Nancy Bartholomew

When I read a new book I want to be transported.  I want to step inside the pages and disappear from everything and everyone I know.  I want to absorb a new world- like water soaked up by a sponge.

Okay- you get me on that?

On a good day, that's what it's like at the nursing home.  I slip inside the realities of my patients, try on the world as they see it and for a few hours, I travel...content to coast along in someone else's life.

This is not something I can do with all of my people.  It is not always appropriate.  Sometimes I have to fix things, or wage war against abuse and neglect.  Sometimes people need more from me than just a good ear and a dose of understanding.  But there is always someone who just wants to tell their story, to know they've been heard and valued before their life is over.

Today was full of travels and stories.  

Today I lived in the mountains of Northwestern N.C, over 90 years ago.  My daddy could roam the mountains for days on end and never get lost.  He could look at a mountain, size up and price the trees for lumber and then walk back down into town and hire a crew.  They'd come, with their horses and carts, to cut the trees, haul them out of the woods, and push them down into the river where they'd float to the receiving crew on the other end.  They did this without clear cutting, without hurting any of the younger trees and without savaging the land. 

My sisters and I walked three miles to school every day, unless we were lucky enough to catch the train that went 4 miles into West Jefferson, the closest town to where we lived.  On those days we only had to trudge a mile backward, up the mountain to our one room schoolhouse.  Mama made us lunch buckets full of sweet milk and cornbread and we'd stick them in the spring outside before we went inside to join the others.

Home was a two-room log cabin shared with my 6 brothers and sisters.  I didn't even know where babies came from until I was almost grown.  Daddy would just send us out to play and when we came home, there'd be a new baby in Mama's arms.  The midwife would come up from town to see to Mama, cause there wasn't a doctor, not where we lived.

Down the hallway, I stepped into another, darker reality...

"There are bad people all around and sometimes at night, they try to kill me.  Oh not with a weapon," my patient hastily assures me, too savvy to the commitment laws to risk hospitalization.  "They use their minds."

A while later I walk in to meet a 99 year old, new lady.

"Who told you I was depressed?" she huffs.  "The doctor? Why that man doesn't do more than stand in my doorway barking questions! He doesn't know me!"

And he doesn't.  

He doesn't know about growing up on a plantation.  About the black cemetery with graves covered in crockery and dishes.  "They used to put their belongings on top of the graves," Yevette tells me. "Because they didn't have headstones."  She tells me about the books her mother read to her, the recitation contest she won for "Mrs. Smart Learns to Skate." She rummages through her drawers looking for the medal she won and can't find it.  She tells me about the books she loves and how stupid "Balloon Aerobics" is but says she plays it anyway because "It keeps me limber."  

I listen to her memories, grin when she says "I haven't told anyone about these things.  You know, all of this, it's going to be lost, these long ago things, and people won't know how it used to be."

We both nod sadly at this.

"You know," I tell her.  "That doctor is full of junk.  There is nothing wrong with you.  But I would hate it if I couldn't keep coming back to hear your memories.  Would you mind if I visited again?"

She cackles.  "I'd be delighted to talk to you again!"

I feel sorry for the doctor.  He really missed out.  Definitely not a book lover or a writer, I think.  No writer could walk away from this kind of treasure.   

"I have so many things I wonder about," the old lady muses, half to herself.

"Like what?"

"Like my mother," Yevette says.  "We lived in the middle of nowhere and yet she had hundreds of children's books.  Where did they all come from?"  She shakes her head slowly.  "I'll never know the answer to that.  It's lost in the past."

We both sigh, thinking of all the things we'll never know about what used to be or what could have been.  

I asked her what she thought was the secret to living such a long life and she shook her head and said she had no idea.  "It didn't run in my family.  They all died in their 80s."

But I think I know- it's her curiosity.  There is always something that interests Yevette, always something to wonder about and explore. 

"Life is a choice," she tells me.  "You can either have a bad one or a good one.  It's all up to you."

Yesterday was Nursing Home day and my friend, Buzz, wasn't doing too well.   Buzz is young, only 65, and he's dying.  He wound up in the nursing home after he arrived at the emergency room disoriented and dehydrated, a complication that arose after he got confused about his medications.  His wife had died 2 years before.  His son lived out of state and wasn't that involved anyway.  So Buzz was out of options.  He had to come live out his last few months in the nursing home.

Buzz wouldn't talk about dying but he would play cards.  When I saw a Pinochle deck lying out in his room, I said, "Oh, Buzz, you play Pinochle?"

"Why, sure I do, don't you?"

A farm boy from Kentucky playing what I thought was a game played mainly in the North or the Midwest?

So I pulled his empty wheelchair up to his bedside table and sat across from his throne-like armchair and dealt out the first hand of what became our weekly routine.

