I love this image of Bonnie and Kelly greeting Helen at the door to the Mansion, so much genuine love and feeling.

I have not often been around openly loving and demonstrative people in my life, it was always a little dicey to show much emotion in my world. The love that the Mansion staff and residents have for one another is a very precious and rare thing.

One reason this time was so hard on the displaced residents was that this love and support was cut off from them. This was not about the owners or the state, it was about a system that has its own rules, many of them good and justified, but that has great power and sometimes acts unilaterally.

I wonder if there was not a way for the Mansion residents to stay in their “home” while repairs were being made. Perhaps there wasn’t a way, I am no architect or engineer. I think Ellen, shown above being greeted by Bonnie and Kelly, felt the disruption as or more deeply than anyone.

She was afraid every day that she could never go back to the Mansion, where she feels so loved and safe, and I saw her anxiety rise. I wonder if there wasn’t some way for the system to communicate with her and reassure her. Maybe there is no way.

I told her every day that it would be soon, but I know some of the residents were starting to wonder if I was telling them the truth, and the truth was that nobody was confiding the details of the repair work to me, I could only pass on what I had heard and believed.

I am liking one of my new life mottos. I can’t be perfect, but I can do the best I can for as long as I can. Just as dogs cannot live a life free of trouble, risk or danger, neither can even our most fragile and dependent people. And these folks have seen a lot of life.

Ellen said she just wanted to sit in her room by herself for awhile and reassure herself that she was safe at home.

She is.