Each Christmas day for the past 2 years, well 3 now, have brought me new experiences of what Christmas means to me and my children. Christmas used to mean fun, family and of course gifts left by Santa. But when Cyclone foty ripped the magic carpet from underneath our happy little home, he changed our festive path.
This year it began to feel more like my own again. I enjoyed this years festive season, and I expect now that future Christmas celebrations will belong to me again to enjoy without sadness creeping in.
But that is not what I want to tell you about. You see we spent Christmas Lunch with foty's Mum, her new husband and his sisters. He turned his back on his family to go to JS's family gathering. Which was a good thing, because we got his invite.
Now part of the invitation included picking up foty's grandmother, who is 92 years old (turning 93 in February 2009) from the private nursing home where she is a permanent resident. This was a really disturbing eye opening experience for me, and I was only there for 15 minutes. Let me share it with you if I may.
I was ignorant to the nursing home situation, of course I'd heard the news stories ;- elderly being bathed in kerosene, elderly being found dead days after their actual death, elderly suffering bed sores from not being moved for days.... all very distressing and something I listened to but blocked from my mind.
So when I walked into Grandma's nursing home on Christmas Day the first thing I was struck with was the stale, harsh smell. This was only side tracked by the fact I could just walk into the place. No knocking required no code for the security pad next to the doors, and no person at the reception desk. I simply walked in.
"Grab a staff member and ask for Sheila's room," Foty's mum had told me when providing instructions for the pick up.
Well easy to say, but there were no visible staffers floating around. I looked up and down and walked slightly passed the reception desk. But still no one seemed to be of authority, except for a man with a Santa hat on who seemed to be loading the cupboards. I walked past him and smiled a little; he nodded and continued to stack. As I went towards the open doors to somewhere I'd never been the smell got stronger. I don't know what it was, but it just reminded me of staleness with some antiseptic thrown in, doing a bad job of covering the stale smell up.
Finding nobody else I returned to the Santa Hat man and asked him if he could tell me where to find "Grandma". He told me he thought he knew which room she was in and led the way. In fact we seemed to be wandering, I hadn't noticed but the residents names were on each door. Two to a room, reminding me of a hostel type set up.
Finally he found her name on the door and said "There, that's her room," and he left me to it. Slowly I walked into the simple room, but nobody was in there. Retreating out of the door I spotted his Santa Hat and approached explaining the empty room.
"Oh," he says scratching his head. "Actually I think her husband came and got her this morning."
"Ahhhh that is not possible," I said slowly. "He's been deceased for 30 years."
"Oh well maybe it was her son," he guessed again.
"Well I've got instructions to pick her up, are you sure?" I asked knowing that her three sons were very rarely there to take her anywhere, unless foty's Mum spelt it out for them.
Santa Hat led me to the nurse’s station, which was as empty as the reception desk.
"Do you know what she looks like?" He asked me a little annoyed.
"Yes, if you show me where I might find her I will know her," I replied getting a little frustrated at the last 15 minutes of wandering around without a clue.
Finally as he was leading me through a room I found Sheila. She was asleep on a chair with a bare wooden table in front of her. There was a half drunk cup of tea (I assumed) on the table, probably cold right now. She was flanked by at least 4 other elderly residents who were either asleep or staring blankly at the television, which had the sound turned down very low.
"Here she is," I sighed with relief.
"Oh okay, great," he replied scuttling off quickly.
"Grandma," I said softly, "Grandma, time to go to lunch."
"Oh, hello," She said opening her eyes and smiling at me. I didn't see any recognition of her knowing me. I hadn't seen her for six months and since she barely recognised her own children anymore, I was a little concerned she might be alarmed at a stranger collecting her.
"Merry Christmas Grandma," I said kissing her on the cheek. "We are going to Jill's for lunch, come on," I beckoned helping her up.
"Where? Who? Where are we going?" She asked confused.
I explained we were going to her daughter, Jill's for Christmas lunch. Slowly I led her out towards the front door. Nobody noticed, nobody questioned me. Of course Sheila kept trying to go into the various rooms where there seemed to be parties, but I simply steered her back towards the exit.
"Are we going for a ride?" She asked me a few times before we got to the car.
"Yes we are going to Jill's your daughters'," I told her each time she asked.
"And who are you?"
"I'm Kellie, I was married to your Grandson," I said as ET (evil twin) thought of the many things I could've said here.
"Oh <foty's name>, you were married to him, where is he? Is he in the car?" She asked as we approached.
"Ahh no, he's marrying someone else now Nana," I spoke, biting my tongue as ET kept badgering me to tell her more ...
"Ohhhhh is he?" she asked sounding genuinely shocked.
"Ahh yes,” I said out loud, thinking about saying Yerr he met her at his work, had an affair like Jill's husband. I didn't say it but it did give me a bit of a giggle at the thought of saying it.
So out we went no sign out, again no security code required. I was abducting foty's grandmother, my children's Great Grandmother. Now I know it is highly unlikely that elderly residents would be abducted, but surely there should be some sort of ID required or sign out?
Oh and a side note here, I was very concerned when we were headed to our destination which was 40 minutes away ... you see a few friends when they knew I was taking her, joked that I put a towel down on the seat, mean I know, but they were more teasing me. So when Grandma started squirming a little towards the end of our journey, I started getting a little nervous. I'd forgotten a towel!!!!!
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