I am one of the many whose
mother resides in an ‘adult community’. Those come in a variety of
service-oriented options, as well as being skillfully named in order to
distance everyone involved from the guilt-laden “Old-folks home.”
The facility she is at has three distinct
quality of life categories, as the residents are shuffled from one to the next intensive
handling by the progressive deterioration of their ability to tend for
themselves. The independent living folks, like my mom, are pretty much left to
their own whims and devices; within reason. The independents live on the third
floor of the complex. Those requiring assistance, and are less physically able,
but still lucid and able to communicate, stay on the second floor. Those requiring
24/7 care reside on the first floor which includes those afflicted with
Alzheimer’s or experiencing garden variety dementia.
They all commingle in the large dining room
during meal times as well as out on the idyllic and well cultivated grounds;
replete with ponds, gazebo’s and park benches. My mother sat down next to a
solitary woman on such a bench. The woman turned to her and asked
“have you been here long?”
My mother replied, “Not
long, just two months”
“I've been here for over
two years.”
(prolonged silence)
“Are you alone?”
My mother glanced around at all the elderly
shuffling the paths under the awnings and pebbled walks nearby, and knew she
must be referring to being there with a spouse, since it was quite plain they
were anything but alone. So she replied,
“it’s just me, my husband
passed two years ago”
(Another protracted pause.)
“I'm here with my husband.
He doesn't come out much; until it’s meal time”
The conversation lulls to silence, as is the
growing pattern of the conversation; the birds chirp in the willows and the birch,
the creek bubbles gaily on its meandering journey across the grounds. The old woman turns to my mom.
“have you been here long?”
It was in that instance, the blinding flash
of the obvious, where she remembered being told a key to remaining sane in that
place was to always begin a conversation with,
“And which floor do you
live on dear?”
Otherwise it can be quite
the surprise when you discover you're not in a conversation with anyone in the
here-and-now.
2 comments:
and as one who is still on this side of the fence of living independently without fanfare..I would ask..."have you been here long?"
You know...letting go of the past has its benefits. I mean really, think about it. Fresh start every day is like freedom without purchase. "Have you been here long?" how about "All my life" Deep...way deep...where's the light switch its pitch black here kind of deep.
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