Jan. 23, 2012 at 10:47am with 3 notes
I feel the need to share an experience I had last night

John with one leg struck up a conversation with my mom and I when we went to visit my grandmother at the nursing home.  We spoke with him for 2 hours about how he, at 17, worked on Word War II submarines shooting torpedoes//all the places he went//all of the shit you had to go through to work on submarines
How he has a bad heart and knows he is going to die soon.  
He also told us a lot of information about Australia.   

One of his stories I found very poignant.

He likes to help the old ladies and gentlemen who are really far gone.  One lady in particular is senile and suffers from muscular dystrophy.  He visits her every day to straiten up her room and chat, even though she is nonverbal.
She has never so much as acknowledged his presence, but she is important to him. he considers her a friend. 

Last night he found her looking particularly small and sad, so he kissed her. She then put her arms around him and they sat, embracing, for a while..  This is the first interaction he has ever had with her.

And all while he was telling this story, an old lady kept coming up and asking if there was school today and if her son has the key to the house.

and old ladies coming up quietly weeping and begging for help. 

old ladies saying things like “I’ve been waiting so long for you to take me home”.

and “I just thought you should know they put my mother in the ground an hour ago and I’m feeling very alone”

and I feel like because I talk to them so much, all the elderly people on her floor are starting to recognize me. Even the individuals who are really far gone come tell me about all kinds of things. 

In some you can recognize a kindness that is easy to relate to.  Some are too far gone.  A few, like John and my grandmother, and are completely lucid.

I’ve been visiting my grandmother a couple times a week for months now, and its hard not to be disturbed by some of these interactions. But I have come to feel such a fondness of some of these people. 

john, glaydis, lynn…

they are sweeties.

  1. barahsachman posted this