Expectations and disappointments…life is full of ’em. Today was one of those times.
My youngest son is a part of an ensemble. Today they visited two nursing homes to sing a few caroles. I went along, as I usually do, but this performance was held at the home where my aunt is a resident.
I envisioned giving her the baked goods I had placed in a cute Christmas tin, sitting beside her as we watched the choir sing, and talk a bit while enjoying the music. Didn’t happen that way.
The performance at the first home went off without a hitch. The second place was just across the street so we arrived to a group of people patiently sitting and awaiting our arrival. I looked around the room for my aunt, in a room full of elderly women. She wasn’t there so I asked someone at the nurses’ station where I might find her. They directed me to her room…bed two.
I walked down the hall and walked into the room only to find a woman sound asleep in bed one, and no one in bed two or the entire room for that matter.
I walked back out, to take another look around and went to the nurses’ desk again. They said they would check her room and the hair salon. They did but to no avail. They looked in all the restrooms as well. Notta. I was starting to get a little worried. Where was my aunt and should I call my cousin?
Just as an aside here, as the group was getting ready to perform I heard a noise, a familiar sound, one that resembled someone throwing up and the substance landing on a hard floor. No one else seemed to notice. I took a peak to make sure I didn’t misconstrue what I thought I had heard, and there was the splattered lunch (I suppose) on the floor. I turned to an employee who was standing right there and informed them of the misfortune. They told someone else who muttered a curse word as they grabbed some towels to clean up the mess. The director of the choir was standing right beside the spot of regurgitated matter, just a half step to her right. I discreetly sidled up to her and whispered there was vomit on the floor immediately to her right. She picked up her belongings and shifted to the left. No harm, no fowl.
In the meantime, I spotted a woman in the small crowd that I knew from a few years back. I didn’t know she lived there. Just them a nurse walked up to me with the news that my aunt was indeed in her room, all snuggled up in the corner chair with a blanket around her. She looked cozy and was surprised to see me. It seems the bed was raised high and we were unable to see her at a quick glance around the room.
We visited for a few minutes, I dropped the tin off and headed back to the area of performance as the choir was wrapping up. After they were finished I went to speak with the woman I knew for many years, and who now, due to her illness, didn’t know exactly who I was, though did join in the conversation. I noticed her singing along to the familiar Christmas tunes.
I took my son to say hello to my aunt before we had to leave. She had forgotten that I was just in her room.
The whole thing didn’t go the way I expected and that’s okay. I was a bit disappointed I couldn’t sit with her during the performance but I must admit, I left saddened by the fact that these two women whom I have known for most of my life are not the women I have known for most of my life.
Life changes and so do we. That’s a fact and not one I’m too thrilled about but that’s life too.
Is there someone you know and love who has been effected by an illness and or changes from the person you knew?
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