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VALLEY — In addition to having their daily lunch and fellowship, approximately 40 participants in the Valley Senior Center program on Tuesday were treated to some old-fashioned gospel singing from Chattahoochee Hospice Chaplin and Bereavement Coordinator Rev. Michael Stiggers and wife Cheryl along with some humorous and heartfelt storytelling from Rev. Stiggers and Alabama Department of Senior Services Board Chairman Ray Edwards.

Edwards told the crowd assembled in the Donald Perry Williams Activity Room that he is going through some soul-searching times right now. “I want to thank Michael for the times he came to see my wife Jackie at Valley Park Manor,” Edwards said. “I am really worried about my wife. Over a year ago now I had to have her placed at Valley Park Manor. That was hard enough. She and I had lived together in a home setting and had raised children and grandchildren together and were raising great grandchildren when she had to go into assisted living.”

Edwards said the management and staff of Valley Park Manor had done great work to ease this transition and that Jackie had gotten great care the whole time she was there, but unfortunately the facility will be closing in less than a month.

“For over a year now it has been the only place she has been,” he said. “We will have to relocate her now. Fortunately, we will be able to transfer her a short distance away to Lakewood Senior Living on Fairfax Bypass. I’m sure she will be getting the best of care there as well, but I am worried about the transition. It will be the first time in over a year she has been in a car. She will have to adjust to new surroundings and new people. I would like for you to pray for us in this situation.”

A total of 55 seniors, many with dementia and some with disabilities, will have to move elsewhere. Some will be locating outside Chambers County.

In addition to his work for Hospice, Stiggers pastors two churches and does lots of volunteer work. He worked late into the evening on Monday finishing up a handicap ramp for a local woman whose husband is disabled. Stiggers couldn’t resist taking on that job after the woman told him she wanted her husband to be able to get outside the house on warm, sunny days to enjoy the spring.

Stiggers said the goal of any hospice organization to help families have their loved ones leave this world with the same kind of hope, support and encouragement families get when they bring a baby into the world.

“New parents receive all the hope, encouragement and support the world has to offer when they bring a baby into the world,” he said. “Why can’t we do the same thing when a loved one leaves this world?”

Stiggers told the seniors that Chattahoochee Hospice was organized in 1983 and has always had a strong group of volunteers to support it over the years. It’s a nonprofit that has taken Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance and has done charity care over the years. As a nonprofit, the vast majority of money coming to the organization goes into patient care and support of families.

Stiggers came to Chattahoochee Hospice with a great deal of experience in hospice care. The local one is the fifth such organization he has worked for. He has previously worked for hospice organizations in Montgomery, Tuskegee, Phenix City and Columbus.

He said that all those organizations are excellent but that Chattahoochee Hospice is the best one he’s ever worked for.

He had the unusual experience of having to change his mother’s mind about hospice care. As she was aging, she once told him that she did not want him to sign her up for that “hostage” thing.

She had confused the word hospice for the word hostage, which is completely different, but it does show how people can have an advancing fear of the unknown as they age.

Studies show, said Stiggers, that people in hospice care live longer than those with similar physical or mental conditions who do not have it.

What convinced his mom that hospice care would be good for her? “I told her I wanted to take care of her the way she took care of me when I was growing up,” he said.

Stiggers said he has dealt with many cases of elderly people dealing with dementia. “They know what they want to say, but it just doesn’t come out the way they want it to,” he said. “Some people give up trying to talk and don’t say much.”

One thing most people never stop trying to do is to sing when there is joy in their hearts. “I love to sing with people,” he said. “I especially like to sing This Little Light of Mine. My mom taught it to me when I was a boy, and I have loved it ever since. Some elderly people I sing with can’t say the words but they hum the tune.”

Stiggers said a great thing about the Bible that comes through many years of reading and studying it is the vast number of its teaching moments that come through. No one was better at this than Jesus.

“Even on our worst days it’s good to know God will intervene in your life if you have faith in Him,” Stiggers said. “He will let you know everything will be okay.”

Stiggers then led the group in some singing, first with This Little Light of Mine. Everyone smiled, clapped and sang along with gusto.

Senior Center Manager Kelsey Overby then led everyone with a series of favorites including Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, Power in the Blood and Victory in Jesus.

Cheryl Stiggers did a great job on piano and joined in the singing of those long-time gospel favorites.

Rev. Stiggers passed out brochures on the importance of getting by the first week after the funeral of a loved one.

“There’s a lot of people there to support you through the funeral but you are alone the week after that,” he said. “That can be really hard. You need to learn how to live without the one who has passed. You have to learn how to live with your grief.”