Two encounters buoyed up my spirit last week. Both of them were with people who seemed to me gifted with grace that goes beyond the merely human. Or, perhaps, they showed the merely human at its best. In any event, I detected in each of them an action that strikes me as deeply spiritual.

The first conversation happened in a chance meeting with a man in his forties. The occasion for the second was a visit I made to a nursing home to a 92-year-old woman who had asked me to come by.

Tom, the friend whom I ran into unexpectedly, told me about the death of his mother a few weeks ago. She died after having been in a nursing home for several months. He and I had talked last fall about her impending move from her own home because of her growing inability to care for herself.

What impressed me most in Tom’s account of his mother’s nursing home experience was how devoted Tom and his three brothers remained. They came to visit her each day! He himself made it a routine to arrive early every morning with coffee and doughnuts and stay a while with his mother before going to his office.

Later in the day his brothers would come by to see their mother, talk with her and attend to unmet needs. As a veteran of nursing home visits myself, during the years when my mother, mother-in-law, and another family member were residents, I feel great admiration for Tom and his brothers.

For most people, visiting a nursing home is not easy; it puts most of us to the test of patience and resourcefulness, among other virtues. Males, especially, find it difficult to sit with nursing home residents whose mental world has of necessity shrunk to a narrower scope. I used to fidget throughout and had to fight the urge to leave after only a few minutes. To my shame, I admit almost always feeling a sense of relief when the visit came to an end.

But Tom and his brothers were motivated to make their visits a part of their daily lives. To them it became a family ritual invented in response to their mother’s time of special need. They were giving back to her something of the love and devotion that she had given them all their lives.

Perhaps they felt something that writer Mary Pipher sees in such relationships. She quotes a woman who provided care for her parents under trying circumstances: “I know this sounds strange, but that last year was the best year of my parents’ lives. I was my best. They were their best. Our relationships were the closest and strongest ever.”

My second encounter was with Carmella, an elderly woman who only recently became a nursing home resident. She and I became acquainted three years ago when I interviewed her for another column. At that time I focused on her achievements as a painter, a late-life activity that she had converted into a new profession.

After a series of falls and some other serious health problems, she now must use a wheelchair and cannot manage any longer on her own. As of yet, she has not taken up painting again, though she hopes that will be possible soon.

What struck me most was a recent decision she has made not to return home but rather to remain permanently a resident of the nursing home. With considerable help, Carmella could perhaps have coped in her own home. To her credit, however, she has made the brave decision to remain where she is now.

This decision surely ranks among the hardest that Carmella has ever made. She knows how much she is giving up. Never again will she enjoy the independence that goes with being in her own home with the leeway to decide things for herself.

Carmella dares recognize that it makes sense for her to stick with the nursing home. It makes things much easier for her daughter Joan who is Carmella’s only child. Joan can now have confidence that her mother is safe and being taken care of instead of exposed to the hazards of home.

I came away from the nursing home with yet greater respect for this gracious woman and admired the courage she has shown in her nineties.

Richard Griffin