Dinner in the Chapel

When I walked onto the Memory Care Unit on the second floor tonight, I could smell fresh paint and I noticed new signs with the residents' names on them outside each door. As I rounded the corner down the long hall decorated with outdated carpeting, I came upon an empty dining room. Not a soul was around and there was none of the usual noise that fills the air at the home. It was incredibly eery. I walked back down to the lobby where the disinterested front desk girl was barely able to waste her time telling me that the folks were eating in the chapel tonight as she pointed down the opposite hall.

When I turned the corner past the "chapel" sign and the floor-to-ceiling bird cage housing six colorful finches, I saw a set of double doors and entered. Indeed, dinner was being served in the chapel. The room was quite large, with folding plastic banquet tables strewn about haphazardly on carpeted floors. I couldn't help but wonder how the food would come out of the carpet. Everyone was seated in different groups than usual, next to stained glass windows depicting various biblical characters and cheap prints of Jesus Christ. Nobody seemed aware that they were in a chapel, despite the bible quotes on the walls and the bibles along the shelves. I made my usual rounds, saying hello to everyone, gently rubbing their backs, challenging them to eat every last bite on their plates. When I came to Katherine, the meanest woman I've ever met, I asked her, apprehensively, how she was doing. "Shut up," she responded. It was an improvement over last week when, out of the blue, she called me a bitch. I couldn't help but think she was warming up to me.

I took a seat next to Mary, which also happened to put me next to John. Usually John is at the next table and I love to look over at him because he's really cute and smiley. He's gregarious and talkative, but nothing he says ever really goes anywhere. It always sounds as though he's going to say something normal but then it trails off along with his gaze. You can almost see the words extinguished in the air while his brow furrows. But he always recovers quickly. Every time I asked Mary a question, "Mary, do you want to drink some juice?" John would answer. Every time. I loved it. His wife visited him last year during the Christmas party and my heart broke in half for her, watching as she held John's hand while they sang carols with the group. I couldn't help but wonder while she was making sure John was well cared for, who was taking care of her?

When I finished feeding Mary mashed potatoes with gravy and pureed carrots, while completely avoiding giving her the ham that I knew wasn't pureed finely enough and would cause Mary to chew and chew and chew forever, I got up to say goodbye to everyone. Bernice sat crying gently over her still-full plate but assured me she was okay. I waved over at the new lady, Ethel, rather than going over to talk to her because, frankly, she scares me. She's terribly skinny with thin hair and skin so translucent you can see all of the veins in her forehead and face. She looks like one of those fish, so popular in children's aquariums, that are clear so you can see all of their internal organs. Last week when I said goodbye to her, she took my hand and asked me if I was going to call her husband. She went on to tell me that he lives at 3424 Dupont Avenue South and that she wanted to talk to him so could I call him? Her eyes pleaded with me. I said I would try and then Nurse Kollie added, "Ethel, I told you I tried to call him but he didn't answer. I'll try again later." I don't even know if her husband is alive or if Kollie really tried or if he told her that to calm her down.

Tonight when I saw Ethel sitting in the creepy, white PVC wheelchair, it looked like she had bloody stitches all around her mouth. