"You are about to enter a Fairy Tale World..."
These are the exact words of the nurse as a handful of Lee University freshmen and transfers prepared to enter the alzheimer's wing of the Bradley Healthcare & Rehabilitation Center. Amidst admonitions regarding giving them food or opening doors ("because they will ask you to let them out") she told us that they have created another world and she told how it was a blessing that they let us in even for a moment.
She punched in the pass code on the door and in we went. Through the wardrobe, down the rabbit hole, second star on the right and straight on till morning.
We waved our way down the aisles of invalids and wheelchairs. One dark lady with white permed hair wheeled around in the hallway, not saying much. The nurse was sunny and greeted her warmly as Louise.
In a sort of recreational room we smiled and waved and were cheery. It was somehow natural there. No one seemed to be overwhelmingly awkward. The nurse introduced us to Macy, clearly the most energetic of the bunch...and the most far gone. She bounced up and down in her chair joyously and gave the nurse a sloppy kiss. All smiles. She sang for us and hummed it was not very clear what she was singing but it sounded like pure childlike happiness. The nurse also brought a little light up spinner widget which she took too right away. I saw an old old man with his son sitting next to him. They were arguing with a gentleness that seemed playful, though it really was a valid argument. The old man was trying to grab his son's ear and the son, as if he were coaxing a child, told him he couldn't do that. The same went on with his glasses and with the buttons on his shirt. The old man kept arguing, "No, you know that I...let me...you know why...it's my..." I only heard snatches. It's not very funny how life switches around on us.
I held down the button on the light up toy and Macy just kept looking on at it and singing. I had to guard the cart for a second while the nurse stepped out and I kept pushing it behind me as she became interested in it. Finally I found the suitable distraction of a baby doll. I gave it to her and she took it and hugged it and mothered it.
Then a man that who was halfway cognitive grabbed my attention. I walked up to him and asked him how he was:
"Good good, I love it when you young people come in to visit," he placed his hand on my shoulder. I asked him his name.
"My name's Jimmy Brown." he knew that well.
Jimmy Brown had a son and a granddaughter. He didn't like to hunt because he didn't like to hurt things. He never played sports much. His son is a mechanic. He has lived in Cleveland, Tennessee all his life. He would have liked to have done more schooling but when he was fifteen his father left him and his mother and he had to do farmwork so they could get by. That day he had been watching Little House on the Prairie and when asked if it came on everyday he said "pert near everyday." On the front of his walker is a girraffe neck and head structure painted and made of wood that he calls Christy after his granddaughter. He loves gospel music and he likes Elvis, he has an Elvis CD but not one of his Gospel ones so I am going to buy him one when I get the chance. He also likes "hillbilly" music sometimes. He says he loves to dance and they have dances every week on his floor. He used to work for a group of people who cleaned houses. For fun on the weekends, he and his wife would go out to dinner. He couldn't remember the name, but told me it was right in front of the courthouse. I told him I might check it out. He also told me the name of his church. I might also visit there.
He began talking to Macy, "Is that your baby? That's a pretty baby! That's a pretty baby..."
I watched him as he ate the tomatoes they brought in. I told him my great-grandfather plants tomatoes and they are awful good. He said he didn't like the ones in the store as much because they were kind of hard. I agreed with him.
We both like John Wayne. He said that was one of his favourites. As we coloured a picture we talked of it. It was a picture of a deer. He had a hard time coloring because his hands were shaking. He said he liked to color but he wasn't the best at it. I told him he wasn't the worst at it either and he got a big kick out of that.
One of the things that impressed me the most about Jimmy Brown is that he never complained. I made it a point after so many optimistic answers to see if he ever would. Not once.
Another thing that impressed me most about Jimmy Brown is that he was learning how to read and write. Apparently he was working very hard at it. When I saw his room later there were word labels on everything and worksheets on his nightstand.
He said his family didn't come around but the very rare occasion but he only had good things to say about them.
Jimmy Brown had a Cocker Spaniel once, apparently it lived for fifteen years! He forgot it's name but it was "a real pet to him."
Another splotch local color on the alzheimer's front was Regina. She had yellow-shaded sunglasses on. She loved history. We always tried one way or the other to ask her what her favourite era in history was and she would always confusedly say "I like the history that happened in the past" or "I like the history you read about in lesson books." She said she hoped her father would let her go to school. I told her my brother might be teaching history. She told me she was seventeen. I told her she didn't look over sixteen.
Jule? That was what the named sounded like. She fell asleep a lot. Once holding one of the students hands.
Bedford? I think that was it, he kept trying to talk to the lady beside him with the headphones on. He didn't want to play ball.
And by ball I mean beachball. Several of them started tossing it around. They could catch and throw, every one of them.
After while another fellow and I went to Jimmy Brown's room to play checkers. He seemed to have a lot of fun with that. He kept trying to move the wrong piece. He hadn't played in so long. On his bed was a stuffed menagerie that he had won playing BINGO. I saw pictures of his family. The other fellow playing him in checkers said towards the end of the game that "I've only got two kings and a soldier" and Jimmy Brown got the biggest kick out of that.
Another woman named Boots (she actually had a long list of names, this was the consensus) was dancing with one of the girl students. They walked back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and sat down for a second and then back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. She would sing songs. They sounded really good to me. Really.
I think the nurses there are the true heroines in the world. Could these be "the least of these" Jesus talked about? They will not remember us, most cannot remember their names or the names of their family. We just had to do it because it was the right thing to do. To care for these people and to love them.
There is a Fairty Tale World in the Alzheimer's wing at Bradley Healthcare. All you have to do is walk in and if you can let go for a second and try to dip a toe in the pool of their postulations then you will get what they get. All the Wonders from Wonderland and all the Nevers from Neverland.
It's what we are supposed to do.
I can't forget any of that.
