2008
The Forgotten People
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Have you been to a nursing home? If you haven’t you should. It is a reality check that everyone needs. It doesn’t matter your age or health. You need to go. You need to smell the smells, you need to see how you may end up, you need to meet and maybe even talk to The Forgotten People.
I have been in my share of nursing homes. I have seen and spoken to those that life has forgotten. One of my first experiences was going to visit my great grandmother about 13 years ago. Alzheimer’s was her poison. She had gotten combative and there wasn’t much in the way of choices for her living arrangements.
It was the smell that first hit me. I was in my late teens then, and full of life. There wasn’t anything I couldn’t do and I planned on doing all of it. I went with my parents and we found my great grandmother in the common room. The room contained a TV and a “Last Supper” looking table. There was a man perched at the head of the table. Empty candy wrappers sat in front of him. He reminded me of a zombie. Starring off into no where, or perhaps at something only he could see. There was a woman in a wheel chair at the opposite end of the room. Her blanket was caught in the wheel of her chair. She couldn’t move. She screamed for about five minutes and no one came. Finally my mother let her free. Her voice turned sweet when she thanked her.
This past October I was in Florida to visit my grandmother. A different home, but the same smell. All the workers were clustered into litle groups. I imagined they were discussing last nights TV shows. In reality they were probably bitching about their lack of pay. Either way they weren’t paying much attention to those they were there to care for. The thought that we pay people more to manage a fast food joint then we do to take care of our loved ones is something I will never comprehend.
They didn’t know the grandma that I did. They didn’t know how kind hearted she was or how special she made me feel. To them she was just another zombie. A zombie they left alone in the bathroom when she became combative. A zombie that fell and bruised her face and arms when she was left alone. Not once, but twice. There should be cameras. Why are there not any cameras!
But my grandma is one of the one’s they are “good” to. They are good to her because my grandfather and my uncle come to see her on a daily basis. The workers would tell my uncle about the people who just drop their loved ones off to the nursing home and never come back. Those are “The Forgotten People.” Those are the people that the world no longer has a use for so we put them out of our hearts and minds. They are assigned a bed, there belongings come up missing, and they fade from the world that zooms along around us all.
I can’t help but assume a nursing home will be my fate. If cancer or some other disease doesn’t kill me Alzheimer’s runs rampant on both sides of my family. I keep on telling myself to volunteer at a local home. It would remind me to live now because the end of it all isn’t much of a living. After all I’ve seen I’m convinced they call them the golden years on account of all the urine.
I am amazed that we don’t talk about this more as a society. I assume it’s because no one wants to admit to it. For the most part the nursing home business is broken and as a single individual it seems impossible to fix it. However I still urge you to go. Visit a nursing home if only to remember to live. Talk to the woman parked alone in the corner, answer to the man calling you as you walk down the hall, sit and hold the hand of the woman that’s on the floor they put those getting ready to die.
These are our mothers, fathers, aunts, and uncles. She or he could be you. These are The Forgotten People. Most of which are just waiting to share their stories. Stories that some can only hope to take with them to the grave.
Thank you for writing this.
My job recently brought me to an nursing home, because one of my residents was being strong-armed into volunteering there. I work with the mentally ill and the developmentally delayed, and I am horrified at the way these unwanted populations are pushed together. The majority of people I saw volunteering at this nursing home were also obviously individuals suffering from mental illness and/or developmental disability. It’s almost as though it’s easier if you keep all these people you don’t want to think about in one place… or enlist them to watch each other so that the “normal” people are free to fuck about.
I’m not saying it well. My mind is dead tonight.
I have been planning to visit our local nursing home… well, one of them, during this holiday season and get a list of 3 – 4 people, maybe more, and do something nice for them for Christmas. I’m going to talk with the volunteer coordinator and find people who normally wouldn’t have any visitors at all, because after all, this, like everything else is all about the golden rule. The worst thing in the world for me would be if I was alone on Christmas.