While I was visiting Mom at the nursing home a week or so ago, Mehar stepped in. She’s the facility’s activities director, and I dislike her.
She smiled and said hello to my mom, mispronouncing her name as she always does. After correcting her three times, I’ve given up. If Mom’s awake and cognizant, she corrects her name when Mehar gets it wrong, but she was asleep that morning, so Mom was someone she isn’t and never has been.
Mehar was knocking on every door, inviting patients and visitors to “a non-denominational Easter service” on Sunday, April 5. Mom’s big on religion, so I knew she’d want to be there, and I’m big on Mom, so I’d be there too. In texts over the next few days, Easter at the nursing home became a family event — my sister Katrina would be there, along with my brother Clay and his wife Karen.
Many years ago, my wife Stephanie spent a springtime in the world’s worst nursing home. The place didn’t have internet access, so Steph read a lot of books but was often bored. When they announced there’d be an Easter celebration, we went, expecting cringe-entertainment, but to our surprise the service was good. They’d brought in a local pastor, who preached a short, not-very religious sermon, and then the injured and recovering crowd sang some hymns, and had an egg hunt. Honestly, it was the best Easter of my non-religious adulthood.
I was hoping for something similar at Mom’s nursing home on Easter Sunday, as about 20 wheelchair and walker people gathered in the dining room, along with a smattering of family and friends.
Mom was in her wheelchair at our table, wearing one of her best dresses, which Katrina had brought from home. Katrina and Karen wore nice outfits, too, and Clay wore a necktie. I was in a clean t-shirt. Mom was awake and happy, and almost clear-headed.
Fifteen minutes late, Mehar walked in, and started speaking to the small crowd. I hadn’t expected her to speak, hadn’t even thought she’d be there, and hoped against hope that she was only going to introduce a preacher, but to my disappointment, no — Mehar led the service.
Carrying her cell phone and reading from its screen, she walked among the tables and asked each of the patients, “How do you feel about your loss of independence?”
What? The? Fuck? This is the Easter service? Asking disabled people about their loss of independence?
One by one, Mehar extracted answers from all the patients present, and guess what? None were happy about their loss of independence. Several said that they were frustrated by their health issues, and one old guy in a wheelchair said, “I don’t have any independence at all. I rely on you people for everything.”
When Mehar asked Mom, “How do you feel about your loss of independence?” she replied, “I hate it.” And I hated Mehar, but cripes, this was our family’s Easter and I didn’t want to make a scene, so I kept my rage internal.
Eventually, Mehar’s plagiarized point revealed itself as, still holding and reading from her phone, she got to the point. “In reality,” she read and mispronounced, “we are none of us independent. All people are totally dependent on God’s mercy.”
Well, that’s a chipper thought, and an odd lesson to offer on Easter. A gifted orator with a carefully crafted script might pull it off, but Mehar is not a gifted orator, and her flat reading and frequent struggle with the words was the opposite of inspiring.
On the bright side, Mom had fallen asleep.
With no segue, Mehar started reading something else. Through her accent and hesitation at random words, it took a minute before any of us recognized what she was saying: “God sent his son they called Him Jesus, he came to love heal and forgive he lived and died to buy my pardon an empty grave is there to prove my savior lives, because he lives I can face tomorrow because he lives all fear is gone because I know he holds the future and life is worth the living just because he lives…”
She was reading the lyrics to “Because He Lives,” a standard hymn Christians might sing, but she wasn’t singing, wasn’t even reading it like a poem. She read it the way someone who doesn’t enjoy reading might read words they’d never seen before, if they’d been told to read out loud.
Again with no break or change in tone, Mehar went directly to “Low in the grave he lay Jesus my Savior waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph o’er his foes,” and of course she stumbled and paused at “o’er” because she’d never seen that word before. She was reading the lyrics of “Up From the Grave He Arose,” but again, making it sound like an essay on trigonometry, not a song or a poem, and certainly not religious.
Next she read and ruined “How Great Thou Art,” reciting the song as if it was Bible verses, and I wondered whether she even knows the difference between scripture and hymns? Which led to the next slow-dawning thought in my fat head — wondering if Mehar is even a Christian.
And I don’t think she is. I think she Googled “Easter service,” and read us the search results.
Look, I grew up in the church, and in any language, through any accent, I know what Christianity sounds like. There’s a certain tone of voice, pause and emphasis when Christians talk about Christianity, and Mehar’s reading had none of it. She had no emotional connection to the sermon or hymns or anything she said. She was simply the activities director, directing an activity called ‘Easter’.
Everyone at our table looked puzzled, except Mom, who was still asleep. Finally, Clay spoke up, saying, “These are hymns. Could we, you know, sing them?”
Mehar said, “Sing them?” like this was a wild concept, then started clacking at her cell phone. Thirty seconds later she’d found a recording of “How Great Thou Art,” so she stopped reading it and hit ‘play’. She walked among the tables, holding her cell phone like show & tell, while it sang the hymn and people tried to sing along.
It was difficult, because somehow Mehar had found a recording so slow it was a dirge. Imagine the slowest rendition of “How Great Thou Art” you’ve ever heard, and then turn it from 45 rpm to 33⅓. Mom woke up and joined in singing the hymn, but she was almost immediately a line ahead of the cell phone, then two lines ahead, and then she fell asleep again.
After the recording and difficult sing-along of “How Great Thou Art” ended, Mehar smiled at everyone and said “Thank you,” and left the room. Service over!
Only, it wasn’t over. Clay stood and started singing “Because He Lives,” and people responded by singing along. Mom opened her eyes and joined in, and we sang several more hymns. Talking about it with Clay afterward, I made sure he knew he’s the hero of this story. For everyone in the room, my brother saved Easter.
Being the opposite of a religious man, it’s been difficult trying to understand why Mehar’s Easter service bothered me as much as it did. And it did seriously piss me off, so let me try to explain why.
Religion is something most people take seriously. I wish they wouldn’t, but they do. And Mehar didn’t.
Consider Zoroastrianism — I know nothing about it, and I’m using it as an example only because it has a funny-sounding name, but if my job required me to host a Zoroastrian service, on the most sacred holy day of Zoroastrianism, I couldn’t come close to mangling it as badly as Mehar mangled Easter — because I would put in more effort than a quick Googling.
4/7/2026
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