A resident of mine passed away just yesterday.
He wasn't actually a favourite residnt of mine but well, I knew him ever since we started placement at my nursing home. He was this nice old man who would visit his wife nearly everyday. I remember how he used to look, wearing a tweed suit and hat and holding his walking stick smiling at us when we walked by. His wife was severely demented and probably didn't even know what was going on half the time but she did remember him although you wouldnt be able to hold a proper conversation with her.
Still, he visited everyday and was content to simply sit there beside her in front of the television and hold her hand while she bobbed her head merrily to anything on tv. I always wondered how it was like, to love someone so utterly and completely even though at times she wasnt even aware of you, when at times nothing she did or said made any sense at all, when you knew that she was never going to get any better, and that she would never again be that person you fell in love with?
How does it feel to love so completely and unfalteringly for so long?
Whenever we were changing her pads or giving her a shower and stuff, whenever she got distressed and was crying out, he would always be there. He'd rush forward and just hold her hand, and then she'd settle down, comforted by the fact that he was there. She didnt know much else but she knew that she loved him and he loved her. Just as simple as that.
Well, he soon moved into our nursing home and things sort of went downhill after that. He was always in and out of the hospital and the very last time, last Sunday, he was back in the nursing home again.
I remember wheeling his wife into their room and she smiled at me and pointed at her husband. She said, "Look there's my husband." then she waved and said 'Hello darling". And i remember being pleasantly surprised that she would point that out to me, thinking she was surprisingly lucid that day.
Then as i was finishing off my shift, i saw the ambulance pull up on our driveway and one of the nurses told me that he was gone. Our first thought was How are we going to tell his wife?
How are we going to tell his wife that he's gone? That she will never see him again?
WOuld she even understand?
Maybe we shouldnt tell her. But then we wondered if there was some part of her, some part deep inside here that was lucid and awake and knew everything, that somehow KNEW that the person she loved most in the world was gone?
I didnt stay to find out how they told her or if they did. I was too shocked and a bit sad.
Jojo and I were waiting for our bus after that shift and we were talking about how he was taking pictures of us that day, saying he wanted to make a scrapbook. His hand was shaky so the picture he took of Jo was blurry. He promised Jo that he would take another one of her as soon as he could.
Somehow it just made us sad when we thought of it because well, he never did.