Maria and I brought some of our own Bingo Prizes tonight. We gave one gift certificate to the Battenkill Book Store to Wayne, and another to Tim, who has just returned to the Mansion from a rehab facility. We were glad to see him back in the Bingo game.
Both men are avid readers.
Peggie won two teddy bears, courtesy of an angel from the Army Of Good who sent a box of them to me for distribution to the Mansion. These are special and beautiful bears and the residents loved them. So did Peggy, who has a growing pile of stuffed animals in her room.
I can’t say how much the residents appreciate stuffed animals and letters, for some, it is the only affection they can express physically. Peggie is proud of her red hair. Peggie, Tim and Wayne all welcome letters, you can write them c/o The Mansion 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
Mulch To The Garden, Cushions On The Porch, AC to Jackie’s Room
We had a big turnout at Bingo Night Friday, one of has to sit with Joanie when the letters are called, but almost everybody else won at least once, and then Joan won too. Everyone loved the Bingo Prizes that you are sending to them (The Mansion, 11 S.Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816), thanks.
The box of Snow Leopards was a bit hit. Your tents and garden supplies are here or on the way.
In the Small Acts Of Great Kindness Department, I have this report for Friday. I want you all to know what you have done.
Four sets of summer pajamas are now being worn by female residents who were hot at night.
We now have cushions on everyone of the side porch rocking chairs, and cushion back for four of the chairs for the residents with back issues.
I delivered six big bags of brown mulch to the Manson gardens Friday morning. The garden is ready top plant.
I ordered a new portable air conditioner for Jackie, a new tenant who is sensitive to heat. We did a survey of the air conditioners we bought last year, and with this new one, every resident who needs or wants an air conditioner now has one.
The Mansion has no central air conditioning system, it is an old building, and some of the rooms cannot be air conditioned for structural or other reasons. You may remember we bought some large and efficient fans. So everyone who needs cooling now has cooling, including the kitchen staff, who got a big window air conditioner in the late Fall.
This has made an amazing difference at the Mansion and I wanted to share this good news with you. Jackie’s new portable air conditioner will arrive on Wednesday or Thursday of this week, along with a window venting and power kit.
Thank you. Your generation donations of dirt, mulch and bulbs will be going into the Mansion garden this coming week. I will try to record this event. And your Bingo Prizes are a great smash. So is the Mansion Wish List, the three portable tents from the big annual picnic are on the way.
If you wish to contribute to my Mansion work, you can send a contribution to Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816 or via Paypal, [email protected].
Sadness is necessary, sadness is a cleansing of the soul, or, as one priest/author put it, the carwash of the psyche.
Maria and I went to the Mansion to run the Friday night Bingo Games, with our hardy and growing band of players. It is sometimes painful to run this games, sometimes joyous. There is great satisfaction for the winners, it is somethimes hard to watch those who struggle to hear, see, or move their fingers.
In many ways, aging is about learning what you cannot do any more, and that is what the residents often learn as they try to listen and react and keep track.
They sometimes struggle bravely to win their games.
After the game, I went into the activity room to put away the Bingo game, and the room was dark, all the residents had gone to her rooms, and suddenly a shadow appeared in the doorway, moving slowly and erratically. It was someone I recognized right away.
I’ll call her “Bea” and I saw she was struggling and looking at me.
I saw she was frightened, she was whispering to me.
I got closer to hear her, and she said “please help me,” and I saw she was struggling to stand up. I knew her well, she is well into her 90’s and growing very disoriented and frail. I took her arm and guided her to the sofa, she had a hard time sitting down. “I’m frightened,” she said, “something is wrong,” and her eyes look vacant and out of focus.
There was nothing for me to do other than to go quickly and get help.
An aide on the evening shift came quickly to help her, she said she needed no help, and I left.
It was not my place to stay and witness what happened next. In the morning, she may be at the Mansion, or she may be in a nursing home, or she may be gone. One poet wrote that death is either the last sleep or the great beginning. I don’t know which.
Maria saw “Bea” also, and when we came home she cried a bit, she said “she just seemed so lonely. There was such a great sense of loneliness in the room.”
There was, and I could feel it too. Maria said she didn’t want me to hide my sadness from her, and I told her it was too deep for me to raise.
The sense of great aloneness gave me a chill.
“Bea” was very frightened, she knew something was wrong, but I also know she no longer has any control over the way she might be ill, or the way she might die. She is too weak and confused to make those kinds of decisions to control the end of her life.
She has been to the hospital several times in recent months, she will probably go many times more. No one on these many trips will ask her what she really wants.
