Letter From Home 9/2/10

Every assisted-living facility has a “Rosina”.

The Rosina I know is near 90 years of age, walks with a cane, and to be honest looks her age.  She is tall and thin, but I strongly suspect as a young woman was quite attractive.   Over the past months I have chatted with her about once a week, and am able to make her laugh in my own quirky way.

As I walked down the hallway of the facility this week she opened her door and slowly came out.

“Hey beautiful” I said. 

The smile starts and she turns and looks back into the room as she replies, “Who else do you see in there?”  She is never short of a good response for anything I say. 

And so our conversation starts as I walk slowly alongside her down the hallway.  She never walks far but she talks with every step.  Her eyes are still expressive and when she tells a bit of a fib, or something that she thinks is slightly off-color, they twinkle.  Her eyes let others know she is younger on the inside than her wrinkled face suggests.

From the hallway of the facility I know how  agreeable the residents are to be chatted with.  Some doors are closed, and some while open never provide a glimpse of the person who now for one reason or another calls this place home.

One man sits in the same chair in his room every single day, looking out the same window onto the back road of the facility.  I never fail to greet him, and during football season ask how his Dallas Cowboys are faring.  He was watching his team the weekend when James and I moved our friend with Alzheimer’s into this facility to live.   For some reason he seemed needing a “hello’, and that has never ended these many months later.

During one of our chats he told me he now lived in “a prison”.   I could not argue with him, but did ask what I might do to make things easier.  His simple request was to have another of the cookie packets that were kept in a drawer in the kitchen.  After making sure he was not diabetic I have grabbed cookies from the stash in the kitchen and dropped them off more often than not when I visit.  “It is against the rules” he tells me.  “I just made a new rule,” I keep telling him.  What can possibly happen at his age if he consumes a couple extra cookies? 

It certainly can not hamper his appetite anymore than looking at the actual food they serve in this place.  (Truth is most of these facilities are the same when it comes to the list of complaints.) There is no way to truly describe the colorless, tasteless, and often odorless food that makes its way in front of each of these residents.  Though James and I have made the squeaky wheel sound, and at the edges created a difference both for the man we are power-of-attorney for, and the others who live in the facility, it is nowhere enough.  We have had meetings with the management of the place, and even got state agencies involved. 

In the end everyone missed the obvious.  Some old-fashioned cooking with real ingredients would do more to boost the spirits of these folks than any modern medicine.  That fact can be taken to any bank.

Many months ago a woman named Pat who lived at the facility told us they never had chocolate cake.   “Everyone sure would love some,” she mentioned as she sat in her wheelchair.  James decided he would whip up a cake and take it with us on our next visit.  The night when it  was baking we finally decided to get an egg timer.  The cake was baked!   Burned would be other way to describe it.   There was no way to take that one anywhere.

Shortly thereafter Pat was taken to hospice as her medical situation turned very serious.  I felt really guilty about not getting that cake request completed, and told James we had to still make one and take it to her.  On a chilly Sunday afternoon in late winter we met her grandson and friends at the hospice facility.  She smiled over the cake, but I am not sure she was ever able to enjoy any of it. 

Which leads me to where I am heading.  Life is too short not to make a difference for those around us.

There are ample resources and groups in every community that can make a difference to some elderly people who live in these assisted living facilities. 

It might be the Boy Scouts planting some fresh flowers along the drive, or in containers for the inside.  It might be 3-4 voices from the local church with a pitch-pipe that show up after dinner for a few songs.  If might be the local high school band getting a few kids with musical star power to play after school.  It might be a person from the neighborhood with good vocal chords to read aloud a short story some afternoon.

There is one thing I sure of.

I know that wherever one reads this, or whatever activity it takes to get residents assembled, there will be a ‘Rosina’ in the crowd.  Looking her age perhaps, but the twinkle in her eye will say it all.

“Thanks for making me smile today”.