Something Right

Every Monday I go to the Assisted Living home where my mother lives and is cared for. I read one of the books she wrote to a small group of from 4-10 people, including her. Every week I do a quick review of the story to date, because they will have forgotten, and usually, so have I.

At first, I figured this was a “triple points” thing—I get credit for visiting Mom, double credit for giving her accomplishments some exposure, and triple for entertaining other people.

I thought I was doing it for her. Then I thought I was doing it for the listeners—many of whom can no longer read. Now I know I do it for myself. I love these people. I haven’t missed a Monday since March. I plan the rest of my schedule around Mondays. Lately I take homemade cinnamon rolls for the staff on Mondays. They have the “birthday cupcake rule” in facilities—no homebaked goodies for the residents, but staff is OK. Sometimes I buy bakery (legal) cinnamon rolls and take them to the listeners to eat while I read.

Mom was deciding who she liked and didn’t like based on their disabilities:

“She has Alzheimer’s.” Can’t be friends with her.

“She can’t talk.” Can’t be friendly to her.

“He drools.” “She’s doesn’t mind her manners (same person, has Alzheimer’s). “There’s some guy behind where I sit in the dining room who laughs too loudly. I think they’re telling dirty jokes.”

And so on. I keep explaining to her that everyone who lives there has something wrong with them, or they wouldn’t be there. I don’t point out that also applies to her. It hurts my heart to hear her judge people, because when she was a spiritual teacher, her main teachings had to do with forgiveness and giving up judgment.

Reading to the assembled listeners, and talking with them between paragraphs, I have learned some fascinating things. One lady in a wheelchair has transcribed children’s book into Braille, since 1964! And she still does it! On a computer!

Genevieve can’t speak, has obviously had a stroke, and the words she does manage to get out don’t always match the thought she’s trying to express, to her great frustration.

The woman in a wheelchair, her legs useless and painful, danced with the San Francisco Opera Ballet for many years.

Art hiked every week with his hiking group of twenty members who now visit him every month. He is in a wheelchair. He wears shorts all the time. The muscles in his legs are atrophied and concave. But his eyes sparkle and he barks a loud, delighted laugh at funny things in the stories. The “bad boy” character in one book was named Art, which tickles him. He loves Mom’s stories, and never misses a Monday.

My mother, was a writer, bookkeeper and longtime spiritual teacher. She has lost the ability to process anything linear. Numbers, time, date, day, what comes next.

One day after reading, I walked Mom back to her room. We passed Genevieve at the door of her own room, struggling to get her key in the lock. I offered to help her, and she invited us in. She had something she wanted to show us. We had talked that day about places people had traveled to in their lives—the states, Europe, Africa, India. Genevieve had struggled to say that she had been in Europe, that her daughters were in the foreign service. Her room was filled with beautiful antiques and souvenirs of, clearly, many foreign travels. Genevieve beckoned us to the map of the world, on the wall over her couch. There were probably a hundred colored pushpins stuck in various locations—most of the states including Alaska and Hawaii, many countries in Europe, several in Africa, India, China, Japan, the Middle East, Australia, and some obscure locations I couldn’t make out. On the wall were two framed photos: one of herself as a lovely young woman, a redhead, model-perfect. And the other, one of her daughters with President Obama.

Then Genevieve told us, with many gestures and pointing and struggling to find the right words, that she had all the memories, pictures, stories, and the correct words for things in her head. But she could no longer get them to come out of her mouth correctly.

Mom, who has short-term memory loss and trouble finding the right words or names for things, was silent.

On the way back to her room, Mom said that she had no idea Genevieve had anything going on in her head, she had seemed so…stupid. After a reflective pause, she said, “Thank you for taking me into her room. I like her now.”

We talked again about how everyone there has something wrong with them. Then I realized: “Everyone here has something right about them.” We agreed to start looking for what was right about people who live there.

The other day Mom turned around during lunch and discovered that the man she doesn't like because he laughs too loudly at the table behind her is…Art.