Stewardship

I’m a hospice volunteer. I started at hospice feeling pretty prepared to assist the dying. I’d experienced my own grief, a grief so profound that merely thinking about it can still take my breath away. I’ve taken a graduate course in death and dying. I have shared friendship with a woman while she watched her preschooler die from cancer.

I was trained by hospice and went into my first assignment feeling pretty prepared. But my hospice clients have taught me that I had a lesson to learn. It wasn’t just the first person who taught me this, or the second. It took awhile to learn to take this lesson graciously.

I learned that no matter how much my desire to help another person, no matter how far my resources and circumstances surpass the person’s I am helping, they want to give me gifts. At first it felt wrong, but I’ve learned.

The first time it happened, an eighty-year-old woman, who’d had every joint but one replaced, was in need of help. She was her dying husband’s caregiver. She could not drive, so I would go to her home and drive her to appointments, the grocery store, or wherever she wanted to go. Every time, she wanted to stop and buy me lunch. I resisted. She insisted. Finally, one day, she said, “I’m not poor. Don’t worry about the money. I just value your friendship and time, and I want to show that to you.”

The next time it was a devout Christian. As her husband lay dying and she struggled to meet the needs of her young children, she told me how much she valued the practical tasks I helped her with. She said, “I pray for you every day.”

I said, “You don’t have to do that. It’s OK. I want to do this for you.”

She said, “I know. And I want to do this for you.”

It finally sunk in when I went to visit a 93 year-old-woman. I met her early that week in an assisted living facility, but in the course of a week, she been transferred to a nursing home, suddenly unable to walk or care for herself.

When I arrived, she’d been in her new home for two hours. She was agitated about a box of chocolates. Her friend had given her a gift of chocolates, but now she could not find them and asked me to look. Unable to find them, I sat down and we talked. Periodically, she asked me to get up and check another spot as she thought of it. I began to realize that she was agitated because she wanted to offer me a chocolate. My first, internal, reaction was to reassure her that I didn’t need a chocolate, but from my past lessons, I realized that the real agitation was that I was a visitor in her home, and she wanted to offer me something. She could not find her gift, nor could she even look.

Every time she asked, I got up and looked. The room was ten feet by twelve feet. I looked in every spot, some more than once. Each time, I sat back down and resisted the urge to tell her that it didn’t matter. It did matter. It mattered to her very much. Instead, I assured her that I understood her frustration. If only we could find those missing chocolates.

When her daughter-in-law arrived, she asked, “What happened to my chocolates? You had them last.”

“I brought them home. Do you need them?”

Agitated, she answered, “Yes. I need my chocolates.”

I said, “I think she wanted to offer me one.” Her daughter-in-law impressed me with her instant understanding.

“I’ll bring them tomorrow. I’ll make sure they get here.”

She was pleased, and her agitation subsided. I was glad I had learned to accept gifts graciously, since to resist her gift would have only added to her frustration. I was able to accept a gift of a chocolate a few times before she died, but she has left me with a greater gift than those chocolates. She has given me the gift of understanding stewardship.

As a Catholic, I have heard the word “stewardship” a lot in the last few years. I used to think that stewardship is about paying your share of the church's bills or doing your share of the work that needs doing, but it’s not. Stewardship is passing on God’s gifts in gratitude.