Coffee Chat: The End of March

 

Come in, come in and let us have one more coffee chat for March.  It's very nearly over. With the temperatures outdoors we might have an iced drink if you'd like.  I haven't had a glass of iced tea in months now and I'd dearly love to have a glass...What do you say?  Coffee or tea?

We've been passing a church sign all month long and it's had the same message: This is normal.  I guess I needed to hear that.  I keep saying to myself that when I'm not keeping Caleb things will get back to normal and when the C is done, we'll get back to normal and when we feel better things will be back to normal...and yet life keeps moving forward.  I realized we're never going to go 'back'.  Forward is normal.  So... Normal is wherever we are in the present, isn't it? 

I thought we'd have one more chat before March is over and done.  Does it make me sound old to say, "Hasn't the year flown by thus far?"  Here we are, three months practically tucked in and bid goodbye, and I look back and ask myself "Where did it go?"    And then I wonder if the rest of the year is going to just melt away as these three months have done.  

Never mind.  Time moves on with or without our permission, doesn't it?   

I've been commiserating with a friend of mine who like myself has grown children.  She's been lamenting over a distanced relationship with her daughter.   It seems they are always at odds these days, though they maintain their relationship because of the children.  She's asked me time and again, "How can I get back what we once had?"  I don't have an answer for her.  I've got four grown children and really only one who still seeks me out and considers my opinion worth hearing whether or not it's worth heeding.  The rest are either silent and forgetful they have a mother or somehow impart the feeling that it's a wonder I've made it through life thus far, as I seem to have no good sense that he can see.   I laugh a bit over that as I guess we've all been in that spot with a parent at some time or another.  It changes as we age, this I do know.  We learn all our lives long.  

When I was young, I often mis-judged people.  That's something I learned repeatedly in the nursing home where I worked.  Age, no nor education, are an indicator of intelligence or life experience.  People who'd lived within 5 miles of the spot they were born all their lives long knew more than I could ever know about human nature, about animals and plants, machinery, and God, than I'd learned in all my schooling years and reading.  They absorbed these things somehow, despite their inability to read or write.  They just lived and learned.  To this day, when I recall conversations with some of those residents, I am humbled right down to the soles of my feet.  

I met so many wonderful people and it was my privilege to get to know them.  Some were private people, who didn't care to share about their lives, but most were just your average sort.  And then there were those who touched my heart in ways that to this day thumps a little harder recalling them.  But now and then...well now and then I met folks that I didn't care for and try as I might I couldn't find anything in them to reconcile me and make me change my opinion.

One of those was Miss Della.  The day Miss. Della arrived at the facility, a co-worker and I were out of town visiting other facilities for our corporate office.  We returned just shortly before time to clock out that day.  Aware that we had a new resident we headed to the unit where she was initially placed to make a quick assessment.

I still recall my first great shock at seeing her.  Miss Della had a lovely head of white hair.  She was thin and seemed tall even sitting in the bed.  Her eyes were bright as they could be.  Her nose hooked, probably had increasingly hooked with age and from between her lips sprouted one of the longest, blackest teeth I'd ever seen in my life.  

As we spoke with her that day, Monica and I both kept stumbling over our questions.  At one point we both fell completely silent though we had a list of things we each needed to ask, and this was just the initial assessment!  For the life of me I couldn't focus on anything but that tooth.  When Miss Della spoke the tooth moved up to just almost touch the very end of her nose.  It held me mesmerized.  With each word I wondered if possibly this time that tooth and that nose were going to make contact.  It was, to say the least, a disconcerting distraction.

When Monica and I left the room we walked back to our office and at long last I looked at her and she at me.  We both burst into laughter and we laughed and laughed and laughed.  "Did you see...?"  "I thought surely it would touch her no...!"  "I know!  All I could do was stare!"  "Me, too.  I tired to look away but..."  We wept with laughter.  We howled.  Finally, we collapsed in our chairs.

Miss Della's heart was about as black as her tooth.   She proved over and over again that she was just a mean-spirited, cruel, cold, hardened woman.  It is my instinct to like people, especially old people, but I failed utterly with her.  

