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an everyday life

Tag Archives: Nursing Homes

The Scary Quiet

24 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by Janell in Life at Home

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Dog Tales, Everyday Life, Nursing Homes, Parents

All is quiet on the Western front.

No barking.  No floor shaking from dogs running to see who is at the door.  No dogs begging for rubs or grub or dubs.  No scratching at the door to be let in or outside.  Today is what retirement would look like without three dogs in my life.

If the dogs were here —  rather than at the groomers — I could think.  I need noise to think.  Living with four children trained me to think with noise.

Noise always meant all was well.  Only when life grew quiet was it time to worry, time to go investigate to see what  trouble was brewing with the kids.  Murals on the wall?  Shaving faces or legs?  Talking on the phone after hours?  Too much quiet is a scary thing.

Daddy’s life would be too quiet except for the saving sounds of his television set.  When Dad’s roommate’s television is on at the same time as Daddy’s, I wonder how they stand each others noise.  Do their competing sounds drive one another crazy?

Yesterday, Daddy hit the wrong button on his remote, which turned the sound up from “normal” loud to blaring.  Daddy’s roommate Larry responded in kind.  Sitting between the dueling television remotes, I wondered what the neighbors were thinking — if they could hear themselves think.

Vibrating walls and sounds don’t bother Daddy or Larry; I get the feeling that making noise is all in a day’s work.  Usually, the television noise lulls one or both to sleep.  Perhaps the vibrations stemming from Daddy’s walls lull the neighbors to sleep as well.

A noisy world is a good thing.  A little noise helps one appreciate the quiet.  What I would give for a few good barks.

Senior Olympic Games

11 Thursday Feb 2010

Posted by Janell in Life at Home

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aging, Everyday Life, Nursing Homes

“We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves.”

—    May Lamberton Becker

All day long I’ve gone about housework or errands trying to solve yesterday’s puzzle.

What’s different about Daddy?  I can’t put my finger on it.   Is it resignation?  Acceptance?  Indifference?  Peace?  One thing’s for sure — no peace here  —  just an itch of unanswerable questions to scratch with no hands to do it.

If Daddy were able to talk or write, I could ask —  and with luck, Dad might answer.  But playing questions and answers with Daddy is a game whose time has come and gone.  No question there.

Each week I visit Daddy with my brother Jon.  Yet, to say we visit may stretch the boundaries of truth.  We watch a little television together — that’s all.  Bonanza mostly — sometimes Andy Griffith or Gunsmoke — perhaps a little Jeopardy! We stay a couple of hours, though it seems that time has less meaning to Dad than it once had — I’m not sure a 45 minute visit these days is much different from one twice that long.

Daddy tells time by listening to his body.  Is it time for the bathroom?  Time to sleep?  Daddy relies on others to tell him when it’s time to shower or time to eat.  And like a babe in the womb —  which his recliner has surely become —  Dad draws nourishment from a lifeline that connects near his navel.

When Daddy’s being mischievous, he twirls his feeding tube around like the end of a jump rope.  When he tires of that, Dad plays his body alarm like it’s a video game controller.  He puts the plug in, then out.  In then out.  When staff show up, they find Dad playing with a impish grin that says, “Gotcha!”

It’s no wonder the nurses are always stopping us in the hallway when we visit.  A cute little story here and there; words that describe how much they love our Daddy.  More than once, we’ve heard, “Though I”m not suppose to play favorites….

As  I observe Dad put on his best face for the nurses, it appears their love is not unrequited.  Yet, sometimes I wonder how Daddy can be so animated with the nurses yet so ‘not there’ with us?   It once was the other way around —  Daddy use to be more animated with family and less so with company; guests would come to the house and Daddy would run to his bedroom and close the door.

These days I feel like the company that shows up to find Dad not there.  And I guess the reality is —  that to Dad — I am less like family than a weekly guest, whereas nursing home staff are more like family than not.

Is my puzzle solved then?  Is Daddy still his same old self — but it’s my status that has changed?  Has the torch passed?

