I went over to the Gulley’s Friday afternoon with some fresh cut sweet corn, Ed’s daughter Maggie had just come back from a trip to the Midwest with her daughter Morgan, who is considering colleges.
Maggie and Ed are close, when he woke up from a deep sleep, she helped Ed drawn and sketch with colored pencils. Ed had a difficult night Thursday, he was up feeling anxiety and frustration. In the morning, the family moved him to a lift chair, where he seemed to be more comfortable.
As he started drawing, Carol, Maggie and her son Cooper came in and all three gathered around the chair to help him, pass him pencils, hold the pad and watch him draw. I wondered if all of this attention bothered him, but it didn’t seem to, he says he draws strength and comfort from his family.
Cooper walked up to Ed and asked him what he was doing. I’m drawing, said Ed. “Can I help?,” asked Cooper, and he joined his mother in helping Ed draw. I saw that this was a beautiful thing for Ed, I withdrew, and then left.
I think the trick is knowing when to stay, and when to go, when you are needed, when you are not. This was family time that was critical to everyone involved. I was not needed.
Ed Gulley On Friday
Ed’s four children and their children are almost always moving in and out of the house. Many of them come a part of every day to run the farm, to bring in the hay and milk the cows and help birth the calves.
When Ed needs them to help him move or sit up – he can no longer do this by himself – they all appear almost magically and help out. They are always nearby or present or available.
This kind of family connection is alien to me, I always felt I was on my own except for my sister and most of the time i was. When I was in real trouble, my family were the last people I wanted to go to for help, or wanted around me in a crisis.
The family is just there – no drama, argument, hesitation or confusion, they have come together as one whole, and they are just taking care of things.
Ed is just the opposite. When he is in trouble, he wants his family around him, as often as possible, they are all eager to help. The grandchildren all know he is sick and dying, they never flinch from the hardest parts of Ed’s illness.
They are farm children. No one protects them, or lies to them, or sugar coats what is happening. At night, his sons come over to help him use the commode. They are eager to help. Ed is talking about gaining strength so he can walk again.
When I drive by, I see them hauling hay, cleaning out the barn, tending to the calves, working just as hard as Ed and Carol always have.
When Ed wakes up, he wants to draw, it seems to steady him and calm him. He was very happy to see Maggie come back from her trip, and she was very happy to see him. “I missed you, Daddy,” she said.
“I missed you too, honey,” he said. As always, I am invited to dinner – a clam and fish fry – but I decline, I had to go to the Mansion to call the Bingo Game with Maria.
The hospice staff had come and gone, Ed was checked, washed and given some medication.
Ed and I talked for a bit, but then, I took his hand and held it for a bit, and said I would see him on Sunday. I confess to being a little worried about heading off with Maria Saturday night to finish the trip we started last week.
Last Sunday, as we headed for a museum, I looked on the Bejosh Farm Journal and read the reports of an alarmed Carol, she thought Ed was slipping rapidly. We hurried home, but we bounced back the same day.
So we’re going back to Massachusetts and staying over one night, we’re going to see a play at the Williamstown Theater Festival, going out to dinner, and then Sunday morning to Mass MoCA, the sprawling museum in North Adams, Mass. that we missed going to see last week.
We’re staying in one of the cheap and seedy motels that Maria loves, she is very happy in them.
Then home.
I told Ed I wouldn’t be around Saturday, but he didn’t mind at all, even if even heard me, he will be surrounded by people he loves and who love him. He will have plenty of company and attention and help,
Ed continues to decline a bit each day. His mind is fuzzier, he seems to be struggling with his breath sometimes, he can move or control very little of his body. He is almost always uncomfortable.
It will be good to get away for a bit, I need it, and I think Maria does also. This is long game, not a short one, and if you can’t take care of yourself, you surely can’t take care of anyone else.
I love seeing Ed every afternoon, it is important to me, and perhaps to him, but I also understand that it is draining and exhausting, I can only imagine how Carol feels.
I can still get Ed to smile, either by telling him a story about the excesses of the animal rights movement, or calling him a blowhard. He still has a ready smile, he still has a comeback.
I do very little for Ed, I mostly bring some food and sit and be with him. The family does the hard and grinding work of caregiving.
But it affects me, of course, and I often feel spent when I get home.
Tomorrow, I’ll teach my class and then we will head out to Massachusetts for one night. I know I will be thinking of Ed, but I know I will be happy going.
