Noticing yesterday that Nosey’s (corner unit downstairs, across the quad) blinds, usually opened enough for her to see what’s going on outside, were closed up tight, I thought it odd. THEN I realized I’d not seen her caregiver for a day or so.
Seeing next door neighbor on her patio, I asked if she knew whether everything was okay with Nosey, and next door neighbor said, “No. She’s in the hospital again.”
“Another fall?” I ventured to guess.
“Yes. She had another fall in her unit”, replied Next Door Neighbor.
Now that Nosey is dependent on a walker and a caretaker, I wonder how she managed to do that ... to fall and hurt herself yet again.
I’d not talked to Nosey for quite a while. First, because it seemed such an effort for her to understand what I was saying last time I did stop to ask how she was doing, when the caretaker had her sitting on the patio. Second, because she hasn’t been on the patio in months, and I didn’t want to knock and have Nosey struggle to get to the door if the caretaker happened to not be there.
It’s so scary when I see how some of the seniors are slowly painfully fading away. When my time comes, I hope I get to transition quickly, painlessly.
And speaking of having difficulty making myself understood, there is a resident I always run into while he’s out walking his pups. He’s a friendly guy, doesn’t appear to have any ailments ... that is until you talk to him. Then it becomes apparent he’s not quite all there. Consequently, I don’t try to engage him in conversation. I leave it at “good morning” when we pass and a wave when he’s at a distance.
The Seer once told me his situation is brain damage due to a motorcycle accident. However, his mother ─ who also has a unit on the property, once shared he (her youngest son) had been shot ... twice. Not bang bang, hospitalized, recovered but bang, hospitalized, recovered then bang again, hospitalized, recovered a second time.
I guess he has his good communication days and bad communication days because, for the first time in all the years I’ve been here, he engaged me in conversation today as I was heading to the mailbox. I understood him. He understood me.
What precipitated the conversation was his making the peace sign as we passed, then flipping the peace sign upside down.
"What’s that?", asked I.
"That’s peace", he indicated the up fingers were, and “That’s my thing” he indicated the sign upside down.
I’m thinking he’s talking gang sign and his being in a gang the reason why someone had tried to kill him twice.
He went on to say, “That’s been my thing since 1989. I’ve been molotov cocktailed, shot AND stabbed” ... and he said it with what sounded like pride.
His mom left those other two happenings out.
“You must have been into some bad stuff to have people after you like that.”
“No. All this happened to me after I got out of the military”.
No matter. We create your own reality, so he had to be doing something to draw those occurrences to himself, but it’s nothing short of a miracle that he’s still here, in better health than quite a lot of the seniors. But WOW! What a story.
The conversation ended with my saying, “You’re a walking talking miracle”.
When I was chatting with Next Door Neighbor, learning Nosey was once again hospitalized, Neighbor mentioned there was some sort of a bruhaha at last week’s Bingo. Something about shouting and a fight over food that resulted in Apache snatching up all the bingo prizes he’d displayed, walking out with them and back to his unit.
I’ll have to catch up with Apache tomorrow, learn the who, what, why of it.
These seniors are going to bad behave themselves right out of ALL their privileges.
My goodness. I do think some people get really obnoxious when they get old. Somebody let them think they had the right to do so but I think you have to use good manners until the day you die. Somebody needs to be put in time out over there.
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