She was lost. A mother of five, alone at 85, her home now in the Butler Nursing Home. She had been placed there five years ago by her children.
Their reason for placement was she was getting old, and they did not have time to keep coming over and checking in on her. They had their careers, and their kids who were in sports, and dance, and they just felt it better to place her so they did not have to worry about her not eating, or maybe falling and no one would know immediately.
Sometimes on a Sunday, she would get a visit from a church member or the minister would stop by, and once a week, one of her kids would call her and talk to her for about five minutes.
She had been a hard-working woman in her younger days. She raised her five kids, pretty much alone. Her husband had been killed in the war, and although she received benefits from his death, times were tough, and she took in ironing from the city folk, and she cleaned the church building.
It didn’t give her much money, but she managed to put food on the table and to keep her kids clothed and in school. One time the school needed someone to clean the main part and they couldn’t find anyone qualified, but due to the need to want to buy Christmas gifts, the head master gave her a chance to do this,when she came to him offering him her services, so each year, about three weeks before Christmas, this mother would go in and clean, for the Christmas pageant, which helped her buy gifts for her kids.
She could not afford much, but was able to buy each child a doll for the girls and trucks for the two boys. She sewed stockings and made hand-made soaps, pieces of chocolates, some cookies. She would stuff their stockings on Christmas Eve.
Now, here it was, Christmas Eve, and she felt lost. She had wandered outside to the court-yard of the facility, and she was trying to go home. Home to where her little kids were waiting for her, waiting to be read their bed time story, waiting for their Christmas gifts the next morning, crying because they did not know where mama was. She was alone, alone on Christmas Eve, and the following day brought no brighter hope.
1. Do you think the adult children made the right decision by placing their mama, and if so why, or why not?
2. How do you feel about the idea that the adult children did not actually visit their mama?
3.
What could you suggest, that would make this mama’s life a little less lonely?
41.238100
-85.853047
Like this:
Like Loading...