Nothing makes Wayne happier than playing tricks on me. When I came into the Mansion, I put my hat down near the office, and an hour later, as I was leaving, I couldn’t find it. “Where is my hat?,” I asked the staff, and Maria, who had come along with me. Maria just smiled in an odd way and said she didn’t know.
I knew something was up. Maria is always aware of everything.
I looked around and saw it on top of Wayne’s head, where he had put it, and the last place I was looking for it. Wayne was just beside himself. He grinned and laughed out loud.
He also likes to hide the bingo wheel when I come for bingo Saturday night, he is good at it.
Wayne has a wicked sense of humor, and he is a rascal who never stops smiling in the midst of a difficult life.
I will tell you something on a serious but related note. The other day, I saw a documentary film about Pope Francis called Pope Francis: A Man Of His Word, and I kept looking at the Pope’s frequent soft smile and I kept seeing Wayne’s face, his smile.
They were both so similar. And this touched me deeply, as I believe both are sweet men who never forget humor and brighten the lives of others, even in sad and difficult times. I don’t know what to make of this, except it was a powerful spiritual connection between too good men.
Their smiles are almost eerily similar, accompanied by the same twinkle in the eye. I got a tingle on my spine when I saw it in the movie, and then again, today on Wayne’s face.
“God is Young,” said the Pope. “If one doesn’t have a sense of humor, it’s very difficult to be happy.” For almost forty years, said the Pope in the film, he has begun his day reciting the “Prayer For Good Humor,” written by St. Thomas More in the 1400’s. It begins this way:
“Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest.
Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to maintain it.“
and ends this way:
“Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke to discover in life a bit of joy,
and to be able to share it with others.”
Wayne never forgets to joke or smile, or to share his bit of joy. Tomorrow, I’m taking him a printout of this poem, and I’ll read it to him.
I know he will grasp it. i’m also bringing him another gift certificate to the Battenkill Bookstore. He has already read all of the books I got him two weeks ago.
Wayne has few reasons in his life to laugh or joke, but he never fails to smile. If you wish, you can write Wayne c/o The Mansion, 11 S. Union Avenue, Cambridge, N.J., 12816. It is very difficult for Wayne to write back, as he does not have the use of his fingers in one hand. He does read the letters he receives and loves getting them.
I am always a bit surprised when people write me to thank me for the opportunity to send me some of their money. That’s a new idea for me, I expect people to be annoyed when they are asked for money.
Today, Janet Hamilton wrote on my Facebook Page that she was grateful, as a person without a lot of money, to be able to help people and show that you didn’t need to be a billionaire to change lives.
That was an important message for me to hear, because I realize that so much of the work we are doing by the people who call themselves The Army of Good is just that.
They are ordinary people who are not rich, who don’t have SuperPacs, who aren’t power mad billionaires, can have the opportunity, as they put it, to contribute small amounts of money that do good and change lives. “Thank you so much for letting me help, ” Jane wrote from Michigan yesterday, she sent a check with a beautiful notecard.
That’s it, really, that’s the idea behind the Army Of Good and also my work. I don’t have a lot of money either, but changing people’s lives has become one of the joys of my life. I can be an intermediary, I can find people who need help and let ordinary people help, something it is increasingly difficult to do in our Corporate, Billionaire-Dominated country.
it is hard to find worthy people who need help in was we can respond to. All of the needs we see and hear about seem so vast and unreachable.
A few months ago, the staff and I talked and we identified two Mansion residents as people who might benefit from special stuffed animals or realistic baby dolls. One was Diane, and the other was Jean, above. Jean is almost desperate to see Red when he is there, she clutches him until I tell her she has to leave.
A few weeks ago, we got Diane a doll named Sue that has proven a powerful grounding and loving object for Diane. It was a tremendous success, and I am looking for ways to repeat it.
Tonight, I gave Jean a stuffed cat I bought for her, her need seemed to be for a special animal, one that would provide an outlet for her powerful nurturing instincts, something to hold and hug, to answer her need to touch and love something again.
I am not a hugger, but I have become a hugger at the Mansion, the residents are often starved for some physical and emotional contact. They often transfer these needs onto stuffed animals or special dolls. Every time I leave, I am hugged all the way out the door and thanked for coming and being Red. I have come to like it.
