JOHN THE MENTOR (Nursing Home Life part 3)

There was food for supper in our kitchenette fridge, but we opted to have supper in the dining room on our first night at Laurier House. Principle had triumphed over preference. In principle, it was best to eat in the dining room because Laurier House is a community as well as a nursing home. David and I have always been community people. In every new place we’ve moved to during 44 years of marriage we have stepped forward to meet the neighbours and join in with local activities. So it made sense to eat in the dining room, even though we had a fridge with food in it. My preference would have been the kitchenette. In principle, we had to pay rent to live at Laurier House, David for long-term care, me as his companion. Food was included in the rent. Why pay again for food you have already paid for? My preference was to buy our own food and eat it in our suite. In principle, we had moved to Laurier House so that there would be a team of people to join me in taking care of David as Multiple System Atrophy steadily progressed. David gave a firm indication that he wanted to act on principle. So we chose it over preference, even though I didn’t want to go there. I had never imagined a nursing home as a place where I would want to live, or a care centre dining room as a place where I would want to eat. When sociable people like us move into a community, its character gradually becomes part of them. They take on its projects, its conflicts, its joys, its aspirations and its sorrows. Having moved several times, we were familiar with this process. Perhaps it was this knowledge, more than any other factor, that explained my reluctance to join the community in the dining room “Pretend it’s a restaurant,” I said to myself. “Fat chance,” myself said back. But we went anyway. Feeling as lost as accidental visitors to a foreign land, we accepted the offer when one of the care attendants came to take us to supper. Perhaps a dozen people had arrived before us. The Laurier House dining rooms are furnished in tables for four. Places are pre-assigned so that the staff can set up in advance. “This is John,” said the care attendant as she positioned David’s chair. “This is David and Wendy.” Then she was off to shepherd someone else. Not counting us, John was the sole diner at our table. It appeared that he was already well into his meal when we arrived. Acting on our natural curiosity, we set out to get to know him. Sociable and curious, we hadn’t been there more than a few minutes when we came up against the first obstacle. We couldn’t figure out why John was there and we didn’t know how to find out. When I was a little girl, my mother taught me a thing or two about asking questions. “Never ask people how old they are,” she said. Later, in response to a transgression on my part she added, “Never ask people how much money they have.” Even later, she added: “Never ask visitors when they are planning to leave.” After that, it was mainly up to me to decide what questions to ask. In the case of John, there seemed to be something I had to know, and I swear I heard Mother say: “Don’t ask people why they are living in a care centre. Wait for them to tell you.” Mindful of her warning, I tried my best to be curious and wait at the same time. While I waited, I contemplated. John did not seem to be a staff member. He appeared so much healthier than most of the residents. Maybe he was a companion like me. But that didn’t seem right either. Laurier House is extraordinary among Alberta Health services care facilities because it houses two categories of occupants: residents and companions. Residents qualify for care services from Alberta Health. Most of the Laurier House residents use wheelchairs. A few use walkers. Some rarely or never leave their rooms. David is a resident. Companions--usually spouses of residents--share accommodation with residents. I am a companion. The ratio of residents to companions is about four to one. This, plus the fact that John was unaccompanied, caused me to assume that John would be a resident. But if that was the case, then it was going to be difficult, without asking directly, to figure out why he was there. John was a friendly, take-charge sort, somewhat older than us but seeming just as young. He was the kind of neighbour you’d like to meet on your first day in a community. When it came to getting past the niceties, he was at a distinct advantage. It wasn’t difficult to see that David was using a wheelchair, or to hear that his speech was impaired. There was stiffness in his arms and hands. His head bowed forward a bit. Knowing we had moved in that very day, John launched an easy conversation about the details of our move. Did we both live here? Where had we come from? Were we comfortably settled in our suite? We wanted to respond by showing interest in him, yet beyond a certain point, we didn’t know quite how. All four of his limbs seemed to be intact. He could hear well and see well. He mentioned driving his car to medical appointments. He had lived here a little less than a year. But what was he doing at Laurier House? The mystery was solved when a care attendant stopped by to put a sympathetic hand on John’s shoulder. “I am sorry for your loss,” she said. When she had moved on, John told us that his wife had very recently died. He lived at Laurier as her companion. . This was a possibility I had not considered, nor did I really want to. Here, on our very first day, we sat within touching distance of a man grieving the loss of his wife. She might have sat here with us if we had arrived a week earlier. At that very moment, David and I were grieving the loss of our regular life together. John must have grieved that same loss not so long ago, and now he was dealing with this new grief. Had we already been friends, we would have known how to talk about this, but as strangers our avenues for mutual consolation were harder to find. John was a stalwart man, resolute in his dedication to moving forward. So we did not speak of grief. We talked of other things. Already he was searching for a new place to live. We followed the details of that search. This is what Laurier House companions do when their spouses die. With no resident to support, there is no reason for companions to remain. Three weeks after we arrived, John was gone. For a brief time he was our best friend. He was the first person we lost at Laurier House and we missed him. The loss I felt at John’s departure took me back a few short years to the time when David’s mother was in her mid-nineties, alive and alert. In the previous twenty years her peers had all died. A social type, she immediately developed friendships in the seniors residence where she lived. But her new friends also died. Yet somehow she had continued on a forward journey with resignation and a surprising degree of optimism. Watching her, I had hoped to follow her example—when I was in my mid-nineties. The opportunity to follow her example came much earlier than I expected. I was 63 and David was 64 when we moved to Laurier House. There was already some illness amongst our peers, but most of our friends and relatives were travelling, volunteering, entertaining friends, and living the life we had hoped to have in our sixties. Joining the Laurier House community was going to expose us to loss at a level we had not anticipated. I am grateful for the time John gave to us. He did not leave without a trace. Instead of talking about grief in his last few weeks, he turned his attention toward settling us into our new future. He taught us how to assist a friendly resident who was constantly searching for her room. He taught us that you could probably be served if you showed up for breakfast half an hour earlier than the posted serving time. He taught us that you could take a breakfast tray to your room, or ask a care attendant to get one for you. He taught us that you could ask the dining room for a litre of milk, or a carton of juice. When I consulted him about a problem with our shower, he said that his shower, left to its own devices, seemed most inclined to point at the side wall. That, he explained, was the reason why he usually chose to bathe. These things we would no doubt have figured out eventually, but we were grateful for the lessons. Time is a clearly defined thing. It takes as long as it takes. Only human perception makes a minute seem long or short. As I write this piece I am aware that I have already been at Laurier House longer than John. The time I spend here is the time I have with David, so I cannot wish it shorter. . In the brief time we knew him, John showed us how life would unfold at Laurier House. People would come. They would hide. They would settle in. The staff, getting to know them, would treat them with affection. Then they would go, sometimes sooner, sometimes later. That was the rhythm of the place. We were at the beginning then, looking for a roadmap to guide us on a journey nobody would ever want to sign up for. We were looking for hope. If John--grieving a loss and facing his second major move in less than a year--could smile through it all, treat people with respect and open his heart to disoriented newcomers, then maybe we could too.