My mom and I went to visit her sister today in a nursing home in Tazewell, Tenn. It started me thinking about just how important nursing homes are in caring for the elderly. Of course, no one wants to end up in one, and most people don’t like to think about the possibility of placing a loved one in a nursing home, but we should all certainly be thankful for their existence.

When I was in high school, I thought I wanted to be a nurse. Somehow it made sense to me to try volunteering as a candy striper at a nursing home. It was a little over a mile from our house, but I walked there and back daily and was anxious to “try nursing on for size.”

It’s a good thing I took that route, I suppose, because it let me know that I was not a person cut out for nursing. It was not my calling in life, and after that summer, I had no more romanticized notions about the nursing profession. As rewarding as it might be, it is a profession also filled with hard work and heartache.

My mom’s oldest surviving sister is Elsie. She worked hard all of her life, and was always one of the cheeriest people you could ever hope to meet. She could cook and laugh and work like fighting fire all at the same time, then sit you down to a meal fit for a king.

Whenever we go to visit Elsie, when she is able to talk, her thoughts have usually drifted back to the past, to the time she spent in Indiana working at various jobs. Often, her hands are busy working at some invisible task she remembers doing in her youth. Today, she wanted us to go sit down in the other room and get something to eat while we waited for her to finish her task and get off work. She also tends to ask about her parents, my grandparents, who have been gone for years. It seems as if the distant past is more real to her than the present.

There is a real opportunity for ministry in a nursing home (or old folks home as many call them). I remember my mom and dad going to sing and preach at the nursing home on Sunday afternoons when I was a teen. Sometimes I would get out my guitar and sing for them, but usually the singing was my mom’s department.

As a volunteer, I wrote letters for them, combed hair, painted fingernails, listened to their stories, fed them and tried to let them know that they were not forgotten. I certainly wasn’t of any real medical value, but maybe just my being there made their days a little easier.

There are several people in Harlan who minister to the residents of nursing homes. I have known of Mike Howard delivering milk shakes on different occasions. Church groups often collect lotions, toiletries, books and so on to donate to the nursing homes. Sometimes children sing for them or deliver gifts at Christmas.

I believe God calls all of us to different ministries. I’m sure there are those who are specifically called to minister to the elderly in nursing homes, hospitals, in home invalids and shut-ins. I am not one of those people on a full-time basis. Most people aren’t.

But just because it is an area where I feel a tug to donate a lot of time, it is still a place where I can do something. I’ve been with a lot of elderly people who thought I was someone else. To my Aunt Virgie, I was her daughter, Carol. To my Uncle Enos, I was his daughter, Rosie. To my Uncle Clarence, I was the one who brought him hugs. To my Aunt Mary Bell, I am often my mom. It doesn’t matter to me who someone else thinks I am when I visit. I am glad to be anyone they need me to be. As a teenager, I often was the daughter or the sister to a lot of patients, or even a youthful version of their wife. I never lied to any of them. I just let them take comfort in thinking that their special loved one was there beside of them without trying to correct their "mistake."

When I am in a nursing home, I feel guilty that I haven't done more over the years to help those in nursing homes, but I have to accept the reality that I can’t be all things to all people. Sometimes I feel like I’m stretched in too many directions like a rubber band that only has so much give. But I can do one little thing from time to time when the opportunity presents itself. Taking my mom to visit her sister today in Tazewell, feeding her lunch, letting her talk about the place she thought she was from her past — none of those were a big deal, but at least they were something, and just for today they probably were a big deal to Elsie.

If every one of us, as responsible adults who may end up in a nursing home ourselves one day, did just an occasional act of kindness for a nursing home resident, or group of residents, what a difference it would make in our lives and theirs. Visiting a nursing home is almost like looking through a window to our own future. The kindnesses that we may one day hope someone will bring into our lives are now the kindnesses we should be extending to those in need, when we can.

There is also an opportunity for us to minister to those who carry the burden of having their loved ones in a nursing facility. My mind goes immediately to my aunt, Geneva Hensley. She had both her husband and son in the nursing home at one time due to illnesses that could not be managed at home.

I don't know how she stood up to daily visits with them, then returning to an empty house.

If you want to find someone who will appreciate an act of kindness, look no further than the person who is keeping a bedside vigil by a loved one in the hospital, or the person who has had to relinquish the care of a loved one to a nursing home.