Betty

I have this friend, her name is Betty. We met about a year and a half ago at Homestead Nursing Home. By all accounts, she is quite offensive. She's always complaining about the food or nurses and I'm pretty sure she thinks the name of the home is, "This damn place." But I like her.

I visit her once a week. Every Tuesday at around 3:30. Every week she tells me she didn't expect me. The routine is usually that I sit down with her in the sun room and she rants and raves for a while until I tell her to quit gossiping. Then she might tell me a story from her past or ask me why I'm still not married.

A couple weeks ago I went to see her and couldn't find her, not in the sun room or her room, not taking a smoke break... Finally a nurse told me she was in the hospital. I visited the hospital a couple times but couldn't catch her awake.

I found out she had a stroke.

I went back to visit her and she could not speak. I could tell she wanted to because she would move her mouth but words wouldn't come out. I visited her with a couple friends.

Last day of finals I visited her again by myself. I greeted her and just began to talk about myself. After a few minutes I got tired of this so I just sat and stared at her for a while. I'm not comfortable with silence. I'm used to Betty filling this silence. I wanted to fill her time with joy and purpose. My petty stories didn't seem to be cutting it. I know old people like Christmas carols so I decided I would sing to her. I asked if she would like me to sing and she just stared at me. I told her to pretend to sleep if she didn't like it.

So I started singing. Just me. A few nurses were joking in the hall and they stopped. I prayed that their silence was a coincedence and that they couldn't hear me trying my best to sound pleasing to Betty's ears.

The physical trainer came in and was really sweet to Betty. She seemed a lot more comfortable with Betty's state. The trainer moved her legs around and tried to get her to move on her own a bit. I tried to talk her through it. I knew at this point she would normally be complaining and rolling her eyes. I told her I knew she was being funny right now and I miss her jokes.

Seeing Betty so helpless made me really think about how short life is and how our bodies just fall apart on us. I hope I can learn how to show her love more in this time. I feel helpless too.