A few days ago, as I walked into the nursing home on my way to my mother's room, I noticed that there was one old woman sitting by the aviary who looked a lot more alert than the others. Most of the residents I have seen in that place appear to be well and truly out of it, incapable of coherent communication. But this one woman was sitting up straight, actually watching the birds. And when I walked past, we made eye contact. I said "hello," and she said "hello," right back.
My mother has been spending most of her time in her room, by herself. She nearly always refuses to go to the dining room for meals because, she says, "Those people are horrible. They are all crazy." I have taken a look into the dining room during a meal, and I have to agree that I wouldn't much want to eat dinner with that crowd. But I can also see that not all the residents are totally out of it. So, when I ran across the nursing home's social worker on Saturday, I asked her if she would make an effort to see if there were residents that my mother could talk to. She responded with a strange smile (the smile seems pasted on her face at all times, actually), saying "What sort of people would you like for her to talk to?" And I replied, perhaps a bit impatiently: "People who are capable of carrying on a conversation!" She appeared to ponder the idea, and suggested that maybe the aides, or maybe the "activities people" could help me with that. Clearly, this kind of work is not part of her job.
Yesterday afternoon, when I went for a visit, I encountered a strong odor of feces near my mother's room. And Mother was in her pajamas, in bed. I was not pleased with either of these situations. I went to the nursing station, where there were 4 staff people sitting around, chatting. Odor of feces? They assured me it was not coming from my mother's room, but from her suite-mate's room. Mother not up and dressed? That was because she would not let anyone help her get dressed (Mother's version, of course, is that nobody would help her). My dilemma? Do I inquire as to when or if someone is going to go into Suite-mate's room and deal with the shit (literally)? Do I pursue further the matter of my mother lying in bed in her pajamas in the middle of the afternoon? Up till now I have been very nice, very chatty and jovial with the nursing staff, with the idea that if I am nice to them, they will be more inclined to be nice to my (very difficult) mother. But how far must I go with this? How insistent (how obnoxious, from their perspective) can I be, without running the risk that someone will take it out on Mother? I have no idea.
The picture above is my parents (with Rip) in the early 1950's. One of the very few pictures I have ever seen of the two of them, together. My father was an Air Force bomber pilot, veteran of WWII; my mother was an Officer's Wife, much the same way that Jessica Lange was an officer's wife in the film called Blue Sky...
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