THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 12, 1996 TAG: 9608120031
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 110 lines
Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?
- Job 12:12
VIRGINIA BEACH - Eleven years ago, as a janitor, Scott Fuller cared for the physical structure of Westminster-Canterbury, the 14-story retirement community on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.
This summer, as a minister in training, he cared for the souls of the community's 453 residents.
And those residents, most of whom are 80 or older, taught the 26-year-old Virginia Beach man one of the most valuable lessons he's learned in his life: Death is not the enemy, and aging is not to be feared.
The white-haired, stooped women who slowly walk the halls of Westminster-Canterbury call him ``dear'' and ``honey.'' To them, Fuller, with his short brown hair, clean-shaven face and deferential manner, is more like a grandson than a spiritual adviser.
Some remember him as a young boy, when his mother worked behind the front desk. They praise his personality and ``good, strong voice,'' as one resident said, rather than his ecclesiastical skills.
The perception that he is still that young boy is just one of the challenges Fuller had to overcome this summer as he learned how to minister to the elderly.
Westminster-Canterbury's chaplain, the Rev. Allen Johnson, 63, suggested the training this spring when Fuller was home on vacation from Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville. Fuller, whose training at Westminster-Canterbury ended Friday, expects to graduate in May as a minister in the United Church of Christ.
He has worked at Westminster since he was 15 years old, in jobs ranging from janitor to security guard. He has always visited when in the area.
``I feel this is a gold mine of experience for young people going into the ministry,'' Johnson said. Traditionally, he explained, new ministers work with youth groups in their first assignments. So they don't learn how to relate to older people.
Yet studies show that about 70 percent of a typical Sunday congregation are retired, he said. ``Older adults,'' he said, ``frequently complain that the younger minister doesn't understand them.''
The culture, with its emphasis on youth, plays a role, too, Johnson said. ``I think it's really, really important that young people learn not to patronize or feel sorry for older people,'' he said, ``because most of the people here may have aged physically, but their minds are young.''
Johnson thought the internship would also benefit Westminster-Canterbury residents: ``Here is a younger person who can bring some youth and vitality to their lives, and they can have a part in shaping this life and this young person. So it seemed like the perfect situation.''
For Fuller, who came to the ministry after obtaining his bachelor's degree in Russian linguistics from Old Dominion University, it was a chance to fill the gaps left by a church-based internship in Nashville. There, he helped mainly with Sunday School and sermons.
He wanted to learn how to handle issues of death and dying. Not just the basics of how people die and what they die of, but the emotions and stages they pass through - denial, acceptance, anger.
``I wanted to learn to comfort people, to be there for them,'' he said.
It wasn't an easy lesson.
When Fuller first started counseling residents in June, his approach was to try to fix the problems they were having with aging and illness. Frustration from this impossible task often made him run to his mentor for advice.
It took many hours of talking to Johnson - who reminded him over and over again: ``You're not a repairman, this isn't plumbing,'' - before Fuller learned simply to listen.
Listening is an important skill for the clergy, Johnson said, because a sick or dying person relates differently to a minister than to a doctor. ``They tell you things about their feelings. Not just their physical things, but their disappointment and fears and anxieties.''
As Fuller learned, someone approaching the end of life needs to talk. ``They'll tell us: `I'm scared. I'm worried. I'm nervous. What is my family going to do without me?' ''
Sometimes there is guilt. And sometimes people are totally accepting of their situations - a state Fuller struggled to understand.
In his training, he realized that a sympathetic silence may be just as helpful as practical solutions. And he learned that it's OK to just say, ``I don't know.''
He spent most of his time visiting residents in their apartments, in the hospital or in Westminster-Canterbury's small nursing home.
The visits weren't long, but they were important, Fuller said, because loneliness is such a big element in many older people's lives.
On a visit to an 80-year-old woman recuperating from a fractured pelvis, for instance, the conversation was mundane, but Fuller's presence brightened the woman's face.
At the end of his 20-minute visit, he took her hand in his, and they both bent their heads to pray.
``Lord,'' Fuller spoke the words of the prayer with quiet strength. ``Help her body heal and knit itself back together.''
When he finished, the woman said: ``You're such a dear to come see me. It just makes such a difference.''
To Fuller, his experiences this summer - holding a dying person's hand, selecting the hymns for his first memorial service, watching the zest with which most of the building's residents live - have dramatically altered his perceptions of aging and death.
``I'm a young person, and death to a young person is seen as the enemy,'' he explained. ``Even in this day of violence and AIDS, young people still have that feeling of immortality. We view death as the grim reaper, as black and hooded, an evil presence.
``But here, in this population, death is a part of life as much as life is a part of life. It's another stage.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by MORT FRYMAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Scott Fuller, 26, spent his summer at Westminster-Canterbury, a
retirement community on the Chesapeake Bay, counseling the elderly
and learning how they deal with death and dying.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE
by CNB