Only Buzz couldn't actually play Pinochle.  

The cancer had metastasized to his brain.  His short-term memory was failing him.  And he was trying desperately to hide it from me. 

If he admitted he couldn't remember, admitted how badly he hurt, took the pain meds his nurse offered constantly, it would mean he was dying.  Dying and alone.  

All Buzz wanted was to die with honor- his definition of honor.  He wanted to be brave.  The way Buzz saw it, dying wasn't so bad.  It meant being reunited with his beloved wife.  But showing weakness- that wasn't acceptable.

So we played "Pinochle" every Tuesday.  I quickly learned Buzz's memory and thinking weren't totally shot.  Instead, his brain functioned like a toaster with a short.  Sometimes his connection to the world was spotty.  Other times, he was all the way there.  Like when he beat me two weeks in a row, then decided I was "letting" him win and threw the game to "let" me win for three weeks after this. 

We were playing a modified version of War, with a deck containing only 9s,10s, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces. 

Buzz wouldn't admit he hurt and stared at me blankly when I decided to confront him about his prognosis.  "So, why is Hospice here then?" I asked him, hating myself.  Finally he shrugged.  "Dunno but they act like I'm already dead and I'm not ready!"

I went back to doing what felt right- plain old love.

Buzz sang to me, flirted outrageously and even proposed marriage.

Then, last week, he didn't feel well.  He was weak, his face drawn and gray.  "No, I don't hurt.  Deal out the cards," he told me.

But yesterday, he was on oxygen and for the first time, unable to get out of bed.

"His fever is 103.9," Nurse Alice told me.  "The dammed hospice nurse is useless! She won't give him anything stronger because she said 'He says he doesn't hurt.'" Alice stood right outside the room where the hospice nurse sat charting, her drill-sergeant voice loud enough to pierce through the thick wooden door.  "I'm his damned nurse! I know the man and he's in pain!  Screw her! I'll just work around her!"

And she did.

I went in to see Buzz and knew he was dying.  I sat beside him and patted his leg.  "Buzz, do you hurt?" I asked.

He was gasping for breath, despite the oxygen.  He was gripping the sheets with his one good hand, trying not to cry out in pain, but "No," he said, "I'm not in pain." He gasped, trying to breathe.  "Buzz, can I get you anything?"

"Yeah," he grunted.  "Get the cards...Play pinochle."

But the cards were gone.  They weren't in his room anywhere.  So I sat with him, promising thought I knew it wouldn't happen, that I would bring new cards next time.

"Do that," he whispered.

I got up to go and he cried, "Wait! Don't go...I need to tell you..."

I went back to his side, sat down, and held his hand.  "What Buzz?"

"Francine's pregnant..."

I didn't know who Francine was, but thought he meant his son's girlfriend.   He was finally going to have a grandchild.

"That's great, Buzz," I whispered.

"Now, I'm going to take a nap," he murmured, as Alice's pain medicine kicked in.

I left then, thinking I would never see him again.  

Last night, I awoke at 3:30 a.m, terrified by a bad dream in which something, some one was chasing me.  Just before I woke up I felt a hand on my shoulder.  The pursuer was catching me!  He gripped my shoulder, I steeled myself.  A hand softly caressed my cheek as the specter passed me. 

I knew then that I didn't need to be afraid.  I had the sense that my pursuer was not an evil force.  I couldn't fall back asleep for a long time.  It was strange this thought that Buzz had said goodbye, but I made a note of the time anyway, you know, just in case...

Today the nursing home social worker called to leave me a message.  "I thought you'd want to know," she said.  "At 3:30 a.m. Buzz left us."

One stop shopping.

Saw this sign on my way home from a day at the nursing home.  It's a lot like my life at the nursing home.  The conversations I have with people are often a hodge-podge of things that don't seem to go together- like bait and notary publics.  

When I first met Eleanor she had just arrived at the nursing home from a stay in the hospital.  She was recovering from a stroke and couldn't find the words she needed.  So, instead of wasting her time on looking for the right word, she'd wave her hand in the air and roll her eyes at me.  "Oh, doesn't matter!" she'd say and burst into tears.

Today she saw me and waved me over to her table in the day room.  "How are you!" she said, beaming.

I slid into the chair beside her, fairly certain she had no idea who I was.

"Guess what?" she demands.

"What?"

"Do you have any idea how old I am?" she asks.  Then, not waiting for my answer, she says, "I thought I was 78, at the most 85 but my daughter looked it up and guess what?" Her bright blue eyes twinkle mischeviously.  She's grinning like she's won the lottery.  "I'm 93 years old! Can you believe it?"

"No!" I say, having forgotten it myself.  "That is unbelievable."