She is losing the ability to understand what is happening to her. Everyone is too busy to talk about what is happening.
The country just doesn’t want to face up to death, or what we owe the elderly. There is great alarm about the growing suicide rate in America, and it is a troubling thing.
Yet I often see another side of it. “Bea” has told me several times, as our friend Connie did before she died, that she wished to go, she was tired of feeling poorly, of being rushed to the hospital, of being given more pills, and having more surgeries, and healing more wounds that cannot heal.
“Why can’t they just let me go?,” she asks me when we are alone. Because they can’t, I tell her, it isn’t up to them to make those decisions, they can’t violate the law. They care, and they do the best they can.
I know Bea wants to face death with dignity, she is simply exhausted from a long and sometimes difficult life, and from all of her pills and procedures. There is no family around, and as loving as the staff and aides are, it is a lonely time for her, the loneliness comes from within, and no dog or activity can resolve it. She is close to the end, but has nothing to say about how it will occur or where.
I empathize with her fear.
There is talk of a new national suicide prevention program to dissuade people from taking their lives. But is that always a poor choice for everyone?. If you work in elderly care you see people hanging onto life for years, often against their wishes. It is sad to see them suffer so, when many are ready to let go of life and pain and loss. I don’t have an answer for this, but I would love to see a conversation about it.
Who gave us the right to tell people who have lived their full lives how and when they must die? Bea can tell us.
“It is by doing down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life,” wrote Joseph Campbell. “Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” That is my belief, and my faith. But sometimes this just seems too dark for me.
When we left “Bea” sitting on her sofa, she seemed to me to have fallen into the abyss. I suspect they have called for an ambulance by now, as they have before, and as they are supposed to do. I hope she finds some treasure there. I hope to see her again.
When we got home, we saw a new post from the Gulleys on their Bejosh Farm Journal, they have come home after their 18-day trip and Carol wrote about the meaningful trip they took together and their precious time with one another.
It was also apparent in her piece that Ed’s cancer is rapidly advancing, it is clearly “winning,” she wrote.
She said he was unable to get out of bed on Saturday, his left side is no longer permitting him to stand on his own. Some members of her family brought a motorized wheelchair over to Ed tonight.
I will admit this made us sadder, and I write often about accepting life as it is, but this news is difficult, not what I hoped to hear. I see the abyss, I don’t get to see the treasure, although I sometimes feel it deep inside of me. I have not spoken with Ed for awhile, this does not offend me, I understand it. What is he supposed to say?
I have avoided messaging the Gulleys too often or rushing to see them, Carol seems overwhelmed, as she has every right to be, and their first obligation is to their family, not me.
I don’t come from the farm world, where the habit of dropping in is so ingrained. At times like this, I wait to be invited, anything else to me is an invasion of privacy. Carol texted me tonight, worried that I felt unwelcome, she asked me to forgive her if she made me feel that way.
This was awful to hear, I am in no way upset with Carol, she has never made me or Maria feel anything but welcome. Neither has Ed.
I just was waiting for her to tell me it was okay, perhaps I should have just gone on over. That is my issue, not hers, I always back away rather than rush in. I see this is a sacred family time, I just don’t feel easy assuming I can intrude on it without permission any time I want. It may not be time for good cheer.
I guess you can do too much or do too little, there is no handbook for this.
Carol and I sent messages of love back and forth, and she said of course they want to see us, they are just trying to get used to a situation they never imagined.
And of course I understand. I think Carol knows that now. We are coming on Sunday if it still seems right for them, and I told Carol I will text her or call first to make sure the timing is good.
Ed owes me nothing, and I want nothing for him other that to be free of pain and fear and at peace. He has his hands and body and mind and soul full. He can do what he wishes.
I can only imagine what he is thinking and feeling. I imagine there is also a great sense of loneliness, even though he is surrounded by people who love him.
It just sucks, is the best way I can put it. It is hard for me to imagine Ed, the most active of men, unable to stand up to go outside and kiss a cow on the nose or pull a calf out of one.
I want to give only what is needed and wanted, not one thing more. I am eager to see Ed on Sunday. He was and is a treasure, long before the abyss. I pray that he finds peace and compassion. We will be there first thing on Sunday, the fates willing.
So tonight a night of some sadness and thought. I just don’t have any positive magic to waive the sadness away. This, of course, is an opportunity to find deeper powers with in my self when life seems most challenging. That is where my treasure waits.
