visiting day

hands
Originally uploaded by Tygh.

My wife and I went to see my grandmother this past couple of Sundays. She lives in an assisted living environment. It is hard to judge a place having only seen it twice, but from my perspective, it is a tough place to be. People are just sitting around there waiting.

The home looks more or less like an ordinary house. It isn't a fancy house, but it seems to be pretty clean. It has a small parking area in front of what used to be a garage and has now been converted to more rooms. Her room looks out into this small parking lot.

When I went in last, there were a few people sitting in chairs with blankets over their laps watching comedy central on TV. It didn't actually look like age appropriate material, but they were all sort of staring in the direction of the glowing television. My grandmother was in there eating popcorn from a small bowl.

We asked her if she ever gets to go outside. Her eyes lit up at the thought even though it was a little cold out. We couldn't let her down, so we took her to a little park and walked with her for a couple hundred yards. She was so sweet. Then we took her to sit at Starbucks in the big chair and she just sat and drank some tea and thanked us about a hundred times for coming over.

She said she used to live in a big house at the top of a hill. She explained that a woman moved into the basement when she was in California. The woman apparently didn't think that grandma was too smart. She confided to us that she didn't think she was very smart these days either. She stopped for a minute and then mentioned that the woman in the basement must have been her daughter. She thought aloud that maybe she didn't like it in the basement because there wasn't enough room upstairs. Then grandma was quiet for a few more seconds and said that in the end somehow she wound up in this place.

We asked her how often she gets visitors and she said she usually goes to church on Sunday thanks to one of her daughters. We also got a sense that people do come over periodically. Still, she is very lonely. She tears up a lot when she talks. It is heartbreaking really.

She made us write our names on our pictures so she wouldn't forget us. She also made us give her our addresses and phone number. So far she hasn't called. I'm going back there this weekend.

I hope the weather is nice.