Giving the present of presence is all it takes

It’s the time of year when we indulge our shopping addiction and assuage the guilt of privilege by choosing gifts for needy strangers.

Be it the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree or its newer equivalent for the elderly, Meritan’s Silver Bells for homebound adults, it feels good to help.

From a comfortable distance, we buy our gifts, drop them off for delivery and give ourselves a selfsatisfied pat on the back.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But charity extends past the cash register. Genuine compassion isn’t wrapped. It’s a relationship. Meritan gave me a glimpse of that.

For several years, I’ve chosen a bell in the form of a paper ornament on the nonprofit service agency’s faux Christmas tree. This year there were 600 bells; as of Friday, 200 were waiting to be adopted. (See the sidebar on how you can help.)

I usually pick a female “bell,” in memory of my late maternal grandmother, who had dementia. This year, I got to meet the woman whose name I chose.

Only after caseworker Latasha McKinney calls to say we’re outside does Bertha answer the door of her tidy, small house off Summer Avenue.

McKinney, Meritan’s marketing and develop-

ment director, Elise Bone, and I file in.

Bertha, wearing a pink housedress in a style stores don’t sell anymore, ushered us slowly to her dining room table.

I put the gift bag with sheets, a jogging suit and a nightgown on the floor and Bone reminded Bertha, whose last name I won’t use to protect her privacy, why we were there.

“I’m trying my best to be nice to everybody, but sometimes I don’t remember what they said,” Bertha says, starting to cry.

We pshaw and assure her that she’s fine.

When prompted, Bertha, who doesn’t get around very well, tells us that her homemaker, provided by Meritan for two hours a day, four days a week, cooks and helps her bathe.

“What I like about her is that she’s not demanding,” Bertha says. “That lady is really nice.”

More importantly, the homemaker is better company than the TV blaring in her bedroom.

Bertha, whose three children live out of town, tells Bone to pull a blue notebook from a nearby bookcase.

Bone can’t find it but Bertha, who minutes ago wasn’t certain of her age (she’s 82), insists it’s there.

She’s right. It’s a small album and inside are photos, carefully labeled by someone who cares about her.

T he first photo is of the Crown Candy Kitchen in St. Louis where her mother would take her for ice cream when she was a child.

There’s her childhood friend’s house. The baseball fields she says her brother carved out of empty lots. Her elementary school, her high school, and an apartment her family lived in.

She has a story for each picture, and we listen closely, asking questions where appropriate.

I pass her the gifts, she’s appropriately thankful and we start to say our goodbyes.

Bertha is sad to see us go, and tells us to come again.

Then she reaches for the photo album. These baseball fields? Her brother built them, she says.

Then she remembers that she can’t remember much, and her eyes fill with tears.

I see her but I hear my grandmother’s refrain: “My memory’s not serving me well.”

So I do with Bertha what I long to do again with my grandmother: I hold her hand.

I squeeze it when she tears up again. I nod as she turns to the photo of the baseball fields.

After three attempts, we make our way out. I smile but don’t accept her invitation to return any time we like.

That was Tuesday and I can’t stop thinking about Miss Bertha, the inadequate gifts I brought and the scarcity of what she needs most, someone’s presence.

Tuesday:

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