On many levels, the Mansion has been a learning experience for me, for things big and small. As I get to know the residents and they get used to me, and Maria, I see more and learn more. Bingo is not just a game at the Mansion, it’s a ritual, and an important one.
Here, more than any other activity that I have seen, the residents find a kind of community. They watch out for each other, help one another, share prizes and make sure no one gets left out or left behind.
About half of the players need some kind of assistance – the stroke victims can’t move their fingers easily to mark their cards, so we move around to help them. One of the players can’t see, another is almost completely deaf, another has memory issues.
One has tremors. Our friend Susan Popper comes to Friday Bingo when we can, tonight she sat beside Joan, who won two rounds of Bingo. Joan can’t see the cards herself but she loves to play and join the community.
The residents usually concentrate on their own games. There is sometimes conscious cheating – the prizes are important to them – and sometimes unconscious. The games begin at 6 p.m. and end at 7 p.m., when the residents tire and begin getting ready for bed. Once or twice during the games, the staff comes in and brings medicines.
We got a new regular, Jackie, who came to the Mansion a few weeks ago, and loves Bingo. She is quite shy. The residents are gracious about welcoming newcomers.
Maria and I take turns calling the numbers, and the players kid us, if they don’t fill up their cards, they shout for another caller. Wayne calls for Red to call the numbers. I am always surprised at how tired we are when the game is over. We are very happy doing this together.
Maria and I called our regular Friday night bingo game at the Mansion, a full and very boisterous house for the game, we ran out of bingo cards. Afterwards, we stopped by the Activity Room, and Madeline and Alice were watching Wheel Of Fortune. Maria sat down to chat with them, Red went to work.
This picture struck me as emblematic. We were five minutes late arriving, and I think the warming weather is getting spirits to soar. There was a minor uprising in protest, they wanted to get the game going, we were greeted with table-pounding and many demands to get moving. We got moving.
The residents were in a boisterous mood.
It was a special night, a fun night. When we got started, the tables were full, we ran out of cards. Almost everybody won and got a prize. The crowds are getting bigger at Bingo, and we are becoming skilled at keeping order, helping people who need it, and keeping the game going.
Before the Mansion, I never once played bingo, life is deliciously strange.
A close friend of Joan’s send a message to thank me for spending time with her. She said it was difficult to visit Joan sometimes, quite often she didn’t remember her, and this was painful for her. She appreciated seeing her on the blog and staying in touch with her in that way.
Joan and I have a strong connection with one another. She is full of love and generosity, and we each see something in the other that is strong and positive. I brought Joan a stuffed cat yesterday – I sit next to her at the Bingo Games and we look for matching numbers together.
She was happy to see the cat, she named her “Joy.” I went out to get a cup for water and when I came back I asked Joan how Joy was doing, and she looked puzzled, and asked me how I knew her cat’s name. I said I had just given her the cat and was present when she was named, and Joan said “oh, thank you.”
There is something especially poignant about memory loss, Joan is always trying to put her world in context. Memory loss can be boring, it cuts the patient off from much of their known world. I see her always wincing and squinting and struggling to put her world into context. At times, she doesn’t really know who anyone is.
I think Joan knows that she knows me. She doesn’t know my name, or even Red’s name. She seems to recognize me and smile, and she recognizes Red by sight, if not name. She always hugs me hello, and kisses me on the cheek goodbye. She is a creative, she knows how to paint and can sometimes write a poem.
Memory loss is not usually a total thing, but a fluctuating and fragmented thing. Sometimes she is clear as a bell, sometimes she seems to drift in a fog. l loved the way she hugged her cat and clung to her.
Joan thinks she is going home every morning, and packs up her things. I know the cat will be in one of her suit cases by this morning, but I wanted her to have it. Our souls seem to love and talk to one another, and the Mansion staff loves “Joanie” and watches out for her. Sometimes she sits in the office with them and tries to help out.
Joan loves to play Bingo, even thought she can’t match the letters. Early next week, a sensory apron is arriving, i think she will love to put in her lap and manipulate all the buttons and straps. Joan is a miracle of communications for me, she understands everything I say, and I understand what she means.
It is beautiful way to talk in so many ways. When I said good night to Joan, she was clutching Joy. She said she would put Joy away so she would have her when she goes home in the morning.
For me, and almost everyone present, an extraordinary thing at the Mansion. The soccer team asked me and Ali if they could come to the Mansion and help serve lunch and exchange their stories with the Mansion residents. And that is what happened, these two very powerful elements came together in the most beautiful way, something I did not ever foresee.
The team put on plastic gloves and hairnets as required by law at the Mansion for food servers, and they courteously and gently served food to the residents. There is a powerful connection between these young people and the much older Mansion residents.
