Last night, I drove by the neighborhood of a woman I knew 27 years ago, as her Case Worker, for a Home Care. I had been hired to go visiting about the hill towns,to assess those with incomes less than $12,000- and their needs for help. In those days, when there was funding, one could assign the outside help someone needed. To stay at home. Which is far less expensive than a facility, certainly.
She lived in a beautiful, worn small cape, perched on the hill just as you turn the sharp bend to go up into Shutesbury, with a small steep driveway, and a small welcoming porch that led into her downstairs. Always she greeted me with tea and warmth, her wood stove chugging away in the winter: her windows thrown open wide in summer, as her old butterscotch cat sat happily....cozy by the stove, or perched in the windows, watching the bird feeder.
Each time I would come, she would take a photo of me. I happened to discover at the time that I was pregnant- so the photos changed a great deal each month I made my way round the various homes of people who qualified for help. And each time, she would give me a photograph of me- a gift, thoughtfully budgeted, a meaningful past-time for her.
She explained the first visit that Riley, the previous Case Manager, had always stayed quite awhile, talking and listening. My job, unfortunately, entailed the big mess of way behind files left behind, and the new strictures for the job- new, complex paperwork, that necessitated, as you would guess, the need for shorter time with clients. And I was poised at the fulcrum, between nice Case Worker who has tea and listens and visits- and nice Case Worker who must get all that information down, and then race back to the office to file the paperwork on time.
Still, in the beginning I knew the importance of visiting and getting to know people, simply so that I truly understood, with the withering funds, what help they truly needed. So that I could fight for the ones who were struggling to stay in their homes.
She told me that first day, a warm August day, that her husband and she had lived in this home for so many years. And then, he had taken ill. Eventually, he had to move to the Amherst Nursing Home, and because of this, she asked a neighbor to teach her how to drive. I believe she was in her late 70's at the time.
And so she did. Learn how to drive. And before she knew it, she shared, with delight in her eyes and triumph in her tone, she was able to stop asking neighbors for rides to see her dearest one. And instead, she could go visit him. Every single day.
She became close with the staff, and felt so supported as he slowly worsened, and then finally, passed away, as they used to say.
Now here she was, struggling to find the path that so many had before her, she knew, to learn to live a quiet older life alone. So alone. She had her meals on wheels person, which also provides a way in which someone checks in on those with no family, or no family near by. She took the Senior Shuttle to the library once a week, to store up on piles and piles of books, her solace. She drew small pencil and colored pencil drawings, from her kitchen table by the window that looked out upon what once was her garden, until she had been unable to tend it any longer. And showed me photographs, of the glory of it all , in it's hey day, and her's.
And asked about my 6 year old, and my husband the mechanic at that cooperative garage everyone knew about, over there in Pelham. She told me of her life, of the quiet simplicity of her years. And when it was time to leave, she would hold my two hands in hers, and smile into my eyes. And I would bid her to take good care of herself, and give me a call if she needed additional help, in the meantime.
When I was a week out from my second child's arrival, I stopped, with a plan to return in five months. And so, made my goodbyes to so many dear people, and a few cranky reticent ones.
At five months, after a week where I returned to work, zooming home at noontime to nurse her, my daughter became ill, necessitating a hospitalization and procedures and all...and I realized I would be unable to return to work. A grave disappointment, if you can be that understated, to them, and the onset of us moving in with my father-in-law, to care for him, and afford to stay home with my kids, in the process.
I never got to truly say goodbye to so many I had met. But I hold their stories close to me; closer still, as I move from my 50's to 62 now, my own arc of the gift of this much lifetime creeping along.
I can still see her smile and her glinting eyes, as she looked up at the door when I knocked; as she struggled mightily, alone, to find solace and meaning and substance in her days, as she grew old.
She lived in a beautiful, worn small cape, perched on the hill just as you turn the sharp bend to go up into Shutesbury, with a small steep driveway, and a small welcoming porch that led into her downstairs. Always she greeted me with tea and warmth, her wood stove chugging away in the winter: her windows thrown open wide in summer, as her old butterscotch cat sat happily....cozy by the stove, or perched in the windows, watching the bird feeder.
Each time I would come, she would take a photo of me. I happened to discover at the time that I was pregnant- so the photos changed a great deal each month I made my way round the various homes of people who qualified for help. And each time, she would give me a photograph of me- a gift, thoughtfully budgeted, a meaningful past-time for her.
She explained the first visit that Riley, the previous Case Manager, had always stayed quite awhile, talking and listening. My job, unfortunately, entailed the big mess of way behind files left behind, and the new strictures for the job- new, complex paperwork, that necessitated, as you would guess, the need for shorter time with clients. And I was poised at the fulcrum, between nice Case Worker who has tea and listens and visits- and nice Case Worker who must get all that information down, and then race back to the office to file the paperwork on time.
Still, in the beginning I knew the importance of visiting and getting to know people, simply so that I truly understood, with the withering funds, what help they truly needed. So that I could fight for the ones who were struggling to stay in their homes.
She told me that first day, a warm August day, that her husband and she had lived in this home for so many years. And then, he had taken ill. Eventually, he had to move to the Amherst Nursing Home, and because of this, she asked a neighbor to teach her how to drive. I believe she was in her late 70's at the time.
And so she did. Learn how to drive. And before she knew it, she shared, with delight in her eyes and triumph in her tone, she was able to stop asking neighbors for rides to see her dearest one. And instead, she could go visit him. Every single day.
She became close with the staff, and felt so supported as he slowly worsened, and then finally, passed away, as they used to say.
Now here she was, struggling to find the path that so many had before her, she knew, to learn to live a quiet older life alone. So alone. She had her meals on wheels person, which also provides a way in which someone checks in on those with no family, or no family near by. She took the Senior Shuttle to the library once a week, to store up on piles and piles of books, her solace. She drew small pencil and colored pencil drawings, from her kitchen table by the window that looked out upon what once was her garden, until she had been unable to tend it any longer. And showed me photographs, of the glory of it all , in it's hey day, and her's.
And asked about my 6 year old, and my husband the mechanic at that cooperative garage everyone knew about, over there in Pelham. She told me of her life, of the quiet simplicity of her years. And when it was time to leave, she would hold my two hands in hers, and smile into my eyes. And I would bid her to take good care of herself, and give me a call if she needed additional help, in the meantime.
When I was a week out from my second child's arrival, I stopped, with a plan to return in five months. And so, made my goodbyes to so many dear people, and a few cranky reticent ones.
At five months, after a week where I returned to work, zooming home at noontime to nurse her, my daughter became ill, necessitating a hospitalization and procedures and all...and I realized I would be unable to return to work. A grave disappointment, if you can be that understated, to them, and the onset of us moving in with my father-in-law, to care for him, and afford to stay home with my kids, in the process.
I never got to truly say goodbye to so many I had met. But I hold their stories close to me; closer still, as I move from my 50's to 62 now, my own arc of the gift of this much lifetime creeping along.
I can still see her smile and her glinting eyes, as she looked up at the door when I knocked; as she struggled mightily, alone, to find solace and meaning and substance in her days, as she grew old.
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