New Friend

I work with old people. "My old people,"I fondly call them. The adult day center where I work cares for older adults who live with a spouse or an adult child, or some other family member or friend, but need care during the day. We serve about 60 clients per day and many of our clients have dementia.

Today I worked in a different room from where I normally work. My clients today, in this room, have more advanced dementia than the ones I usually help. One lady, I'll call her Adelaide, was new to me. I had not met her before. My first interaction with her, in the afternoon, involved a game of golf. We roll out a green mat with holes at one end each person gets to putt a little bit and try for a hole in one. As I set it up, Addie said she didn't want to play. Another lady asked if I ever played. "No," I said, "and I don't intend to!" (Golf is a good walk spoiled, I tend to think.) When it was Addie's turn, I asked if she wanted to play, despite her earlier assertion that she was not interested. "No," she said. "I've never played and I don't intend to." I could tell she had some spunk.

Later, she noticed a man on the other side of the room who had dozed off. "I think there's something wrong with his belly," she told me confidentially. "It's not moving. I was worried but I didn't want to tell anyone." I glanced over at him and reassured her that he was fine; he was breathing, just napping. "Oh, good," she said. "I thought we'd have to call the undertaker!"

At the end of the day I was sitting next to her and she noticed that we were both wearing striped shirts. "Hey, I've got white and blue stripes and you've got black and white stripes," she observed. I smiled. "Yes, I wear a lot of stripes," I said. "I like them." She chuckled. "Me too. I think flowers and stuff are stupid. If that's all you have, I guess it's OK."

Sweet Addie was excited to introduce me to her daughter who came to pick her up. "Did you meet this?" she asked, pointing to me.

"Cute," her daughter said. "You want to take her home with you?" Addie's daughter didn't seem quite as amused by Addie as I had been all day. But that's the beautiful part of my job. I made a new friend today and she liked me. I'll probably make friends with her all over again tomorrow.