This is one of the cleaner and nicer homes I've been in. No urine smell, no yelling, super-nice staff, and they even have a dog, named Millie. But there's something so painful, even brutal about the residents who are variously confused, angry, out-of-it, or sleeping. This place has done what it can, and it's not enough.
It seems wrong to have that many old and sick people living together - they will never have a chance at a beautiful, bright home because they are starting with such a deficit. I want them integrated in, surrounded by babies and young people and middle-aged, other old people, all ages, all flavors. I don't think the fabric of life is meant to bunch up so at the end. To keep it smooth, it must be weighted out with other things besides the TV muttering uselessly in the background and take your pills at 3:00.
I want them woven back in to some pattern somewhere; dinner cooking, sun peeping in through the window, kids arguing about Christmas presents, and yes, Aunt Grace wringing her hands and talking to herself in the corner - clean the table because the nurse comes at 3:00. I know we are busy, rushing, occupied and full in our lives. I know I've never had to care for an aged loved one and so really I don't know what it's like. I also know that the San Mateo Convalescent Hospital hurts my heart, makes me sick inside. I will go back - I feel like I have to. But it will be hard.
Last night I read "A Little Fear" by Patricia Wrightson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patricia_Wrightson). She is the author of my favorite book in the entire world (yes, I have ONE favorite book): Moon Dark. In this book last night, an older lady runs away from an assisted living home to a cottage her uncle left her when he passed. There she adopts a dog named Hector and has a prolonged battle with a little fearsome spirit of the land. It ends happily, as all good books ought to, with her losing to the little spirit, deciding to buy a cottage in town with a garden, and she never has to go back to the "Sunset House" again. May we all be so blessed as we age.
PS:
When it is time for me to die
Let me die
Like an animal
For animal is what I am
Set me out as carrion
for no greater honor
than carrion
is there for animal to be.
Or if you must
Inter me to the ground as I am
Plant a fruit tree on top
I'll bless the earthworms with carbon, phosphorus and iron.
You come by
Have a pear
and say Hi.
4 comments:
You are such an amazing writer and see the world in such truthful yet hopeful ways. I love to read your words as you paint your pictures, and I, I shed my tears for the plights of the ones we have left behind.
much love
your cuz
so honest (in your typical way) -- and beautiful of you not only to be moved but to DO something about it.
i agree entirely that it's not right to partition the human lifespan in the way we have -- the community so fragmented and splintered. so much kinder and more honest to integrate the whole. keep the fabric smooth (love that image of yours). yes, woven back into the pattern. i find myself thinking of the fates weaving lives... it's like we've let it all unravel, instead of being true to the intended pattern (larger and smaller) and honest about the fact that fibers do get snipped, lives do end, and that's the way of it. there's a beauty to that, regardless. instead we've gotten all tangled up. so sad.
Awwww, thanks to you both. Jen, I was wondering if at some point you & BJ might be up for a visit with me, or if it would be too distressing? I would think it might be a bit much for the littlest one.
hmmm. let me think on that. def likely to be too much for the girl. not sure about the boy. i'm thinking maybe wait another year...
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