Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

Sheep don’t need lessons in acceptance, they practical radical acceptance and have perfected the art of meditation. Come to Bedlam Farm on a sunny day and you can see Rosemary and her flock at peace, living in the moment, shedding the past, unaware of a future.

There is a kind of purity to it.

We couldn’t make it to the Friday Bingo game at the Mansion last night, we’d send most of the afternoon at the Karaoke Christmas Sing.

As we were leaving, we heard the chant of “Bingo!, Bingo!, Bingo!,” it was a protest led by the ever mischievous Wayne, demanding we return at 6 p.m. Four or five other residents had joined in.

It was the first Mansion protest anybody could remember. We packed up our Karaoke gear and fled.

Joan is not coming back to the Mansion.

The Mansion residents are governed by federal and state privacy laws, especially regarding matters relating to their health.

The staff respects these guidelines, and as a volunteer, so do I I don’t ask any health questions, and nobody offers me  any information.

Quite often, I won’t know that someone has died or left the Mansion for days, even weeks. I learned today that one resident is gravely ill with cancer, I had no idea.

So I can’t tell you anything more about Joan than what I was given permission to tell some weeks ago: she broke  her hip in a fall. She is recovering.

This was the hardest part of my hospice therapy work and is the hardest part of my Mansion therapy work. People just disappear.  A month or so ago, I learned that Joan had fallen and been taken to a nursing home.

I’ve visited her twice,  but I can’t really ask the staff about her progress, they either don’t know or can’t say.

I know Mansion officials went there to evaluate her progress, and I know someone else is moving into her room, which is how I first learned that she isn’t returning to the Mansion.

I don’t blame them for this, I’m a volunteer, not a staffer. They need to follow the law. I never take a photo or discuss anyone’s health without asking permission.

I don’t know the details of  Joan’s recovery, but it is clear to me now that she is not coming back. She is moving permanently into a nursing home, she needs a higher level of care than the Mansion can provide.

I have grown especially close to two residents of the Mansion. One was Connie, who died about a year ago, and the other was Joan, who suffered severe memory loss was the other.

There was a sweetness and love and joy of life that radiated from Joan, we had great fun together dancing reading special books designed to restore memory. She loved coming to the Bingo games, she had no idea what  was happening, but danced for joy when someone sat next to her and marked the numbers and she won.

She never knew my name, but she always recognized me, and she told Maria that “you have a sweet man there, hang onto him.”  She always wanted to dance with me.

As her memory deteriorated, she needed more and more care, and I suspected she would have to leave the Mansion one way or another.

Joan had  a challenging life. Her daughter was murdered by a boy friend when she was very young and Joan outlived her husband by many years.

Of all my many memories of Joan, I think the sweetest was seeing her looking out the window during a blizzard and telling me how beautiful the gardens were and how sweet the sound of the songbirds. That was Joan, it was always Spring Time.

She never gave up hope , even as her memory failed.

Joan always thought she was getting picked up to go home in the morning, so she packed all of her belongings every night. The room was absolutely bare of anything but a bed and blanket.

The Mansion aides loved “Joanie,” and they cared for her beyond their obligations.

They changed her clothes after accidents, helped her get to bed, get dressed, walk her to the dining room, the activity room, and her bedroom. Joan was always forgetting where she was, and the love and tenderness she was shown was beautiful to see.

They always kept an eye on her, always poised to help her navigate an increasingly confused and clouded world.

She never gave up on going home, and she never stopped loving and laughing. She had no bitterness or cruelty in her, she had no resentment. She loved to paint and write poems, I have one of each on my study wall.

I have learned so much about aging and death and loss at the Mansion, and in my hospice work. I am no longer afraid of those  things or surprised by them.

I doubt anyone at the Mansion will mention Joan to me again, this is so much a part of life there, the comings and the goings. There’s no room for drama or nostalgia at the Mansion, the people who live there need everyone’s full attention.

The other day, one of the aides was talking to another, and they were listing the people who had died, gone to nursing homes, or been stricken with chronic or fatal illnesses in 2018.

One stopped the other mid-way. ‘I can’t do this,” she said, “I have to not be sad for the  residents today.” Me too.

Lots of people depend on me and Red to bring good cheer and promise to their lives – I’m going to do another reading at the Mansion the morning of New Year’s Day. I work hard at the Mansion, I want everyone there to have my full attention.

For ethical as well as practical reasons, I won’t be mentioning Joan again on the blog.  I doubt I will go to see her again. I will put up a photo of her  from time to time.

Joan has moved on, into the next chapter in her life, and the people who live around her are blessed to have this Child Of Spring in their midst. I will move on also.

There is really no such thing as what we call  “security” for people living on the edge of life. Their lives are in the hands of others, their lives are in the hands of the fates, and their bodies.

I do want to thank the good people out there who wrote Joan so many letters, sent her so many gifts, cheered her on and even came to love her. I spent some beautiful moments reading  your letters to her, she would listen attentively and wide-eyed, and then tell me, “I think they must love me, don’t they.”

Yes, they did.