Life's Lessons

I swore to myself when I worked at Lifecare Center in Kennewick, I would never work with geriatric patients. I couldn't handle it. I figured there was a reason someone abandoned them in their time of need; left to be someone else's problem. They weren't the problem. The system failed them. As someone who spent most of their life focusing on the well-being of themselves, it was easy to say, "they are going to die soon anyway." Then I started working for a wonderful company called 'Visiting Angels." It was then my life changed for the better. I met Dick.

Dick has a ganglial degenerative disorder, similar to ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. I met a man that had so much to say, but the words got tangled in the spidered nerves in his brain that affected his speech. Nerves fired, then sputtered out. His left side is also paralyzed from this disease. Watching the disease eat away at his motor function is troubling, but it cannot affect his spirit. His eyes still glow. I can see it every time I walk into the room. Life is 90% observation and he can see everything. At Lifecare, I saw more than I cared too. I saw the life leaving people's eyes. I watched them be abandoned when they needed help the most. Help is not always physical. Sometimes people just need a smile to realize that someone is glad they are there. That's what I see when I see Dick. The last time I was there, as I helped him from his wheelchair, and into his recliner, he looked up at me and with what seemed to be all of his might, he said "thank you." Home care can be a thankless job, until that happens.

Then I met Ed. Thirty years ago, Ed had bladder cancer. Doctors gave him five years to live. Although bed bound, when I come to see him, he shows me what it is like to appreciate life. Melanoma has attacked his ears and nose. Lung cancer has begun to take hold as well. Still, he jokes about how his wife talks too much, about how the "Sea-chickens couldn't play their way out of a paper bag," and how, if he could have his way, I would be their full-time care giver. The first day I met him, he explained to me that he was not a piece of meat. Sadly I know exactly what he meant. I witnessed it, first hand. As much as I swore I would never go back to geriatric care, I find myself drawn to the humanity that comes with it. I am enveloped in humility; entangled in lessons from lives already lived. I am taught appreciation in the simplest of things. I admire Ed for his desire to fight for one more day to tell his wife he loves her, but to please not talk until it is a commercial. I hang on every word. Not for its meaning, but the effort taken to share the menial. If it is important enough to drain energy in sharing, is it not worth time for me to listen?

Then there is Paul, a 6'4" elderly, manic-depressive man who has some pretty volatile mood swings. Our first introduction was him asking me if I was there to break his knee caps. Although daily mobility had left him, a firm handshake had not. His wife struggled to get his cooperation with anything. I could see her frustration being taken out on him. He felt her frustration and I am sure felt emasculated knowing he could no longer take care of himself, let alone his wife. During one of his tantrums, I bent down to let him know that I was here to help HIM take care of his wife. I told him he needed to let me help him do this because I couldn't do it alone. His eyes met mine and he slowly nodded. My 3rd trip there, he was in his recliner. I went over to say hello and he looked up at me and started singing. His wife told me that every time she tells him I am coming he starts singing like he used to when he and his wife were first married. She started crying.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed at life. I think of these specific individuals and I kick myself because my life is not that difficult. I have it pretty easy. Yes, there are things that happen that I wonder, "why me?" Then I think of the aforementioned. People wonder how they can change the lives of others. It isn't money. It isn't gifts, or "things." These "things" get lost, broken, sold, stolen. No one can steal your spirit away. No one can take your sense of humor. No one can steal your stories about where you have been. No one can steal what is important to you. You will be old someday too. How do you want to be treated? How do you want to be remembered? Hopefully now, I can begin to answer that for myself. Thank you God for pointing me in the right direction.