Jean was so happy to see this cat, to hold her, clutch her to her heart. When I last saw her after our bingo game, she was walking slowly and carefully with her walker to bed. The cat was going to sleep with her. I have never seen her so happy or contented.
This cost $15 dollars.
There was no billionaire or millionaire involved, no legislation or government program, no non-profit organization holding benefit dinners and launching marketing campaigns. Just some ordinary people who send small checks or even smaller amount of cash – $5, $10, $50, $100, sometimes $500, even $1,000.
My Mansion fund has about $2,000 in it, which is where I like to keep it. I don’t seek huge amounts, I don’t care to keep money hanging around in the bank, I am always on the lookout for small acts of great kindness, things, like Jean’s doll that cost little but have enormous consequence and impact.
As I get to know the Mansion residents and the staff – something I never did before – I am learning how to help them in small but consequential ways. Because of the Mansion Wish List, there are quality crafts projects and games, and the tools and seeds and bulbs for a beautiful new garden out back. The list is sold out – again – and thanks, it will be replenished next week.
Tonight, a resident playing bingo told me her room was hot. I explained to her, as the staff did, that state regulations require the Mansion to keep the heat on until the beginning of June, and some of the rooms get warm. The air conditioners we bought for some rooms can’t be installed until then.
But would she like a fan?,I asked her.
This resident, who refuses all gifts, prizes or help, thought for awhile and needed yes, and then, “yes,” she said, softly. Tomorrow, I’ll get over to the hardware store and get her a good fan.
Thanks, Janet for reminding me what is special about this work. None of us are rich, we are all seeking ways to use the resources we have to help people in ways that matter, on a small and rational scale. That is pretty special. I feel as if we are keeping good alive.
If you wish to help, please send your contributions to The Gus Fund, c/o Jon Katz, Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected].
Confessions Of Mystery Client: The Bedlam Farm Animals Association
It was in the middle of the night that I leaned over in bed and whispered my great secret into the ear of my wife. She was snoring lightly and having one of her strange dreams, I think.
In the latest one, she is off chanting in the woods, hugging trees and smiling where rabbits dance in the moonlight, barn cats turn into winged fairies, and songbirds turn into butterflies.
I had been watching the news from New York, and it was now or never. It had come out. I was scared.
“Honey,” I whispered, “I have something to tell you, it’s important.”
She sighed and mumbled, “did you pour bleach into the colored clothes wash again, or drop your Iphone into the toilet. I’ll get it in the morning.”
No, I said. This is a bit more serious.I decided to just blurt it out.
“I’m Mystery Client Number 4,” I whispered, hoping she had dozed off again. “I’m the fourth client of Micheal Cohen. It’s me, the President, that Republican National Committee guy paying for an abortion, and Sean Hannity. I have asked Mr. Cohen several times for legal advice. It was no big deal. It never rose to the level of a lawyer-client relationship.”
And, I added quickly, “Stormy…er, no third-party was ever involved in our discussions.”
Maria had not dozed off again, her eyes were wide open.
“What did you talk to Michael Cohen about?,” she asked sitting up. Her eyes were very wide open.
“I wanted his advice about real estate,” I said.
“Real estate?,” she replied, reaching for the heavy lamp by the side of her bed. “Isn’t he the guy who only represents horny old white men who want to silence their mistresses? That’s quite a specialty.”
Oh, I said quickly, nothing like that, I wanted to talk about real estate, I said. ‘”What about real estate?,” she asked. “We don’t have any money…”
“Yes,” I said quickly,”that’s what he told me? Good advice, too.. We don’t have any money to buy real estate.”
Then what did you ask him?, she said, her voice rising.
“I asked him if we had any money…”
By now, Maria was sitting up and unplugging the lamp. She didn’t seem persuaded. I remember the stories she told me about Sicilian women who learn their husbands are having affairs and go get a kitchen knife and chop their penises off.
“Look,’ I said, “this is the perfect lawyer for us. He doesn’t take money from his clients, and uses his own money to pay off..er, negotiate with people. Most lawyers charge for their time! Don’t you see that? We don’t have any money to pay for lawyers either.”
I suppose looking from afar, this might not make perfect sense to people, but it made perfect sense to me, and I was under some time pressure.
