Wednesday with Jen 8/22/12
It had been a few months
since I visited my old friend, Jen in her assisted living residence (aka nursing home) in Hillsborough, NC. I don’t know how the time passed this spring
and summer, but it did and in the meantime, Jen had turned 81. I felt bad about
not visiting all summer. I had an
appointment at UNC Chapel Hill in the dental school, so I decided I would just
head to Hillsborough following that. Guilt
came along with that decision, since it was my twin sons’ 14th
birthday and we had a dinner party planned for that night. I knew I would be racing against the clock to
make it home for dinner in time, but something pulled me towards my visit to
Jen and there was nothing that could stop me, it seemed.
I always get this nervous
feeling as I approach a residence like this and I daresay, the fact that I have
to go into the Memory Impaired section, a locked unit, makes me even more
anxious. But, there was Jen sitting in a
wheelchair at the nurse’s station. She
had shrunk even more since I last saw her and with her sunken deep set eyes,
grayish skin tone, and swollen feet and legs, she appeared frail. I had been warned
by my friend, Lesley (who visits weekly) and told that Jen really was “ready to
go.”
So, immediately, Jen
recognized me, lit up and hugged me saying, “Oh Ann, I’m so happy to see you.
Let’s go outside!” Okay then, I thought,
and I pushed her wheelchair to the outside garden, pulled up a chair and sat close. Looking into Jen’s lovely grey eyes, I saw a
glaze and a blankness that I didn’t remember being there. She told me frankly that she was tired and
ready to die. I asked her what that felt
like and she said that the TIA (doctor jargon for “small strokes”) were taking
their toll and that as soon as she would get back her memory and word recall,
she would be hit with another TIA. “I
cannot tell my children this,” she said, “because they want me to live and they
are afraid of my dying, so I don’t tell them, but I am telling you. My daughter in Connecticut thinks she cannot
go on without me and that she won’t be able to make decisions without me, but
she is smart and I reassured her that she would be fine.” I sighed and some uncontrollable tears rolled
down my cheeks. I fought hard to be
strong and just listen, unbiased and unemotional, but that proved impossible. However, I really was accepting of what she
was telling me and she seemed to appreciate that. And then, we moved on and our
conversation grew cheerful and sharp.
We spoke of fashion and of
shoes and of styles. Of I Miller shoes and how she wished she had a good pair
of size 10’s but that she was sure they were out of business by now. They are
indeed, and have been since the 1970’s. We spoke of my sons and their problems. We gossiped about people we knew from Raleigh
and Jen would just cover her eyes, head in hands over the most outrageous of
the behaviors. Then, when she was finished with her moment of disbelief, we
would throw our heads back, laughing.
She remembered the minutest details.
We spoke of the widowed deacon whom I suspect many older women hoped to
become involved with. I did not realize
that Jen had brought him dinner a few times.
“Yes, she said, “he so clearly did not want to get involved with me. Why I even brought him salmon for dinner and
well, that was the one time he invited me to sit down and share the meal.” We spoke of the rector from the church we’d
both attended and how her life had so drastically changed as a result of a
stroke as well. Jen confessed that in
actuality she never really felt as though she was in the inner circle of the
rector and her close friends. It was
indeed, a popularity contest, we agreed.
She raved about the women who
come to visit her every week and the “small sandwiches they bring.” “After all,” she said, “who wants to eat a
big meal when you’re just sitting around?”
I agreed. She told me that they are fun and nice and care for her and
that it means so much to her. Then, she said to me, “Don’t ever feel bad about
not coming to see me often. It is really
okay. I know you care. And, I know you
“always show up.” This has been our
mantra of connection. We have both
always respected that about each other – we knew that at every event, at every
funeral or wedding, we would both show up. We would look at each other and nod in
acknowledgment of “Yep, you showed up again and so did I!”
I asked her, “Jen, what do
you miss most?” She sighed, closed her
eyes and said, “I guess my freedom would be it and my car and driving. But I am
really okay being here. I am not angry
and am not fighting it. It is okay. I have had all these strokes and this is
how it is.” I asked her about her
husband whom I had never heard of. They
have been divorced for a very long time and when I asked her why, she said, “He
really didn’t care about me at all. He
is 86 and has Alzheimers now.” She
smiled a smile of irony.
Jen told me that when she
heard about a family moving to Raleigh (in 1993,) coming to her church from
Southampton, Long Island, she thought to herself, “Wow, they must be very rich
and very chic.” She was surprised to
find that we were neither! One thing we
can always laugh about is the fact that when she came to help me with my
newborn twins in 1998, she asked where the babies’ cribs were. “Cribs?” I
asked. “We don’t have cribs. We
co-sleep.” She never got over the shock
and never stopped relating this story to others. We have laughed about this many times and
yesterday she said, “Truth be told, I couldn’t believe that you didn’t ‘crush
them” I roared laughing this time. “Crushed them??? Oh my!” I said.
We talked some more about our
old friend the deacon to whom she had brought a salmon dinner and how eloquent
he is. He was an English professor and I
believe that he is almost tortured by his mind and his language that is so far
beyond the average person. Jen said, “I
used to use very big words, but there is no one here to use them with, so now I
am forgetting them. “Oh no,” I said,
“let’s think of some big words and use them right now. So we did, and we laughed some more. We decided that we were two very
sophisticated women simply by virtue of the fact that she moved from
Connecticut and I moved from Long Island.
We really liked that about each other. It was simple and it was pure…
just two women, many years apart in age, admiring each other.
We talked about the fat socks
she was wearing and of the wrapping on her legs to stop the swelling. “It is my heart” she said, “it is not working
and the water is building up in me – 40 something – liters? Quarts” I don’t
know but it is a lot. I looked at Jen and wondered, just when does one begin to deteriorate this way? When do a woman's breasts deflate or move down to join the belly? Does it happen on a certain day or always gradually? "I am closer now to
my children, because they come and visit me a lot and the daughter in
Connecticut is coming soon. My daughter who lives here is so loving, and we
struggled with our relationship for years.
But, not anymore. I love her so much,” she said. "I have a great son who
I love as well and he will come to visit me soon too.”
I began to worry about
traffic as it was getting near 5 pm and I had a long way to go. “Oh Jen, I said, I need to go for Sam and Will’s birthday
dinner.” “Of course, she said, “You do
need to go. I understand. It is fine. How could those little babies be 14?” I wheeled her back into the nurse’s
station area and asked a woman who walked by to take a picture of us. I hugged Jen so tightly and held her hand. I
love the photo! The woman who took our
picture turned out to be the director of the facility and I said, “My friend
Jen is a very smart woman. Be sure and
involve her in things that make her have to use her brain and her great
vocabulary.” “Sure will, “ she said. Jen
said, “Oh, I love that.” And then, I
hugged her again and made note of the fact that we had matching green lizard watch straps! We looked deep into
each others eyes and I said, “Oh Jen, you’ve been such a good friend.” She said, “We really connect with each other.
We always have. And, I love you.” “I
love you too,” I said, “Goodbye Jen.” I knew.....
I drove home feeling guilty
and rushed and had to take all kinds of detours to circumvent one traffic jam
after another. Instead of 45 minutes
home, it took an hour and a half. I got
home in time for dinner and a birthday celebration, so it was fine.
