"Don't!" I said as first Donna and then Linda reached toward the busily chewing teeth. "She has no inhibitions left. She'll bite you."
"I'll give her some more egg salad to chew with it." Donna deftly angles more egg salad into Mom's mouth; we can see bits of the napkin revolving behind the regularly moving teeth. The three of us continue to visit, waving to various nurses and aides passing us wheeling other residents into the dining rooms. Mom continues to contentedly chew.
Suddenly Mom is reaching into her mouth, removing the bit of masticated napkin left, and handing it to my sister.
Napkins aren't a perfect feast. Obviously the flavor has gone flat. But, Mom has enjoyed her unexpected paper napkin appetizer and, when it was time, let go of it.
Margo wheels up to the table, calling an eager "hello." I walk over to her and she opens her arms, pulling me into a hug so warm that my tense body, aching with sciatica, relaxes, surrendering to her simple, unaffected love.
"How are you? Are you doing O.K.?" she asks. She always asks me this as if I were a long-lost relative. I pull her back into a hug, kiss her, and tell her I am fine.
"How are YOU?" I ask. Of course she is fine. Margo is always fine, except when unexpected sadness causes her to emotionally withdraw for a few days. Maybe others would think that the love of this woman with mental handicaps who's missing half her teeth and uses a wheelchair would be about as valuable and tasty as a paper napkin. But her love is MY chosen paper napkin, and, by God, I know that God always loves me through Margo - warmly and tenderly.
Intrepid aide Patty, black face smiling, is about to walk past us until Linda starts singing "We Are Family." Donna and I join in singing, so Patty springs into R and B dance moves and I join her, while Linda (still recuperating from a knee replacement) claps. Some people might think that a short, impromptu Dance Party at a nursing home would be about as much fun as chewing a paper napkin, but that's their problem. For five minutes, the three of us - and Donna watching and singing while she feeds Mom some fish dinner - could be the four sisters of Sister Sledge, ascending into Blues-fueled ecstasy.
Later, when all of us have eaten lunch, we all kiss each other "goodbye," knowing, from glancing repeatedly at Mom's face, that at some soul-level she realizes that we've given her the perfect gift to enjoy: her three daughters together for a few hours. All it has taken for the three of us to rejoice is her smile, her eyes lighting up in between quick little dozes. Fragile joy, as easy to destroy as a paper napkin. But Real. Real as the love of a God Who chooses to come to us in the paper napkin of fragile, easily-destroyed human flesh.
The nursing home where my Mom has been a resident for three years isn't perfect. Mom, the former Department Head of the English Department at Bennett High School, who can barely talk or feed herself, no longer knows what the word "perfect" means. Linda, Donna, and I, having been sisters since each was born, know each others' imperfections as well as our own. Residents with disabilities are not perfect conversationalists. Five minutes of dance moves and singing in a nursing home corridor do not a riotously perfect Dance Party make.
Lifetimes have few note-perfect occasions, and they're precious as rubies and pearls. Napkins could never be a gourmet lunch. But for a few glorious, hilarious, enjoyable moments today, three sisters, a mother with dementia, an affectionate resident using a wheel chair, and a lively Dance Queen aide, realized that in the powerful communion of love, the paper napkins of life can give us tastes of Heaven.