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A Christian Blog on Loss and Grieving
The Passing Space, Week 2 of 8
emily ulman/26Jun25
An eight-week blog on Loss and Grieving, this is Week 2, The Passing Space:
Just inside the entrance of the facility is a curious room. Peaking in, I feel drawn. Its size none too large, its many windows fronted with leafy greens and growings. Outside winter light, filtering in through airy yellow curtains, softly fills the space. Few furnishings are here, a couple cushioned benches line two walls while a small wooden table with three chairs is along another. What an inviting space, I think. Then the plaque on the door catches my attention, Tranquility Room. Hmmm, a space aptly named.
As my tour of this facility continues, I come to see I can agree with what I’d been told about it. Mom will receive good care here.
Two days later, we arrive with Mom and her most basic belongings. Unloading her from my car is a three-sister task. One retrieves Mom’s newly fulltime-needed wheelchair from the trunk while two of us carefully lift her to standing from the front seat. Her warm coat covering only her shoulders, she winces in pain and shivers from the blowing cold. Her blackened left eye and freshly casted left wrist, the physical indications of her most recent stroke and fall at her assisted-living home. Needing more care now than just “assisted”, we are here. As we wheel Mom inside and down the hallways, festively decorated for Christmastime, she doesn’t ask where we are. Only blank confusion reflects from her weakened expression.
This time, as I pass the Tranquility Room, its door is closed.
Many trips by this room are made in the comings and goings of those first days. Bringing more of Mom’s things, I notice, through its opening or closing door, a very aged woman lying motionless in a bed inside with family around. This is a passing space.
When residents of this skilled nursing home are very near death they are moved to this private space near the entrance of the building. It is in this serene setting that their body will part from them and their Creator will unfold eternity before them. As the first full week ends, the Tranquility Room is left open, empty again, its visitors coming to an intimate experience with loss and grieving.
Its soft light inviting me, once more my steps lead me inside. Looking around, I feel a “ness” about the space within the Tranquility Room. A knowing-ness, a peace-filled-ness, an almost sacredness. And I find myself in a kind of accepting-ness. Before long Mom and my family, will too, occupy for a little time this tranquil space.
May we each be reminded, “O man greatly beloved, fear not! Peace be to you; be strong, yes, be strong!”. As God’s Word to Daniel (10:19 NKJV), so too to us, we can be in His peace, without fear, even in the face of death, loss and grieving.