Location: Lakeview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
Date: Monday, January 19, 2015; 6:15-8:00 pm
I came in to see that a few dogs
had already gathered in the waiting area.
I went into the community room and saw that Jim was still here. Once again he promised that he would leave in
a couple of weeks. Elmer, who had sent me an email offering his law firms
services to Chicago Cares and Make-A-Wish, pro-bono. It was very kind of him and I thanked him for
that. I looked around and saw that Emma
was there as well and she was wearing a “Super
Mario Bros.” t-shirt. Way to show
off your fashion Emma!
I came out to see that even more dogs had assembled,
including Bruce and June, whom I hadn't seen in ages. Also present were a beautiful Australian
Shepherd called Opie, a 14 week old sweetheart called Isabelle and a Golden
Retriever mix. All in all we had 13 dogs,
a record for my time here. And we were
hearing them through all the barking! There
weren't enough non-pet volunteers so our Volunteer leader Veronica, asked those
pet owners who had been here before to go by themselves and then paired the
first timers with non-pet owners. I was
with a 1 year old excitable thing called Izzy and her owner Janie.
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| Izzy! |
Izzy was a Shepherd Mutt and had lovely dots over her eyes
which looked like eyebrows. We started
on the 2nd floor with David who I know loves doggies. Izzy was extremely active and was jumping up
on him to give kisses. She loved being
petted and he gave her a thorough rub down.
We then went to another lady who admired her from afar and then to Polly's
room. Izzy was trying to jump all over Polly and we were trying to prevent that since even a small scratch to the seniors could
cause an infection. Dena who was in the
same room is usually active with dogs, but was lying quietly in her bed staring
at us. Age it seems has caught up with her.
Our next stop would have typically been with Gloria, but Veronica said
that she had left for another place and I hope that she has recovered enough to
be independent. We visited Loritta who
had little Isabelle on her bed. She is
always ready to chat and told us about a preacher who starts off each sermon
with a joke. She told us about a thief who
breaks into a house and hears a voice saying, "Jesus is watching you", multiple times. He then
spots a parrot who's saying that and learns that its name is “Moses”. So the thief then asks, "Who's Jesus". The answer comes back, “It's the 100 pound Rottweiler".
We left her in splits. Next we went inside a room where a lady was watching something on a tablet and I said that she should watch out, since
Izzy was a jumper. She asked me where I
was from and at first I said my usual "South
Loop but I was born in India". Then
to my immense surprise she started conversing with me in ‘Hindi’. And not just a few
words, but entire sentences! She said that she had a Ph.D. in languages from ‘Berkley’
and had lived in Punjab and Lahore to finish her studies. She talked with great passion about those days
and of Indian delicacies. She told us
about a time when she had a meal one evening under a mango tree on a farm in
rural Punjab. We were translating for
Janie but poor Izzy was feeling left out, though the lady was scratching behind
her ear. She told us how she misses
Indian food… any good food saying what passes for vegetable over here is BBQ
sauce with fish nuggets! We said that
she needs to make it to Devon. She went
on to tell us about the 17 doctors who had misdiagnosed her for years in all of
the facilities prior to this one, including a place where she almost died of
carbon dioxide poisoning. But now she
said that she was feeling better and would be leaving soon. She said that she missed speaking ‘Hindi’ or ‘Urdu’ and I promised to stop by whenever I was in here. I said
goodbye in ‘Hindi’ and we left. But not before I had asked her name, and she said
that it was Pearl. Little was I to know
that she would become a permanent fixture for all of my subsequent visits.
We went to the 3rd floor and there are really two
main stops here, Hannah and Jerry. Before
that, we stopped for Izzy to get a drink of water and the poor thing must have
been extremely thirsty as she just lapped it up.
We went into Hannah’s room and I asked how she was. She said that she was sad since Johnny B had
died. This was terrible since I knew
what the cat meant to her. I asked if I
could show Johnny B’s picture to Janie and Hannah told me to pull it out of the
usual drawer. I asked Hannah how far
along was her book, the one she was writing with Sam. Janie asked what the book was on and Hannah told her that it was called “9 lives of Johnny
B”. Before leaving I told Janie that
Hannah used to be in movies and Hannah said that she had indeed been an extra in
several. She told Janie about some
talent agency and that Janie should register with them, and not just her, Izzy
as well.
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| Emma's Teddy |
I told Janie that Jerry would have some treats for Izzy for
sure, but she was getting tired and so Janie decided to take her home. I wished them goodnight and then went inside the
Bingo room. Jane was calling the game
and I told her that I had taken over for her the last time and couldn’t do as good
a job as her. I joined a table of 4
residents who were with another volunteer and started playing. While some people on our table had already won things
like candy, cookies etc., we did not have a good session since I came over. At the end I collected all the chips and then
took Emma upstairs. I told her that I
was going to her hometown of St. Louis and she said “Oh”. I said that she should
tell me what to do. She was clutching her
Bingo prize, which was a ‘Hershey’s’
bar. I asked if I should drop her to her
room and she said “That would be nice”. As I entered her room, I saw a teddy on a
table holding a heart saying “love”.
I actually think that this was from me 2 years ago. I had sent her flowers and there had been a teddy accompanying those. I asked her about it and of course she said that it was nice.
I waited for a nurse to come for her and then said bye to
Emma who thanked me. It had been another
good night. My hairdresser had said to me that
the world is a nicer place because of people like me. I said that I appreciated her saying that,
but I wasn’t out to make a difference. I do it because for a couple of hours I am
with people who do not want anything from me other than someone to talk to for
a bit, and I do not want anything from them.
There is no expectation and nothing to hope for. No one is lying and no one is trying to be
nice. No one is saying things to please
or hurt you. There is no worry and it’s
the most basic humanity on both sides. That's definitely worth 2 hours of my time.
*All the client's names have been changed in order to respect their privacy
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