Helen’s Secret
I’m waiting a long time outside Helen’s front door. Helen is my very elderly neighbor who loves to see Baby Girl. I never like to wait a long time at the door when visiting a very elderly neighbor.
Finally she comes. Maybe she was on the phone or in the bathroom. She opens the door and I walk inside. Something is burning, no, something just stinks, no, that is cigarette smoke. Helen wasn’t on the phone or in the bathroom, dear sweet Helen was secretly smoking a cigarette.
Her daughter-in-law thought the hidden cigarette packs belonged to the son, but the granddaughter knew better. They were Helen’s. She would never admit it, but when no one is there, she lights up.
After our visit yesterday, I realized I hadn’t given an update on Helen in a while, so here is what happened after I called Adult Protective Services about my very elderly neighbor…
I didn’t expect it to turn out like it did. A case worker called me the same day I filed the report and we went to see Helen together that afternoon. As we were leaving, he was rolling his eyes as if saying OH MY MY MY which is a lot to say when you are an adult protective services case worker and must see this all the time. I thought Helen might be taken from her home.
I was nervous to visit again, but I had to see how she was. I walked to the house with Baby Girl in the stroller and saw a woman working in the yard. Hmmm, maybe I should keep walking. Maybe she is Helen’s family and I’m the one who called the authorities, I might as well have called the police, because her family was sucking so bad at taking care of her, maybe her family knew it was me who called and this is a good day for a long walk instead of visiting Helen.
But I decided I wanted to know more about Helen’s family or anyone who might be helping her. So I stopped and asked the woman if this was a good time to visit. She said Helen was inside with her nurse, but they would be done in a minute, go on in. We introduced ourselves, the woman was Helen’s grown grand daughter.
Helen was happy to see Baby Girl. Helen always says the same thing, that Baby Girl is so beautiful and happy that she should be in the movies. Helen didn’t mind me hanging out while the nurse finished. The nurse and I talked some, she said she comes four times a week to check on Helen and be sure she takes her medicine. I asked the nurse why she was hiding the medicine bottles and she said Helen can’t remember if she took her medicine and she might take it too often, so someone is always with her when she takes it now. Between the nurse and her family, some one sees Helen every day. And that’s not even counting Meals-on-Wheels at lunchtime.
This whole big messy system of family, neighbors, volunteers and sometimes the government worked some how this time.
I learn from Helen. I learn from how she lives in the moment. She has to. She still doesn’t remember Baby Girl’s name or even that she is a girl, she doesn’t know how we all met or when we’ll come back, but in the moment, she plays and laughs with Baby Girl and that is all she needs. I want more moments like that, not looking forward or back, not remembering or deciding anything, just enjoying where I am right now. Maybe that is Helen’s real secret.
Your story reminds me of my grandmother who died of Alzheimer’s in 2002.
A few years after my grandfather died we surprised my grandma with a pop in visit and found a cigarette lit in an ash try. My grandmother never smoked, but my grandfather did, and it was his brand. She told us she sometimes lit them because they reminded her of him.