Eleanor nods.  "Isn't it? I couldn't believe it myself!"  We laugh, partners in the grand joke.

Later, I ask how she likes her new, private room.

Eleanor nods wisely.  "You know, my father put me in with that girl.  He thought she would help me, but I tell you, he was wrong.  She points her finger at me like this." Eleanor demonstrates, jabbing her forefinger with an accusatory flourish.  "And her hand is a claw!"

Eleanor and I shake our heads, commiserating at the perfect picture Eleanor has painted of her former roommate- a scowling, shrewish woman with advanced dementia.

"I couldn't take it any more.  I told my daughter I didn't care if it made me sell my house, as long as nobody..." She stops, the word lost.  Then she waves her hand in the air, just like she did when I first met her and says, "Oh, well. You know."

I nod.  "Yeah, I know.  As long as it doesn't hurt your daughter's inheritance."

"Exactly," Eleanor agrees.  She chuckles then looks me right in the eye.  "You know, I've been ready to die for awhile now.  I just don't know why I'm here."

I cover her hand with my own.  "I know," I say, because really, I do know.  She has been telling me this every time I've talked to her for months now. 

"I mean, I've done enough.  Nobody went off into the sky or anything," Meaning she didn't raise a rocket scientist or a president.  "But they did all right.  He told me there were 284 who showed up last week."

I think about this for a second, remember she has a son and guess he is a minister.  Turns out this is correct.  

"Being a mother is a very big deal," I say.  "You raised two wonderful children."

She nods in agreement.

"You know I live here now," she says, shaking her head in disbelief.  "I never wanted it to come to this."

I squeeze her hand and she grips mine tighter.

"But," she says, and the twinkle returns to her eyes.  "Now I finally got my own ter-let.  I don't have to share.  Of course, it's big.  I sit down and the next thing I know, I'm stuck in the thing."  Eleanor laughs at her misfortune.  "I have to pull that piece of string." She waves her hand in the air, unable to find and say "call bell."  "Then they, you know."  She flails her fingers above her head, her laughter so contagious we both giggle.  "I know they're saying, 'It's the old lady again! She's stuck in her terlet!" 

I hang onto my friend's hand, hoping that should I have the misfortune to wind up at 93 in a nursing home,  I somehow  summon up half the humor, bravery and grace my friend, Eleanor seems to pull out of thin air.

How rare is this? I'm home alone...not counting the 4 dogs and the cat.

All alone.

A. Lone.

For an entire night!

You might think, as I did, that alot would get accomplished.  Beds changed. Floors mopped. Perhaps dusting.  

Okay, so no dusting- but something I could point to with pride- "Look what I got done!"

Maybe even a poundcake.  

So what have I done?  I ordered an entire pizza, just for me, made just the way I like it- 6 cheese with veggies.  And I've been here in the big green easy chair learning how to use a new photo editing program I read about on Fred's blog.It's called Picknikand, as a photography neophyte,  I'm thinking I like it.  You can do cool little things with it BUT it is not the best use of my time, I'm sure.

Still, these pictures make me think of the cabin years ago...

 And  I want to take Joe's truck for a joy ride...

I can sit here and be mind-less and maybe let go of Tuesday at the Nursing Home where Fred is dying.  He's in denial and won't tell anyone that he hurts because it would mean his cancer isn't going away.  When he heard my voice, he came to his door and smiled down the hall until I felt the warmth and turned to see him waiting on me.  When I reached his room, he was already fumbling in his bedside table for the playing cards, looking like an out-of-work, too thin Santa Claus.

"How're you doing?" I asked, dealing out our first hand.

"Fine. Fine," he said, avoiding my eyes.

"Fred, if you're so fine, why's Hospice here?"

It was a first for us- me breaking the rules and pressing, trying to head-butt through his impenetrable wall but I had to try.  I had to know- is the cancer in your brain, too, or do you just not want to talk about it?

Fred scowled at his hand and didn't answer me.

"I came to see you last week but Hospice was in here with you.  What was that about?"

The frown deepened and my heart felt like it was breaking.  I was not going to ask a third time.  Inside, I could feel what I was doing was wrong.  Fred's wife died two years ago.  He just wants to get there- with her.  He can only be brave by playing cards and pretending I'm a pretty companion here to hold his hand no matter what.  So screw social work.  Do what feels right in your heart, I told myself.

"I don't know why they're here.  They act like I'm dead already."

I hear him say this and think of Maryanne, who lived at the end of his hallway up until a few weeks ago.   "I don't want them here,"  she told me.  "They're rushing me! I'm not dead yet!"  But a month later, she was.  Hospice won't take you if they think you'll last longer than six months.

I look at Fred and he meets my eyes now.  His sadness fills me, overflows until it fills the room and swamps us.

"Is it my turn or yours?" he asks softly.