The last few days have been powerful in many ways. They have been trying, emotional and interesting. They have taken my life in a way I wouldn't have imagined even a few days before. The driver of all of this is that my father is extremely ill with heart failure. It is likely that he won't be with us too much longer. As such, I cleared my calendar, put my business and many other aspects of my life on the shelf to join my family, spending time sitting with him in the hospital and nursing home.
This afternoon, I spent quite a bit of time doing just that. But for each of us, hunger calls. So I asked one of the nursing assistants on that floor of the care home where I could find a cafeteria. To my surprise, she not only told me but showed me exactly where it was as she walked with me across the entire rather lengthy senior care complex. Eventually we came to what I expected to be a cafeteria. In actuality it was a sit-down restaurant.
This was late in the afternoon, well between meal times so there were few to no other people in the restaurant. The attendant at the restaurant ushered me to a table and took my order, then headed for the kitchen. A few seconds later another of the staff came out with my coke as I waited. \
While waiting, I was chatting on-line with a couple of friends. It was a change of pace from - well, from sitting there holding my dad's hand. As I was typing a text message on facebook messenger, my thoughts were suddenly interrupted with a question. On the other side of the divider separating the restaurant from the lobby/hallway, a woman's voice asked me, "Is it dinner time already?"
I looked around to see a pleasant looking lady, quite senior, but less so than most of those I had seen here. I asked her what she meant, to which she replied that she wondered if I was there for the dinner hour (mercifully, I don't think she thought I was a resident). I explained that I had just stopped there for a late lunch (it was nearly 3PM). She asked me if I was one of the staff, and I explained that I was visiting my father who was in the recuperative care area of the facility.
I saw a name tag attached to a rather fine necklace. Her name was Myrtle. Myrtle was probably in her mid 80s. She was well dressed, and was clearly eager to let people know she was still conversational, and was quite ready to talk with anyone she could. She stood comfortably on the other side of the divider and seemed to get around without assistance. She did not have a cane or walker.
She explained that she lived in the independent living apartments attached to the facility. She was from South Dakota but had come here because her family now all lived here. I introduced myself and told her I was from Minneapolis, but that I had grown up in Madison. She also told me she had traveled quite a bit and now she and her husband lived in a place where they no longer needed to keep up their house. Now they could just travel as they pleased, which seemed to be quite a bit.
A short time later, a man I assume to be her husband appeared through the doorway opposite the restaurant. He also looked healthy, and was about her same age. She waved and I said thank you for introducing herself to me. She turned and walked away.
Meeting Myrtle was one of those brief moments that make you think. Her world is so different from mine. Her life is still one of adventure - or at least one of travel. While she lives in a senior care facility, she did not appear to be of declining health herself. Yet she seemed to need someone new with whom she could carry on a conversation, however brief.
Was she lonely? Was she simply a friendly soul? How much else was there to her story? What she told me in our brief conversation was that she was quite well traveled. I wonder how many adventures she held in her memory. I suspect we had merely scratched the surface of her life story. I would bet that she had seen a lot in the years of her life.Were they positive? How much other-than-positive had she experienced? In the little time we had talked, I had gotten the impression that there was far more to this lady. And as she walked away, I wondered how many other seniors in the care home had stories to tell that were just as varied. What a treasure of life experiences must lay in the myriad of beds throughout this - and many other - facilities.
I think of efforts like the "Greatest Generation Project" trying to document as much as possible of the life stories of the generation that fought World War II. I think of the many families that may or may not have captured that history before Grandpa and Grandma passed on. And I think of the stories my dad told my brother and I when Gwyn and I visited Madison at Christmas time. He told me more of how he met my mom. He talked about his experiences during the war (he worked on the home front as a draftsman at a company making rocket fins). What a different life they lived. How different their perspective was from what we know today. There were a zillion unasked questions, all arising in my mind too late to take their place in our conversation.
As this woman walked away, I returned to my on-line chat. Our conversation receded into my memory, not awakening until a few hours later when the ideas for this article began to take shape. A million questions, a zillion imagined scenarios. And they were all sparked by that one moment - that brief conversation with Myrtle.
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