Life Amongst the Saints

18 Wednesday Nov 2009

Posted by Janell in Life at Home, Prayer, Soul Care

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Everyday Life, Nursing Homes, Parents, Peace, Soul Care

I was greeted with a sonic boom of thanks yesterday, as I stepped into the nursing home for my regular Tuesday visit with Daddy.  Glenda, the nursing home recreational director, always talks loud.  Maybe it’s a hazard of spending your days with the hard-of-hearing.

“I want you to know that those dresses you brought really were appreciated.”
“What dresses?” 

I had no idea what Glenda was referring to.  Already forgotten was last week’s discussion in my parents closet, when my sister spoke of taking Mom’s dresses to the nursing home. 

“I didn’t bring any dresses.” 

Christi & Me -- As Different As Can Be

Walking toward me, Glenda realized her mistake.  Once again, she had confused me for my sister.   The case of mistaken identity between Christi and I is something that happens frequently amongst all nursing home personnel.  For me to be confused for my saintly sister is no problem at all.  She, on the other hand, may have an entirely different perspective.  But don’t we all have our crosses to bear?  

“Ohhhhh.  That was your sister that brought the dresses.  I just wanted you all to know how appreciated your Mother’ dresses are — four are being worn today.  See, there’s one right there.”

With memory now in place, I followed the direction of Glenda’s pointed finger to the lady seated in the wheel chair.  Seeing the familiar curved spine with head tucked down toward her chest, my heart filled with joy. 

“Oh, Miss Alpha got some of Mother’s dresses.  That’s wonderful!  Thanks for letting us know.  I needed some good news today.” 
“Oh yeah.  She needed them baaad.  Can you believe she didn’t have any dresses?”

This bit of news was surprising.  That Miss Alpha should be in such dire need for Mom’s hand-me-down dresses when she, in better days, was the proprietor of Seminole’s finest women’s clothing store is one of life’s little ironies.  (And just between us, I don’t imagine she would have been caught dead wearing one of Mom’s still good but everyday house-dresses back in those finer days.)  But in the quiet days of nursing home life, these leftover dresses from my mother’s life seem to suit Miss Alpha just fine.

Miss Alpha , you may remember, once kept Daddy company at the dinner table —  what with much affection and admiration I called The Quiet Supper Club  —  in those early days of nursing home life when Dad still took nourishment by mouth.  I went  over to check on Miss Alpha to see how life was treating her, since it had been a good while since she and I had last visited.  It was good to find some things don’t change — Miss Alpha still has nothing to complain about —  but then, what woman isn’t doing fine when she’s wearing some new duds?

But before I headed toward Miss Alpha, I leaned down to a different wheel chair to greet my father.   Daddy had been waiting for my brother and I in the gathering area.  I drew close to Daddy’s shrunken face to see his big shiny eyes and gorgeous smile.   “I love you Daddy.”  Then my father did something totally out of character.  He reached out to take my hand.  Then gracefully, he carried my hand all the way to his lips.   And then ever so tenderly, Daddy kissed my hand.

For my daddy to offer me his best self — on the day I learned of another father committing the worst toward his child —  brought peace to my soul.  I didn’t deserve such tenderness.  Nor, of course, did that young boy deserve what he received at the hands of his father. 

That life doesn’t always give us what we deserve is the human experience.  But sometimes, we receive just what we need and peace settles in around us.  The gift received is so perfect that it seems to bear a touch of the holy.  It was a holy difference that clothed Miss Alpha yesterday; and it was a holy difference in my father than covered my own aching heart.

Both Miss Alpha and I were covered by another’s love.  And this… well this is humanity at its best.   It’s what life amongst the saints should be, a passing of the peace beyond any I’ve experienced before. 

And how I long for this peace to be passed to all.   It’s all of our business isn’t it, this peace-passing work of the saints? 

“To take each moment
 and live each moment
In peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me.”
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“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? — every, every minute?”

-- Thornton Wilder, "Our Town"

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