreed to sing Ave Maria (Schubert) since I knew the family and knew Jack. Hard song to sing in general, and then add on the fact that you are standing in front of the grieving family, with a full on view of the casket, and as a singer your thoughts go from... "how do I express this song well" to "Don't look at the crying wife, don't look at the family... don't look at the casket. Just get the song out." It was a very nice service. Then I got to work to find out my actively dying residents were still actively dying. So I got to sing bedside some more. Behaviors are high because residents can't leave the floor because of the flu, so they can't get to church off the unit. This is a problem for several residents. If one person gets agitated, the whole floor is agitated. One of my dying residents passed... Precious Lord, take their hand, lead them home.

I've sung the song, Precious Lord, Take My Hand, more than enough times this week. But, it's only Wednesday, and I work in a nursing home. This week has been hard.

Ok, done with the real but depressing blog post now.  Peace to my blog readers, hope you're all finding comfort for your own struggles this week.