I feel close to Sylvie, a Mansion resident of some years. We talk often and she loves to receive and answer the letters you send, she told me today that because of my blog, “I have many new friends.” I supply her a steady stream of envelopes and notecards and stamps.
Your letters are precious to her.
Sylvie is serious and thoughtful, and deeply religious, she is a member of the Jehovah Witnesses.
She spends her days answering letters and poring over religious articles and books. She is one of my favorite portrait subjects. She was the daughter of diplomats and traveled all over Europe after World War II. She was first hospitalized there for mental issues.
Sylvie always greets me warmly and courteously, she always thanks me for every single thing I bring her.
She had two breakdowns and spent more than a decade in a special facility in Massachusetts. She is open and honest with me, she has told me of the loss of a beloved dog in the Austrian mountains, she remembers hearing his cries echoing in the night.
Sylvie is very much the individual, she wears caps all year and walks in flowing dresses and big furry slippers. She had a lot of trouble getting the right clothes to wear in bed, she sometimes is cold, sometimes hot. I think we’ve figure it out. We went through a lot of slippers.
She fell in love twice in her life, she said, the last was Dan, someone she met in the Massachusetts facility where she lived for a long time. He died there while they were much in love.
Every Friday, Maria and I call the Bingo game (thanks for the great prizes) and I invite Sylvie to come. She always declines. Today, she came up to me and apologized for not playing. Sometimes she comes into the dining room where the games are played to sit with me.
“Why don’t you play?,” I asked.
“Because I used to play Bingo with Dan,” she said, “it was something he loved. And I can’t bear to play it anymore.”
Then she thought about it, and added: “in his honor.”
I thought of hugging Sylvie, but I can’t remember her ever hugging me, or me hugging her. We are good friends, I think, but she is reserved, and so am I, and I don’t thing she needs or wants a hug.
I go by Red. If the resident doesn’t touch or hug him, I don’t touch or hug them. That’s a good general rule to follow. Most of the residents love to be touched and need to be touched. Joannie hugs me intensely and with great feeling when I say goodbye. Almost everyone touches Red.
And in any case, I never hug anyone without asking. Now, after working so closely with them, there is a lot of hugging. Some cry when I leave after visiting with Red. They all gather to say goodbye. Beyond the me.too movement, it’s a good rule to follow in the world for me: I ask before I touch anyone. Some people just don’t like it. I am one of them, except in the Mansion, where I am a hugging fool.
Sometimes I want to cry too, there is a lot of love flowing between me and them, and Maria and them. And I know I may not see them again, it happens quite often. A week is a very long time at the Mansion. No one will tell me if anyone leaves, I have to notice it. Sometimes I miss it.
I told Sylvie I understand completely why she doesn’t play bingo, but if she ever decides to, she would be most welcome.
“Thank you, Jon,” she said.
Sylvie loves your letters and we are working on helping her with addresses and stamps – many of her letters get returned, and she classifies those as “prayers.” I gave her a bagful of pens today, she loses a lot of pens and goes through a lot of notecards. Your letters are her link to the outside world, her mind is active and very sharp, so is her memory.
If you wish to write her, you can send her letters care of Sylvie/ The Mansion, 11 S. Union Street, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
She works hard to return them. Stamped and self-addressed envelopes do help.
A member of the Army Of Good – I don’t have permission to use her name – sent me a box of beautiful and very soft and furry stuffed animals. I was going to use them as Bingo prizes at our Friday night games, but I remember that the staff has been telling me that Jean, who has just returned from some time in a nursing facility, so loved the cat I gave her earlier each year, she slept with it and held it for hours.
It is hard to convey the intensity of the resident’s love of stuffed animals, especially one like this rabbit, who is especially soft and furry. The elderly, when they come to assisted care, often give up everything that they know and love in the world – people family, friends, neighbors, pets.
Jean adores Red and hold him for as long as she can. She has several stuffed animals she holds in bed while she sleeps, and another big stuffed dog in a dog bed on the floor. Just as Diane loves her baby Sue, Jean is drawn to her animals, and if she can’t be with real animals, she will love the ones she has.
She took to this rabbit so quickly, she could hardly believe it when I told her it was hers. She almost seemed to be praying with the rabbit, it felt so good to her. The staff was right, as usual. This was what Jean really needs.
If you wish to write to Jean, you can send letters and photos – I believe she would love animal photos – to Jean, The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. Iearned tonight that the Mansion needs mulch for their garden. I’ll take care of that.
Thanks to the angel who sent the stuffed animals, the rest will go among the Bingo Prizes, now getting quite fabulous.