Most people only see the sweet, animal-loving, wood fairy side of Maria. They don’t see the Sicilian- German side. I mumbled something about work, hopped out of bed, got dressed, backed out of the bedroom keeping an eye on Maria, and rushed out to the pasture to convene an emergency meeting of the Bedlam Farm Animals Association.
When she had a few minutes to think about it, things could get ugly.
My plan was to be transparent, lie about everything, deny everything, and alert the farm animals to what was happening. I was going outside to talk to my base, as long as I had them, I was fine.
Red went ahead to prepare them, as he often did. I loved these farm rallies, they got my testosterone going, except for the donkeys, the animals adored me. To them, I was one big bale of hay.
When I got there, it all felt wrong. No cheering, no applause, no great and loud welcome.
Red was explaining to them somewhat defensively that I had done nothing wrong, he said I was the victim of a “Deep Farm” conspiracy. Certain elements of the farm were out to destroy me, they had never accepted me as a real farmer, Red explained. And they never would. But there was trouble in the Peaceable Kingdom.
The sheep had never forgiven me for bringing border collies to the farm, Lulu never forgave me for sending her away to Darryl Kuehne’s farm for a year when I was cracking up, and the chickens hated me for shooting their rooster when he attacked Maria. And by now, they had heard the news too, Liam was a news junkie, he had a smart phone earphone in his ear all night
Bedlam Farm may have looked peaceful from the outside, but it was chaos on the inside, rife with backstabbing, leaking, political intrigue and lies. We all understood the importance of keeping this discord to ourselves, it would be very bad for the brand.
“It’s true, we have never accepted Jon,” I heard Lulu saying in her steely voice.”That’s because he’s not a real farmer,” she brayed, stepping forward to put her ears up and glower at me. Now she spoke to me. “You are unfit to lead a farm, you hide behind your blog and send your big Red Dog, your fixer to intimidate us. We’ll, I’m not a sheep!”
“Hey,” mumbled Izzy, the lead Romney” watch that stuff….”
Red got up close to Lulu, as close as he dared. “I will do anything for Jon, anything,” he growled.
“I will mess you up. I will take every bit of hay you ever get near, I will come after Fanny and you and the chickens and anybody else that you possibly know. So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f——– disgusting, do you understand me?”
I turned to Red and whispered. “Hey, don’t be quoting my lawyer, use your own words. And don’t curse, the chickens don’t like it.”
The sheep were stunned, silent.
“Listen,” I said, the rumors about me are all fake news, lies, an attack on our farm and way of life. You have nothing to complain about – the freshest water anywhere, the best hay in the world, the strongest fences, three different pastures. Stop whining.”
On the other side of the pasture fence, there was a lot of cursing and noise.
Maria was up and awake now, perhaps listening to the news herself. There was no way I was going back into that farmhouse. I almost asked her why she couldn’t be more like Melania, but I held my tongue, and probably saved it.
I heard the sound of things being thrown around in my office. The door to the farmhouse opened, and first my Froggy statute came flying out, then my scented candles, my incense sticks, my Kali Goddess statute, my big black Canon Camera, my Madonna figurine, two lenses, the modem and some Canon batteries.
The sound was dreadful. And costly.
The sheep were nervous. Sheep hate confrontation.
Lulu put her ears and head down, she was ready to fight. She said she would not be intimidated by Red. She turned to me and looked me in the eye.
“Mr. Jon,” she called me, (this was the title I gave myself on the farm), “did you have an affair with Stormy Daniels? You told us last month that you never cheated on Maria, that you did not have an affair with Stormy Daniels. Is that the truth? Is that what this is about? Is that why you became a client of Mr. Cohen?”
Fanny stepped up and spoke up (damn those donkeys): “I mean, duh..he doesn’t do real estate, he lives in a Trump Tower, he only does one thing.”
Red growled again. “I will mess you up, Fanny,” snarled Red.
Lulu snickered, as donkeys do. “You don’t scare me Red boy, you’re blind in one eye, have arthritis, Lyme disease, and four tick borne diseases. You’re lucky you can lift your leg to pee. Go scare a sheep. You’re nothing but a sycophant.”
At this, the sheep stirred and looked at one another, and Zelda stepped forward.
“It’s true, Old Boy, you’re slowing down. Your threats don’t carry a lot of weight around here anymore. Go back over to the Mansion with the other old things and play some Bingo. Or I’ll knock your ass down again, like I did a few years ago.”
