We’re here to see a friend at the hospital today. One of the boys are carrying a bouquet of lilacs, hopefully not picked from somebody’s yard.

My goal is to get through this without getting kicked out of the hospital. That’s when you embark on a mission of mercy with teen boys. Job No. 1 is to keep them from blowing up rubber gloves, racing in wheelchairs or flirting with nurses.

There she is, reclining in a near-sitting position with her hospital gown. She’s a very small lady with silvery white hair. Another woman, also of advanced years, sits over by the window in a wheelchair eating her dinner.

Her face lights up when she sees us. I squeeze her hand when I talk and she expresses thanks for the flowers.

As I talk in a loud voice, the boys listen from the other side of the bed. They last about 60 seconds before they begin to fidget.

This is fairly new to all the Henneke men. While my wife is constantly thinking of the needs of others, we’re mostly concerned where the next chicken nuggets are coming from.

She tells me about her late husband and her family members which have already passed on. Her mouth has a constant tremor when she listens. But there’s a sparkle in her eye.

As she talks, I see my boys have moved over to the sink in the room. I’m trying to listen to her while keeping an eye on them.

She compliments me on my family and I thank her in an extremely loud voice she can hear me.  By now the boys have discovered the automatic hand sanitizer dispenser. By the looks of things, much of it must have ended up on the floor.

In the few minutes we are there, I struggle on what to say. Mostly I try to listen and let her know that we love her.

I look over at the boys and see one of them wiping up cleaner from the floor. I hope they get our names right in the incident report when one of these elderly ladies slips and falls.

I glare at them and motion them back over.

It’s time to go now and our friend asks for a hug from each one of us. She pulls each boy close and kisses them on the cheek.

“I’m a hugger, you kn0w,” she says more than once.

“Hey, I get once of those as well,” I say as I lean toward her on the bed. She pulls her face close to my cheek and I tell her that we love her. I am very careful because I don’t want to break anything.

After squeezing her hand one last time, we leave the room without any further incident.

It’s pretty obvious that the brief visit made her day, something that the boys may not understand right away.

Hopefully they will get more chances for it to sink in.