Update on Helen

I wrote about Helen last week, a lonely, elderly neighbor I met on Halloween night. My friend, Katie, a family therapist, recommended getting in touch with Family Elder Care. I gave them a call and they have a great program, providing companionship, housekeeping, meal preparation, transportation and other services for the elderly in and around Austin. They said if I could get Helen’s phone number, they would give her a call. I brought Baby Girl with me, because she is pretty good at making people happy.

Helen opened the door and I walked inside. There was a table in the living room with family pictures on it. I felt a little like a private investigator, with a hidden agenda, trying to find out if she was living alone or had family to help her. I asked about her pictures. She showed a picture of her husband and another picture of her son who had died a while back. She showed me pictures of her grand kids. It looked like a lot of family, but I noticed that all of the pictures were older, with dated clothes and hair styles. Her grandkids must be grown up by now and they hadn’t sent any new pictures.

We head to the back room and sit on the couch to talk. Helen LOVES Sophia. She holds her and talks to her and watches her cool faces and is delighted with her funny sounds. I ask Helen about her family and house and life.

Her story gets hard to follow pretty quickly. She says she doesn’t live in this house, she lives in a small town a few hours away, but she visits this house sometimes. Then she says she can babysit Sophia any time. Then she says her husband and son are just out hunting over the hill. Then she she says her husband died last year. She says she didn’t have too many kids, then she lists about ten boy and girl names. Then she says she wishes she had had a girl, she always wanted a girl. Each sentence by itself was grammatically correct and logical, but any two sentences together didn’t make sense.

I got her phone number and gave her mine. I called Family Elder Care with the information. I’m going to come back and visit again. I hope she is doing all right.