Fate sensed that this meeting was not fun, she ran and hid behind the sheep. I saw the Barn Cats hiss at one another and slip away, I heard Flo tell Minnie: “this is so stupid. Let’s go kill something…’
I didn’t like the way things were going. Maria was throwing more and more of my things out into the yard, there was a big pile now, my eight pairs of jeans, my five pairs of blue work shirts, my fashionable slouch beanies, my colored and funky socks, and the doll I used to play tug of war with Gus.
And then, my worst nightmare, my iMac, landing with a big crash.
My Internet was down. I was shut down.
It looked like the Deep Farm conspiracy was working. They are ruining America, I thought. I couldn’t stay out in the pasture, I couldn’t go back into the house. I quick- dialed a number on my Favorite list in my contacts.
“Yes,” said a deep and sultry voice.
“Stormy?,” I said. “This is Jon.”
SIlence.
“I told you never to call me here. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m busy.”
“Stormy,” I said, “everyone knows about us now, even the FBI. It will come out.”
“So?,” she said. “Join the club, get in line. I’m a First Amendment Champion these days. The work is much lighter than porn movies, and there is more money in it, potentially….” There was a pause.
“I have to be honest, Jon, nobody really wants to hear the details of our story. I can’t get a lunch offer out of it.”
“Stormy, I have a favor, in honor of our sweet time together?”
“I won’t lie to you,” she said. “I want all the facts to come out. I’m not holding anything back. The sex was nothing special, pretty typical for a man of your age, it took longer than usual. I always thanked God when the Little Twanger sat up…”
I pleaded for understanding, I was really out there now.
“I’m going to tell the animals about us,” I said.”..Maria already knows, she’s throwing all my belongings out of the farmhouse.”
I had stepped into the Pole Barn for privacy. Only the barn swallows could hear me, and they were discreet.
Then I lowered the volume of my smart phone and listened to Stormy talking carefully and in an icy voice. Then she hung up.
The animals were all in a circle, starting at me. The Deep Farm State was closing in.
I can’t talk about Stormy,” I said, looking Zelda right in the eye and puffing myself up. “I signed an NDA agreement, if I talk about my relationship about her all, I’ll have to pay $100,000 for each statement. It’s pretty airtight.”
“Boy, you need a lawyer,” offered Pumpkin. “And you better pay for this one.”
As I left the pasture, the donkeys were huddling with Flo and Minnie. “That’s the way it is with him,” said Flo, everyone who gets too close to him gets shot or put down. Everyone who comes near him gets tainted.”
The donkeys, traitorous creatures, were nodding. “I’ve been on Craig’s List,” said Lulu. “I found a young organic farmer who’s looking for a farm. I can see which way the wind blows.”
Fanny nodded, “yeah he’s in big trouble. And my money says Maria will get him before Feds.”
Joan’s World: Another in a series: Making art with Maria
I have come to love Joan, a Mansion resident struggling with severe memory loss. And she has come to know me, and I believe, remember and love me also.
It has become a kind of mission, I suppose, to enter this world and share it, to humanize and capture the extraordinary lives of the people who struggle to live full and meaningful lives without all or most of their memory, something so basic, something we take for granted, something that shapes almost every element of our lives.
We quite literally warehouse the memory impaired, it is required that they be locked up for their own safety and monitored continuously. Joan is fortunate to be in an assisted care facility where the mission is love and patience. She is well and lovingly cared for. But still, life is a continuous struggle for identity and meaning for her. The staff could hardly do more.
it is both wrenching and exhilarating. We keep people alive longer than ever, but we take no responsibility for the quality of the lives they lead, or the sometimes dreadful consequences of too long a life. In our world, almost no one is allowed to die naturally and without long suffering.
I think life is perhaps the most challenging in this way for the memory impaired, as it is often difficult for them to grasp what is happening to them.
Memory is the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information. In fact, the mind itself is a magical storehouse of the information of our lives, our very identity. It can be said in some ways that to lose one’s memory is to lose one’s mind.
That suggests that people with memory loss are a shell, somewhat hollowed by illness.
That is not true for me.
I have been working with Joan for months now. I read with her, bring her books and stuffed animals, activity aprons, and today, at Maria’s very excellent suggestion, we brought her clay in an effort to respond to her repeated claims of being bored and restless, fo her clear search for meaning without memory.
