Betsy

Hi, Betsy!” I spoke as loudly as I could.

 She nodded her head. It was the first time I met her. She was crunched up in her wheelchair and her head hung down low. A little trail of drool glistened from the corner of her mouth.

 The nursing home was hard to find on a back street of Tampa. It was a vintage house from probably the fifties in a residential neighborhood. It was called “Angel’s Haven.” The paint was peeling off the walls. The swimming pool was dry and gated off.  All the staff were foreign-born; the radio blared out Latino music day and night and none of them there could speak English.

Since she didn’t understand Spanish, I was hired to visit her and carry on a one-way conversation and try to get her to talk. This was harder than it seemed. But I heard she had travelled to Alaska and Hawaii when she was younger and she had also been a teacher. Since I had never been to one of these places, I brought my snapshots of New Mexico and started telling her about that trip.

She was silent until I was over.  Finally she said as clear as she could, “Do you have any pictures of Alaska?”

I said “no” and she went on to tell me some stories of her adventures in the past before she was confined to a wheelchair. It was like a miracle to see her open up and talk after my several hours of monologue. I guess it took that to draw her out of her diseased shell.

I had forgotten all about that visit until one day my boss, Emma, called and told me that she had ended up in the hospital. She had fallen and hurt her knee and they found she was badly dehydrated. As a result, she was now in renal failure. I was supposed to sit with her for ten hours and her regular provider would sit with her for two to give me a lunch break.

When I arrived, she was in a state of semi-consciousness and slept a lot. Her eyes were lowered to slits; her breathing was heavy and her mouth stayed open. I read books to her including parts of the Bible, The Autobiography of Ben Franklin and the Wizard of Oz.  Also, I read to her from an analogy of poems and stories that I had contributed to from years ago. There wasn’t much response from her except when I asked a simple and direct question. Then she would open her eyes and answer.

“Are you okay?” I asked again at one point.

“I’m okay,” was her response and then she got incoherent

Nurse Annie came in at one point and gave her a shot.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“It’s Procrit. It increases the red blood shells.” The young girl smiled.

“Will you put her on dialysis?”

She paused. “No. No artificial means of treatment.”

“You mean to keep her alive?”

“Yes. It’s her guardian’s request.”

She pulled out the needle. “There ya go, Betsy!” She exclaimed and left the room quickly and we were alone again.

 Zebe, her normal caretaker, soon arrived and she perked right up at seeing her. But, boy, you should have heard the complaining (if you could understand it).

Finally, it was my time to leave. My 12 hour shift was over. I learned from Zebe that Betsy was a writer too, so I promised her I would write her story.

I listened to the machines humming and the drip of the saline solution. Everything was peaceful and functioning. I saw her sleeping like a baby and with her eyes closed. Her soft hands were curled into balls and her breathing was steady.

Finally, I said: “Betsy, you’re going home soon.”

She nodded her head and responded back, “I’m going home.”

I replied, “Good-bye, Betsy.”

 She mumbled and nodded her head.

 Then I thought: she is going home; it’s just a matter of time: her permanent one.  And until then she sleeps and rests. Keep waiting, Betsy, keep waiting; soon it will be your new beginning.

(Betsy went to a nursing home and passed away 6 days later…)