I saw it when they first visited weeks ago, I think it is the common experience they share of being uprooted and thrust into a strange land; of leaving almost everything they love behind, of having lost loved ones – parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, of learning a new language and a new way to live.
Ali (Amjad Abdullah) has infused them with a spirit of love and generosity and community, they were very happy to be there, they were shy but never grudging. Several told me the Mansion residents reminded them of their grandmas and grandpas.
After lunch, three of the refugee kids – Sakler Moo, Saw John and Bae Eh Thaw – so painfully shy I had rarely heard them speak the entire year I’ve known them – agreed to stand up and share their stories; how they came to America and what their problems are. After they spoke, three Mansion residents – Sylvie, Bob and Peggie – stood up to tell the story of how they came to be in the Mansion, what their problems are as they age.
The Mansion residents, many struggling with memory loss, eye trouble and loss of hearing, were mesmerized by the stories, they had many questions and seemed to hang on every world. The connection between these two groups was something you could almost see and touch.
It struck me again and again that even though the refugees and residents are living at opposite ends of life, they are, in so many ways the same. And it is true, I see, human beings can always connect to one another if their hearts and minds are open. These children have known great pain and dislocation, they have left so much behind, and the same is true of the Mansion residents.
Ali is a father, mother, brother and friend to these children, and I have seen them grow dramatically during the time I have known them. Before the lunch, I met with them and Ali asked me to encourage them to speak, to tell their stories. I told them I understood they are shy, but that it was important for them to find their voices in America, here we often need to speak up to be heard, as women and older people and gay people and African-American people and others have learned.
To be voices here is to often mean being left behind. I never give lectures or speeches to these kids, but I thought this was important, and they responded to it, and I admire their courage and determination, it was not simple for them to stand up in a crowded room. It was a beautiful thing to see, and it touched me deeply.
Tonight, Maria and I are going to run the Bingo game at the Mansion, I got some neat prizes today at the Over The Moon bead shop in town. I will put up more photographs of this lunch and sharing, and also publish an album on Facebook.
It was one of the most extraordinary days of my life, it said so much about the promise and compassion of the human spirit, very much alive despite the reports on what we call the news. Today was our news, it was a big story.
Wayne lives in the Mansion Assisted Care Facility where I work as a volunteer. He came to the Mansion a few months ago, and is one of the sweetest, gentlest and most cheerful people I haver ever met, even though he has good reason to be unhappy at times.
Wayne came to my attention when I heard the staff talking about how much fun he is, he is always smiling, and has a ready and curious sense of humor. Wayne is always promising to have a sleep over with Red, and then come to the farm and let the animals into the farmhouse for a party. He’s coming to the farm in May, he’ll get his chance.
I was surprised to get a telephone call from a doctor in Saratoga who treated Wayne in a rehabilitation center there (I can’t say what for). He had come to the Mansion to see Wayne when he came there and he contacted me and said he had come to love Wayne – he bought him clothes, took him out, watched over him.
He asked me if I would also watch over Wayne, he offered a large donation to the Army Of Good. I declined the invitation, it wasn’t necessary for him to do that. I said I would keep an eye on Wayne, and I have done that. Wayne had virtually no clothes or possessions when he came to the Mansion, and the aides were worried about him.
I visited my network of thrift shops and Wal-Mart and we got Wayne everything he needed. Wayne is regular at the Friday night Bingo games Maria and I run, if he doesn’t get the number he wants, he smiles and winks and demands a new caller.
Wayne never asked for anything until last Friday, he was petting Red and looked away from me, and said, “I need some T-shirts. I only have three, and it’s getting to be summer.” It is hard for Wayne to ask for help, the first time he asked me directly. I rely on the staff to alert me to things he needs.
There is no one out there to support him.
. I had to ask Wayne a bunch of questions before I realized he wanted short-sleeve T-shirts for the hot weather.
I showed him the shirts on the Iphone – I know Wal-Mart also sells them – and he nodded. Today, I brought them over, and he was happy. They were – to my surprise – Happy Hour T-shirts, XL. Wayne was delighted with the sketch on the front and promised to start a happy hour ceremony at the Mansion. He looked devilish and I said I didn’t want to know about it.
Wayne always have the spark of mischief in his eyes.
This is what I mean by Small Acts Of Great Kindness, we can’t heal Wayne or alter the course of his life. We can give him comfortable shirts for the summer, it sometimes gets warm in the Mansion.
I appreciate your support for the Mansion work. You can help by contributing to the Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected].
Wayne is an avid reader, he loves to read letters and animal books and look at animal photos. You can write him c/o The Mansion, 11 S.Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816.