Maria has a gift, and I believe I do also, for talking to the memory impaired, we seem able to get through, to hear and be heard. This is important to me, and a wonderful thing to share with her. Maria does not work in the Mansion regularly, she comes in from time to time to teach art, help call Bingo Games with me. She is known and loved there.
Joan and i see one another often, we yak all the time like school girls, we talk about old times, new times, hard times, and in every conversation, there are diamonds of truth and insight and awareness, you just have to listen for them.
It is a powerful and dramatic journey for me, and I learn from Joan every time I speak with her or see her, and am learning how to talk to hear, here her and communicate with her. Of all my efforts to talk to Joan, none has been more successful that the reading exercises we are doing together. She has no interest in the activity aprons I got for her, and the stuffed animals disappear, lost or tucked away in her closet for the day she returns home, a day she thinks will happen every morning.
In this therapy work, you learn quickly that sometimes you can help and sometimes you can’t, and there are some things you work, and some things you don’t. I never push the things that don’t work, I just let them go. I push the things that do work.
Maria and I came to the Mansion this afternoon with some clay, and Joan was eager to sit with us and mold the clay. We were happy with this project, we’re going back on Monday. Maria has emerged from her own shell in the past few years, she understands pain and confusion in a particular way. People feel at ease with her.
Maria, ever the artist, showed her how to hold the clay and feel it and shape certain objects.
Joan loves to sit and talk, and she loves to have something to do with her hands, she is forever looking for engagement and she often finds it in conversation. She loves attention. She is starved for purpose.
She has a deep and very active sense of humor, if she can’t always follow the words, she almost always reads the emotions and the feelings. I think she sometimes lives in a heavy gray cloud, punctuated by sudden bursts of sunshine and blue sky.
She can only focus on one thing for a while, perhaps 10 minutes at the most, and then her mind wanders off to another place. She loved working the clay, the loved the feel of it, she said it soothed her and calmed her. At one point (not on the video) she burst into song, and then remembered the encouragement her mother offered her for her art, for her working with clay, for her singing.
She remembered that everyone in her family was dead now, and she was alone. She seemed to recall the day she collapsed and ended up living in the Mansion, she remembered falling down and calling her dog and cat to her, she said they came. She does not ever remember or speak of the death of her daughter, who was murdered by a boy friend, except indirectly. I think it is not something she can bear to speak of.
She remembers her mother clearly and fondly, she remembers her encouragement most of all, and I see that Joan still loves to be encouraged, and soaks that up. She understands when people try to help her, she articulates genuine gratitude.
Joan is full of love and warmth. Sometimes, some of the other residents are cruel to her, impatient with her confusion and indirectness. She senses their disapproval and wanders the halls, a staffer always comes to her and comforts her and sometimes she sits in the office with the aides, she feels safe and comfortable there.
She says she only gets angry when people step on her or bump into her. But, she says, she is never angry for long.
She loves to see Red and admires him, she says he is “such a beautiful dog,” but she cannot remember his name or mine, or anyone else’s She seems to me acutely aware of where she is in life, and speaks of it often and indirectly, shrugging or apologizing for her confusion.
She has no special friends, really, an aide has to sit her at her seat in the dining room, and then walk her back to her room or to a sofa in the hallway, where she sits and watches people go by. One of my favorite memories of winter was standing at a window with Joan and listening while a snowstorm raged outside and she described the colorful flowers in the garden she saw just outside the window.
Joan is a poet of life.
I treasure the time I sit talking to Joan and listening to her, she has a vivid imagination and seems to come to life when making art. Today, talking to Maria, she make a cylindrical piece of clay and rolled it for me, I asked her to make me one for her study. She was pleased, then a few minutes later, forgot. The mechanics of conversation are different with the memory impaired, you go where the go, and do not try to lead them anywhere else.
I made her a clay statute of her mother, but she forgot what it was and we returned it to the block of clay.
But there is love there, and memory, and recognition. She is not a shell, she has not lost her mind or her heart or her spirit. Those things are very much alive.
As we left, Joan lifted her arms so that Maria could hug her. “I love you,” she said.”I love you too,” said Maria.
“Him, too,” Joan added, smiling, looking over her shoulder at me.
We invited Joan to bingo tomorrow night, she loves to sit and play Bingo on Friday night with the other residents. One of us has to sit next to her to spot her numbers when they are called. I’ll remind her just before the game.
