Seeing Beyond Obligation

Leaving work that day, I nursed a sense of self pity. It had been a long day with tedious work. The plan I had made earlier in the month-to visit the residents at Bethany Care Center-was not something I wanted to do that evening.

When I arrived, I lingered outside waiting for my friends. By that time my phone had died, but we had planned to meet on the second floor at 5:30. I sat waiting, expecting to see them entering the building, but as the time approached, I realized they were probably already inside.

Reluctantly, I left my vehicle, looking forward to dinner after the visit. I found my friends gathered outside the room of one of the senior residents. Brigette, the organizer of the outing, was engaged in conversation with a woman inside.

I suggested to Leslie, a friend there, that she and I make our way to the third floor. As we walked onto the elevator, my nervousness resurfaced. The residents had just finished dinner, perhaps they would be tired and want to go to bed. Maybe they weren’t up for any visitors.

Seated at the main desk, was the nurse. Leslie asked her which residents specifically were in need of a visit. She directed us towards a gentleman named Paul seated in the main area. As I turned to leave, the nurse suggested that Alice, a woman walking towards the main lobby could use a visit as well. Alice was using her walker to slowly make her way towards a chair, moaning and crying quietly as she went.

Awkwardly following Alice, I approached her as she settled into a chair. “Would you like some company?” I asked softly, touching her shoulder. Initially unresponsive, I repeated my question louder this time. Alice looked up confused and crying. “I can’t hear you. I don’t know what’s happening, but I can’t hear anymore.” During a prior visit, Alice and I had chatted briefly, and she had been able to hear me, so I was a little confused. Alice asked that I write down what I wanted to say.

I retrieved a pen and paper from the nurse and returned to my seat beside Alice. We exchanged glances in silence as I struggled to figure out what to write down. She was still mildly distressed and seemed confused by my presence.

Then the elevator doors opened, and Brigette walked out. She made her way to the nurse, asking where she could find Alice. “Last time I was here, I promised her a return visit,” she explained. The nurse gestured toward us. With affection, Brigette called “Alice!” She knelt beside Alices’ walker, embraced her warmly and rested her cheek against Alices. Until that moment, she had been lost in her own world, murmuring about losing her glasses case where she kept a list of contacts. But as Brigette held her, Alice became visibly calm. She reached up and stroked Brigette’s cheek, staring at her.

Brigette started asking her how she was but as Alice couldn’t hear I told Brigette that we would have to use paper to communicate with her. We spent some time explaining to Alice we were here for a visit and then helped her find the case with the numbers she had lost.

Brigette suggested later that the cause of her hearing loss may have been psychological, rather than the hearing aid batteries, as had been originally proposed.

Brigette left, to visit another resident she had promised to see. Before she did so she told me to tell Alice that “pink is her colour and I love her sweater.” I was inspired by Brigette’s natural confidence in chatting with Alice and how she treated her as an old friend whom she had been waiting to visit.

About a half hour after Brigette had left Alice told me, “You know, I have to tell you in confidence, I have no idea who that was, but she greeted me like she had known me her whole life!” A testament to the importance of Brigette’s greeting. Later she asked if Brigette was “a relative of hers.”

When Alice and I were alone again. She was starting to get disturbed, so I wrote “how did you meet your husband.”

I learnt that Alice and her husband met in an army camp, they had celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary last May. One of their sons lives in Oklahoma, one is in the UK, and her daughter lives in Calgary. They had moved from the UK, London specifically, because “their daughter needed them”. Now Alice was in a home because when she was taking the blue recycling bin down the driveway she had fallen and broken her hip and shoulder.

Her husband had visited her earlier that afternoon and had confided in her that he was becoming lonely and missed her. But he said he knew he couldn’t take care of her. Alice started crying and said they were “pining for each other”. She had told him that she could take care of herself if she moved back home. But quietly she added that she knew it wasn’t true.

I regret not learning more about Alice and her husband. I imagine if they met in an army camp, she was a nurse and he a soldier during the second world war. There were sure to be many more stories that Alice could tell me from her 65 years of marriage.

I now lament the selfish way I approached this visit, as if visiting Alice was simply a duty and not also a privilege.

I was told recently about a young man who had gone to the hospital while his gramma received “assistance in dying”. The normal procedure involves sedation, a round of five needles, and then a lethal injection. However, a mistake was made and after the first injection the doctor or nurse gave her the lethal injection. She complained about not being able to breathe and died.

In a society of passive acceptance, we must confront the reality of witnessing the erosion of ethical boundaries, as we sit idly by and watch a medical profession revoke the Hippocratic Oath.

It’s truly unfortunate to miss out on the profoundly meaningful experience of caring for your family member close to the end of their life.

My grandfather was admitted to the hospital in January of 2023. His cancer had spread across his body, and he was declining rapidly. As the EMTs wheeled him in he told my uncle to “make sure he filled up my gramma’s car with gas.” My gramma had never filled up the car in all the years she had been married to my grandpa. After two weeks had passed, he could no longer communicate with us. Once I was talking to him and had my hand lightly resting on his chest when I realized he was wincing from the contact. He was in so much pain that when they moved him, to prevent bedsores, they had to give him fentanyl. When this happened, I had to leave the room. But through all of this I had the opportunity to watch my mom.

She told my grandpa that she was, “praying he got better, but if not, she was praying for his soul.” Grandpa couldn’t swallow and he was breathing through his mouth, so his lips were very dry. My mom would very often gently rub a sponge against his tongue with water and apply chapstick to his lips.

Although grandpa couldn’t speak, when mom said goodbye to him after spending the night at the hospital and needing to go home quickly to shower and eat only to return later, grandpa would get agitated. She had to make it clear that she would return soon.

I remember her being on guard when the nurses would come in with IVs and needles. And when the team, whose job it is to help advise and counsel those with dying family members, came in to talk to my mom and gramma, she and I waited for them to suggest grandpa was in a lot of pain and they had a “dignified” solution.

Fortunately, that was never suggested. There were many nurses who lovingly cared for my grandpa as he approached the end of his life. Although he suffered a lot near the end, there is an immense peace that I have in the way that our family was able to care for him and rally together. A couple days before grandpa died, the family was gathered together in a waiting room as we went in pairs to say goodbye. At this point no more than two people were allowed in his room at a time. Those who were not visiting him stayed downstairs and shared stories.

We remembered how he snuck lessons into ordinary conversations, how he made sure there was always pop at home to give us, how he swore that a frozen hot dog in a paper towel was perfectly cooked after 30 seconds in the microwave, how he made prizes for us after board game tournaments…

Aside from the memories, this is the way I will remember my grandpa; a man who, until his last moments, prioritized my gramma’s well-being, was always ready to lend a hand to any of us, and who fought until the very end. In his final days, grandpa could no longer do anything for himself, and yet I know that my grandpa died with dignity surrounded by those who love him.

The act of spending time with and caring for the elderly in our society is unparalleled in its capacity for giving of oneself. It goes beyond the duty, offering opportunity for personal growth and for mutual benefit. What better way to honour the wisdom and life of the Alice’s in our world.

*The names in this story have been changed