There are people like me who struggle to find and show love, and people like Melissa, who practically bursts with love, and can life people up in ways I can’t or don’t know how to do.
People like Melissa struggle with life sometimes but are blessed in at least one way: they are doing what they ought to be doing; they love what they do. I had a window into that love today.
It is common during the holidays to come across residents who sit alone and cry. It isn’t that they are unhappy at the Mansion, they say, it’s just that the holidays remind them of what they have lost and will never have again: a life with their families, the chance to cook and serve their loved ones, a life with their animals, in their houses, in their lives.
No facility can replace all that.
Yesterday and this morning, I came across the gregarious and always cheerful Georgianna, she was sitting alone in the corner of the Great Room, and I saw the tears streaming down her face.
“Is this about missing your family around the holidays?” I asked, knowing the answer. She said yes. “I’m lucky to be here, ” she said, “but I miss my family so much around Christmas.”
I asked if I could help, but she shook her head, and I knew better than to try to talk her out of it.
Active listening teaches that this is an inadequate response. Because what’s hurting her isn’t going to get better, and she knows it. It would be a lie to say otherwise.
Suddenly, Melissa came swooping up to us with her big smile and high energy – we are pretty good friends, the two of us – and wrapped Georgianna in her arms and said, “honey, you have a sad face. Let’s go upstairs. I want to wash your hair, do your nails, put some fresh make-up on.”
This is what I love about these aides. Somebody always notices, somebody always helps.
Georgianna lit up; she said she would love that, she erupted into a big broad smile. It would never have occurred to me to suggest that to Georgianna, and she and I talk all the time. Nor would I have known how to do it, or been comfortable doing it.
Mellissa practically carried Georgianna upstairs. When I came back to the Mansion later to drop off some large-sized bras and teach my Meditation Workshop (I’m good at this), Georgianna looked fresh and younger and was her self.
“I feel a lot better,” she said, smiling again. I’m sure she was still sad, but she had found herself. I think we all need to be cared for sometimes.
More than once, I’ve seen Melissa sitting down in front of an unhappy resident – I saw it again this afternoon, and she gets close and looks them in the eye and says “okay, what can I do for you to make this better?”
And she always finds something. She has the most precious heart.
I sat with Melissa at the Christmas Party, and I asked her about her response to Georgianna in the morning.
She says when the female residents are down, they love being cared for, they love having their hair and nails done and getting their faces made up. “It makes them feel alive and loved again,” she said, smiling that huge smile.
This, I thought, is how love works, how a great heart can work miracles.
Melissa never runs from trouble; she rushes to it. And I know she has been struggling; lately, life with two kids in a big apartment is expensive, and she does not make a lot of money.
So this week, I got to do something for her.
During the first snowstorm we had a month ago, I saw Melissa getting out of her car in a sweatshirt. It was 8 degrees outside.
I asked her if she had a winter coat, and she said no, she didn’t need one. But her son Juan did, she said, he had to walk to school in the morning and had nothing worn to wear. I asked if I could buy him a coat, and she hesitated and then said yes. She couldn’t turn that down.
I knew Melissa was having a rough time – she is an uncomplaining single mother with two children – so I send Juan a winter coat, and he loved it.
I also send both of them winter boots. I kept sending her winter coats I bought at consignment stores and online, but she kept sending them back to me. They didn’t fit, or she didn’t need them, or I had already done enough.
I knew her well enough to know she didn’t want to take advantage of me.
She would accept help for her son, but not for herself. I told her I wasn’t going to quit that I was just as stubborn as she was, but I wasn’t sure.
When I saw a forecast a week or so ago predicting a week of bitter cold and storms, I tried one more time and got a fitting black down coat. Shopping for bargains online, I got a reasonable price for the coat it was on sale, $140, half the price it would have cost on L.L. Bean.
I didn’t hear anything from Melissa, but the day the big weekend storm broke last week, she texted me this photo of her and her son Juan in the middle of the storm, wearing their coats and boots.
Wow, did that feel good. Nobody could work harder or do more good than Melissa.
She ought to be warm, at least. I send Juan a neat Leggo castle set, which should arrive just after Christmas. That ought to tick her off. Yeah…
Thanks to all of you for giving me the support to do this.