Early this morning, through my job as a home health care agent, I tended to the needs of an elderly man who has significant dementia following an injury to his brain from a recent fall (he has Parkinson's). Frank still owns his long-standing Italian restaurant in Streamwood, called Franco's, now operated by relatives. He came over to Chicago from southern Italy as a child and was serving Capuchinos at the age of 8, starting his 70-plus-year career in the food industry.
After bathing him and clothing him today, I brought him in for breakfast. He ate cereal, then three Tangelos that he peeled ever so slowly, playing with the peels as he carefully placed them one-by-one on the table.
After serving him his meds crushed up in a little apple sauce, he was ready for his daily habit of taking torn-out pages from financial magazines and shuffling them after doodling on them, then repeating. His wife said he was reverting back to his days of handling inventory, payroll, billing, etc., at the restaurant.
Being with him, I was reminded of my sister, who died at 48 and was suffering from dementia associated with a brain injury she incurred working as a Greeter at Walmart, having accidentally tripped into a bad spot in their pavement outside Lawn & Garden.
Here is an old piece:
At church on Sunday I heard a Christmas song I never knew about and really liked. Called "Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne," written in 1864 by Emily E. Elliott, it's 3rd verse went, "The foxes found rest and the birds their nest In the shade of the forest tree; But thy couch was the sod, O Thou Son of God, In the deserts of Galilee: O come to my heart, Lord Jesus, There is room in my heart for Thee."
What was funny for me is I was in the midst of writing my last blog post the night before in which I used that very verse from Matthew 8: "And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."
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On this particular Christmas week evening, with snow falling outside my window and the Bears winning in Minnesota on local TV, I am reflecting on what it means to have real security and the sense of "home." A little over an hour ago I got a call from my sister in response to a message I left for her at the desk of the psych ward at Ohio State University Harding hospital. She told me she had just been diagnosed with dementia. She will be 47 on Jan. 17.
She said, "I never ever thought this day was coming even though I knew inside it was coming." She had already been diagnosed with a brain injury stemming from a fall two-and-a-half years ago in the parking lot of Wal-Mart.
My sister asked if I was going to be able to visit her in Columbus when I came home for the holiday in another day. She actually couldn't remember if it was on my drive from Chicago to Akron. I had to tell her it would be way out of the way.
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What a sad reality that my sister could very well not be out of the hospital in time for Christmas. I can't imagine how we're going to have a celebratory gathering of any kind without her, knowing where she is and what's going on with her.
Still, I am very much looking forward to going home, hugging my four-legged brother, Murray, and being in my mom's guest bedroom, enjoying all the comforts and luxuries of being in my mom's house, which used to be my grandmother's house and a house where my family once lived for over a year after we came back from being missionaries in Ecuador.
Home is home is home, I guess. "What will it be like for my poor sister come Christmas?" is all I can think. I asked if she had people she could relate to at the ward (where she's been since last Thursday) and she answered something like, "Oh, they're mostly people who are in a such a drastically different situation. They're not ones you feel you can get near to. You know what I'm talking about?"
Without thinking, I answered, "Yeah, I think so. Like the homeless people I used to come across in New York." She didn't correct me.
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