Tending to Shirley

Today Gary had the flu so it was up to me to visit his Aunt Shirley. She has had at least one daily visitor since she collapsed in November.

She is in the hospital in Dixon as the staff try to build up her strength. There seems to be little wrong with her physically, but she is losing weight and is often dehydrated. She told me today she wants to go to sleep and die and that she wishes she had never been born. I told her the first would happen some day, but I wouldn't accept the never being born bit. “Who would have taken care of Gary when he was little?” That started her on memories of Gary as a toddler. He was quite a handful which is why his parents had her help out. Shades of “It's a Wonderful Life.”

I'm used to sitting with elderly folks in hospitals and nursing homes. Years ago, I was part of a group who volunteered to sit with the dying at the Good Shepherd Home. Our services would be requested when the family members couldn't be there, sometimes because there was no family or if the family lived too far away or the family was so small it was overstretched. This usually meant we were called at night to sit by the bedside and talk as needed or to read as the patient slept. If the patient was comatose, I would sing old hymns and lullabies.

So this afternoon I sat quietly working on this computer when Shirley was sleeping. When she was awake, she told me stories. When she went for a procedure I went along. I wrote down all the results from blood pressure to her swallowing tests. I commiserated about the terrible taste of barium, and made sure she was covered up properly as she slept.

She had a visitor while she slept and we chatted. I sent an e-mail to Gary to tell him how things were going and what I had learned from the nurses. He passed on the messages to his sister in Jamaica.

I was going home tomorrow but the weather forecast is not promising, Gary is still down with the flu and Aunt Shirley needs company. I may stay another day.

Meanwhile, at Black Coffee Fiction ( http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com ) Wade has posted another one of his odd stories “The Interview”. Think I was naughty when I killed one cat in my last story? Wade is worse. It's good that no animals are harmed in the writing of these stories.