My Job Has Become My Ministry
Tomorrow is my last day working for be.group. I gave my employers a 12-week notice and my residents 6 weeks to say goodbye, but still the time has flown by all too quickly. I am emotionally ready to move towards my next season, but it's still hard to leave people who love me and whom I love.
For one of my buildings, yesterday was my Farewell. "I have very peculiar emotions", said a resident, as I set up my office for one last day of service coordination. And as the day progressed, other residents dropped in to have me resolve last-minute issues for them or to simply give me words of blessing.
By the time my "Ice Cream Social" Farewell Party rolled around, I had visited a sick resident and his wife in their apartment, been on hold with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services for 2 hours, and spoken with various residents around the apartment. Compared to other days, my workload was moderate--I've had up to 16 residents see me before lunchtime on busy days--but it was still pretty involved for one's last day.
I had prepared a special musical offering for my residents, and I was excited to share my violin playing with them. Since our residents hail from all over the world, I made an "International Medley" based on various international tunes. There were excerpts from of the Far East, India, the Middle East, Armenia, Russia, Europe, Cuba, and Mexico. My medley ended with "America the Beautiful", to symbolize the fact that all our residents, in some way or another, ended up here in the U.S. and in our building, as one big family.
I had a message for them, too, one that I self-translated from English to Chinese. I told my residents how grateful I was to have been able to have so many older adults in my life for the past 2 years, something not many of my peers have. They all know about my future plans (attend Divinity school, become a hospice chaplain) and I told them that I believe God is the one who has given me this desire. I told them that it is because I have experienced God's deep love for me that I have wanted to love others, and that if any of them had ever felt love, care, and compassion from me, they had tasted God's love.
I told them that I believe they were created by God as people of value, and that each person, no matter where they came from or how they were feeling or the way they were aging, was a person of value. I reminded them to see their neighbors as people of value and to treat them as such. And I encouraged them to also treat the building staff with love and grace.
I had another musical medley for them at the end, a medley which included a song based on the 1 Corinthians 13 passage on Love, which I read to them in both English and Chinese. My medley began with the longing strains of "Ashokan Farewell", followed by the "Love" song--my love song to them, I said--and ending with "Auld Lang Syne", to celebrate our Friendship. I walked around the room as I played, making eye contact with residents and taking in their emotion-filled faces. There were tears welling up in the eye of many, and residents processed their feelings in the intimate yet congregational space created by the music. The sadness was palpable, but it felt necessary to allow for it in a meaningful and structured way. Thankfully, by the time I played "Auld Lang Syne", everyone had sat long enough in the sadness to move towards something more uplifting: the celebration of Friendship and Love. The whole room was humming along to the tune by the end, and my Farewell Medley ended with a high note.
And then the picture-taking began. First, a group picture: me surrounded by nearly 50 residents, all dear to my heart. Then, residents lined up for individual pictures, and I felt like a Disneyland character or a celebrity! Tears flowed, and hugs and kisses abounded. I was surrounded by a sea of emotions, and I tried to give each resident a final moment of sincerity and care as they said goodbye. As residents retreated slowly back to their apartments, my coworkers helped me load the pile of gifts and cards--I was especially touched that, in 6 short weeks, one resident had managed to finish an oil painting for me and another had made a quilt--onto a cart to transport to my car, and then I was driving away from the beautiful building that had been my work home for 2 years.
The emotions hit me 2 hours later, when I was on my way to my weekly Tuesday night prayer meeting, and I began to sob as I drove down San Gabriel Boulevard. The privilege I had been given to touch the lives of these seniors was something I felt undeserving of, but at the same time, I knew I had been faithful with the work given to me. I had poured so much prayer into my job, and I had tried to be intentional about doing each task with excellence and with acting with integrity in every interaction. God uses humans to be His hands and feet on earth, and I knew He had placed me in the lives of these seniors for a reason.
The feedback I had gotten from residents was overwhelmingly positive, and that was what had given me the confidence to tell them that whatever love they had received from me originated from my experience of God's love. Even though this job has not been easy, there has been an ease with which I have been able to navigate, and I owe this to the power of Christ working in me. He has truly given me the grace to deal with each challenge, and I have felt His anointing over me to do His work in my seniors' lives. My job has become my ministry, and in striving to serve others, I have been blessed beyond measure.
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