Though we couldn't place her in a private room when she moved off the unit, she was determined that she'd be alone.  She never said she wouldn't share a room.  She never complained.  In fact, she kept a sweet smile plastered on her face at all times and her eyes were just as bright as ever.   

Every roommate she had, she somehow managed to worm out of sharing the room with her.  She was subtle.  She hid personal belongings of the one sharing her room.  She moved her things into their spaces and claimed they 'took' them.  She insisted they be silent as mice while she herself made sure to make every effort to make enough noise to wake not only her roommate but others on the hall.  Resident after resident requested to be moved and they were as soon as we had a space available.

And then Claudia arrived.  Claudia was a young woman with MS.  She was wheelchair bound and had the sweetest face and the nicest personality.  She loved being active and stayed busy about the facility all day long.  She participated in every activity.  She went to visit other residents, watched tv in the lounge, sat outside, went to the dining room.  In short, she was out of the room from the time she woke each morning, and the aides could get her out of bed, until they put her to bed each night.

Since Miss Della stayed in the room all day long, it seemed Claudia would be a good match.  Her family could rarely visit due to their distance from the facility.  Claudia was a pleasant person.  She thrived on the community about her.  Surely this would work.  

Well, no it didn't.   Since Claudia was bed bound once in the bed, she certainly couldn't be accused of taking personal items.   Because Claudia was out of the room all day long and until the tv in the lounge was cut off at night, anything of Della's that might go missing was quickly located in Miss Della's possession.  Things quieted down.  Perhaps, just maybe, we thought, we'd found a roommate that Miss Della could live with.

And then I arrived at work one morning to a big brouhaha.  "There's been an incident report filed."  "What's happened?"  "Miss Della claims Claudia tried to attack her with scissors."  

The story went like this.  Miss Della claimed that she and Claudia had words that morning over a minor matter but Claudia's temper had led her to grab a the pair of scissors that Miss Della used to cut her quilting fabric and threatened her bodily harm with them.   I had to call Miss Della's family and report the incident, as well as the state ombudsman and schedule meetings with the administrator, head of nursing and all the department heads.  

In the meantime, Claudia's personal items were removed to another patient room where we'd just had a bed come open and she was moved post haste.  

Claudia's story was slightly different.  Miss Della, sitting in bed, had dropped the scissors as Claudia was about to exit the room that morning and had asked for her to please hand them to her.  With great effort, Claudia had managed to reach them from her seated position in the wheelchair and she handed them to Miss Della who smiled and thanked her and the moment Claudia was out of the room began to scream her head off.   Mind you all, Miss Della was mobile, and able to get in and out of bed on her own.  Claudia wept buckets.  Miss Della looked smugger than ever.  

It was very telling to me that it took Miss Della's family a week to come to the facility.  In fact, her son and grandsons had never before entered that building.  It was the daughter-in-law who visited, though why she should was beyond me because Miss Della was just as mean to her as anyone else. The family lived less than two miles away.  I heard from every department head and administration and the ombudsman that it was imperative we meet with the family immediately.  The sons were seemingly completely unconcerned.  

They finally came to the building one morning unannounced and stood awkwardly about in my office. I explained what Miss Della had said happened and they said nothing.  I asked if they'd like to go speak with her and they declined.  Just as they started to leave, one of the grandsons asked, as he walked through the door said, "This other lady black?"  I nodded.  He nodded.  He shut the door and left.  They never filed a complaint.  They didn't meet with the ombudsman, nor talk to administration.  They didn't request Miss Della be moved to another facility, nor did they pay extra so she could have a private room, either.

We just went on.  Claudia was replaced by another lady and then another and another and another.  Eventually Miss Della gave up her fight.  That old black tooth must have had something to do with her meanness, because it eventually broke off and was just a nub.  She refused to visit a dentist and have it removed.  She said, "It's mine." and that was all there was to it.  

No, I never could like her, but I can't forget her either.

I don't have much more to add today.  I'm tired and hungry and our meal is nearly ready.   A short chat perhaps but I feel rather glad that I had time to have one more coffee chat before this month is fully gone.  I hear the wind picking up, blowing in the storm we're due to have no doubt.  

See you all in April!