Practical Lessons and Selfish Prayers

Well, it is the wee hours of Monday morning. I worked on Saturday. In my job, we work one Saturday a month. It was one of those days that started off going super well. I thought I would finish early but then my day took a bit of a U-turn.

Finally, after a tiring day, it was time to go home. After work, I headed out to the parking garage so I could go home. On the weekends, we must park in a parking garage adjacent to the nursing home. We park in the nearby Presbyterian church parking lot the rest of the week. However, for obvious reasons the church requires us to park elsewhere during the weekend. Anyway, I was definitely ready to leave as I needed to get home and work on my Primary Lesson for the 7 year-olds on Sunday. Sunday's lesson was on how Jesus Christ wants us to love everyone.

So when I get to the garage, I discover that my car is blocked in from behind by another car! Someone had made up his/her own parking space where none existed. The details don't matter and it would be difficult to describe without a diagram to help illustrate my predicament. In a nutshell, I was in the "back space" of a tandem parking space. So I couldn't go forward and just drive out. This car that was behind me and blocking me parked where there was no space, so there was no way I could back out unless I was a taxi driver in NYC or perhaps worked in a car dealership. Even then, backing up would likely have resulted in both of us receiving dents to our cars. Frustration City!

I called the operator of our facility and she made an announcement over the PA system for the driver of this car to please move it. No response. It was dinner time, understandably a busy time in a nursing facility. Often times, it is impossible to hear PA announcements due to other environmental noise. Plus on our dementia unit, the PA system doesn't work, so as not to confuse the patients. So I went around asking people if they drove the car. It didn't belong to anyone on the first floor that I tried. I proceeded to the next floor. I made an another announcement in which I cited the car license plate and said, "If this is your car, please move it as you are blocking me in and I would like to go home." Then I began asking the nurses and caregivers on this floor. After checking with a few folks, I found the culprit!

However, as it was still dinner time, this caring culprit was busy passing trays to the patients. I didn't want to take him from that and said I would wait until he was done. During this wait, I had a real nice converation with one of the patients. She told me a myriad of details about a wedding her daughter was attending that weekend. It seems silly, but during this time I reflected and prayed that I never have to live in a nursing home. I hope I never have to sit and wait for someone to swiftly bring me my dinner tray or feed me or care for me in other personal ways. I hope I never have to miss out on special events of family or friends due to poor health in old age. I know that to utter this sort of prayer sounds selfish.

Good physical health is important. I hope that throughout my life, my health will be such that I can serve Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Right now I have good health, and I am definitely NOT doing enough to serve Them in the way that I should. In our church, we are taught, "Because I have been given much, I too must give. (Hymns #21 9) " We are also taught that where much is given, much is required. I have been given much, I need to do better at giving.

After thinking this, I began to get annoyed: by now I had been waiting for this guy to finish for nearly 30 minutes. I went and looked for him and found him feeding one of the patients. Of course I would not interrupt that important task. He told me it would be about 10 more minutes! So I went back to the sofa to wait. I could have been rude and insisted he move the car right now or called a supervisor to do something. However, clearly the most important thing was that the lady continue to receive her meal. I think if I wasn't teaching the lesson to the Primary kids on love, I might have been a bit rude. So my point is the Primary lesson reminded me to have love which I tried to demonstrate by not making a big deal out of this (other than by blogging about it to remove the last bits of frustration). When he finally went to move his car, he said "oh yeah" and sort of chuckled to himself as he realized that his parking had made it impossible for me to back out!

Afterwards, as I drove home, I realized that I could have been a bit more helpful. I should have offered to pass the meal trays while he went and removed his car. There would have been no delay in the patients receiving their food, and I could have left earlier. Nonetheless, I did enjoy the talking with the lady mentionned previously. I will do that next time. Actually, there won't be a next time as I will never park in that particular spot again!