Senior adults need to know that they're still worthy, still useful and that they still have something to offer. Because of their wisdom and life experience, they still have something to offer our churches. ~Judy Felkins
The Princess has been missing Mr. Syler. I have explained that he has not been feeling well enough to come to services and then she suggested we visit him. We made arrangements to do that, so last week the Princess drew a picture to give to him and we did some old fashion visiting. Mr. Syler wanted the Princess right next to him and he held her hand most of the time.Mr. Syler, who is the oldest member of our church at 92, often refers to himself as an "old country boy" with tales of a simpler life filled with boyhood mischief, humor, tragedy, and endearing love for the Lord. He showed us faded black and white pictures of him plowing a small field with a mule and of his long-hauling son who died around fifty in a trucking accident. Mr. Syler, a lean man well over six foot tall, is one to easily tear up with emotion when remembering the sad parts of his life as well as when he talks of God's love. He has a low voice with such a slow drawn out way of talking that you would expect to see him chewing on a stalk of hay. You cannot help but immediately fall in love with him. His hearing is not so good now and so he often mistakes what has been said and begins one of his explanations usually tinted with memories, making make you wish you had actually said what he thought you did. He is one of the sweetest people I have met in this life.
The favorite time during church services for my Princess is the time we spend greeting one another. This is how the Princess met Mr. Syler. From her commenting on his fish tie clip, he found out that she likes to fish, something he loved to do also, and one day he came to church bearing a gift for her, a mounted prize fish he had caught himself. She was thrilled. That day was the day she told Mr. Syler that she did not have a great-grandfather and asked if he would be hers, a surprise that nearly floored all of us. He stood up to announce to everyone attending services that day he was now her adopted great-grandfather. Since then, Mr. Syler and the Princess have been a delight to each other. (At first I felt a bit of a twinge, because my grandfather could never be replaced in my heart, but I quickly realized that my daughter could not know any of her great-grandfathers except through other people's memories and she had a right to memories of her own.)
Her adopted great-grandfather asked us if he could give her a fish necklace. "Now, nothing much, mind you. Just a little necklace of a fish, if I can find one." All said with that familiar twinkle in his eye when something delights him. Weeks later he presented her with a dolphin necklace. Without me making mention of it, that is the necklace she chose to wear for the visit.
The Princess has a gift with people, she really does. She seems to become what they need her to be, but still stays very much herself. She displayed just the right amount of genuine inquisitiveness and compassion, all the while she was also like sunshine brightening the room and the hearts in it. Her heart is so pure at times that I stand in awe of its radiance.
~ My Lord, thank you for such precious souls that you have brought into the life of my daughter. May she always hold onto the memory of how much this one visit meant to Mr. Syler. ~
