Gerry was a little woman with a gnome-like quality, from the cloth turbans she wound around her head, to the many layers of shawls and sweaters that swathed her small frame. Her big round eyes were kind of gogglely and her voice frail and hesitant.
She was nervous about thieves, particularly the ones who stole Amazon packages from front door. She had posted a sign on her door asking delivery people to ring the doorbell when they arrived as there were THEIVES AROUND who took advantage of people like her. This fear eventually included the safety of the mail boxes and I would often see her scurrying to the Center to pick up her mail in the dark of night when she couldn’t be seen.
Her daughter came to visit her regularly, took her shopping, and kept her company but she must have been busy on Monday because she didn’t visit until Tuesday. Later that day one of my upstairs neighbors knocked on my door.
“You know Gerry … ” she said in a low voice and an arched eyebrow. “She’s gone.”
“Gone where,” I asked.
“Gone, gone. Her daughter found her this afternoon. She was just sitting in her chair with the computer on her lap.”
“Yesterday the woman from the senior shuttle service was here,” I recalled. “She knocked on the door several times but nobody answered. I didn’t think much about it.”
“Well, there you are. She must have already been dead,” my neighbor inferred.
“And nobody knew until today,” I concluded.
We both looked at each other, unwanted pictures arising in our heads. She went back upstairs and as I closed my door I noted Gerry’s THIEVES AROUND sign on her door.
When you live in a senior community, you quickly get used to unexpected departures. Ambulances and firetrucks show up at all hours of the night and day. The young EMTs arrive silently and quickly, pull out gurneys and respirators and paddles, and talk on cell phones to hospitals.
At night their flashing red lights blink off and on for the duration of their stay. By day, residents stand on their patios or look out of their windows to see which apartment has been chosen for this visit.
As you get older you come to expect, if not accept, that one day you too will be wheeled away as the neighbors watch and the dogs bark. The universal hope is that you will not be alone when that happens – or, at best, you will be found within hours of the occurrence.
This is a particularly acute hope when you have pets. It’s bad enough to die and not be found for a few days, but to know that your innocent cat, dog or bird is locked up with you is too distressing.
If anyone needs a good idea for an easy job, start a telephone service in which you call seniors once a day just to check on them. You would ask if they are ok or if they need help reaching a relative or caregiver. You could call it “Just Checking,”
“Hello, this is Just Checking. Are you dead yet?”
“Nope. Still kicking.”
“Good for you. Talk to you tomorrow.”
Namaste.
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