As we learned at church this morning, the first Sunday of October is World Communion Day. In honor of that, I’m sharing this video from the time (very) imperfect me gave Mitzi a (very) imperfect home Holy Communion back in the beginning of June.
My church had put together and given out these cute little “to go” bags with bread, grape juice, and an instruction card to be able to take Communion out to people in the community who would like it but couldn’t get to church. I thought it was a great idea and, since Mitzi hadn’t been able to get to church since the early Spring, she seemed like the perfect person for me to bring my little “to go” bag to.
Or so I thought.
First, there came the issue of finding the right time to offer it to her. This was not terribly long after she had her hip replaced, so she was starting to sleep more. She was also on a fairly steep decline cognitively, so her moments of being aware of what was going on were getting fewer and further apart. I wanted and waited to find a time when I felt like she was able to somewhat understand what I was doing. In hindsight, it probably would have been better if she was less alert!
The days kept crawling by without an obvious opportunity. The bread got moldy in my little “to go” package. One day after a long morning nap, though, Mitzi was pretty bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I got her up from her nap and waited to give her the meds that I knew would help keep her calm and less agitated, but would also dampen her alertness. I checked the fridge because I thought I had seen that Gary had some pita bread of some sort in there. I figured that was fairly close to the Communion bread? At least it had a more Biblical appearance than something like a Pepperidge Farm cinnamon raisin bagel. I took a tiny piece of the pita. I wasn’t sure if I should bless it in some way. I’m a huge faith person, but the rules and traditions of religion aren’t something I’d list under my gifts. I did a quick Google search to see if there was some way I was supposed to bless a plain piece of pita to make it into a holy sacrament but turned up with only a bunch of Communion prayers and some very angry blog posts about why Communion should only be done in church, etc. (Sometimes I wonder what God would say about how tough we can be on ourselves and each other about rules.) Ultimately, I just did a quick, “Lord, please bless this pita bread so I can use it to give Communion to my friend who can’t go to church anymore and who probably doesn’t understand this because she has Alzheimer’s. But you already know that. Thank you. Amen.” Honestly, I know God is loving and forgiving and I’m sure He sees the big picture of what I was trying to do here, so I hope that sufficed. Plus, I figured if there was some super religious science to blessing the sacraments before partaking that the original bread maybe wouldn’t have gotten moldy in the first place?
I digress.
I got my little instruction card out and poured the grape juice into one of her small clear cups that I knew she could drink out of. At this point, I felt less guilty about the pita because the grape juice was actually one of those small individual Welch’s bottles with the safety seal still intact. So I knew they hadn’t opened it at church and directly blessed the contents. It made me feel better at least. I felt like it was God putting me at ease and just encouraging me to do my best because I’m not perfect, He didn’t make me to be perfect, and He definitely gets the big picture. All the while this whole charade is going on, my sweet friend is just sitting in her wheelchair, happily chatting about something only she could understand but had a big smile on her face every time I’d look over at her and she would see me. The one gift of Alzheimer’s at that moment was knowing that if I messed up, not only would Mitzi, (who became one of the most forgiving people I’ve ever known), forgive me, but I bet she’d even forget in 5 minutes.
I tried to capture this on camera from the time I started reading on the card. I had no idea how it would go. And I was certainly not expecting her initial reaction to the pita. But, for whatever reason, I recorded it and I’ll post it for you to watch if (A) You promise not to judge my (very) imperfect presentation of what was supposed to be Holy Communion. Keep in mind that I have a terrible tendency to diffuse uncomfortable situations with humor. When the pita was too chewy, it obviously put that practice into gear. ???? (B) Please remember that this is Alzheimer’s. Not religion. Alzheimer’s doesn’t play by any rules. It’s not always appropriate. It requires a go-with-the-flow mentality on everyone’s part at all times. No matter what. (C) You can watch this if you never, ever ask me to bring you Communion at home. I’ve been with our Care Pastor on trips to someone’s home who wanted Holy Communion but couldn’t get to church. I will happily text him to ask if he can bring it and I’ll meet him there to watch and learn. But it will be a lonnnnnng time before I’m ever going to allow myself to do this again! (D) Promise you’ll watch all the way to the end. The very last seconds are my absolute favorite part of this whole video.
Today at church during Holy Communion, while they sang a song about remembrance (which I found ironic because it brought this whole memory flooding back), I took the bread (properly pre-blessed, I’m sure), and dipped it in the (glass goblet of, not plastic Welch’s bottle) grape juice, and all I could think of was that I should have just done it that way and dipped it for Mitzi, then just put it in her mouth. It would have made the Body of Christ farrrrrrr
less chewy…???? https://youtu.be/Y-_I0lAQTXY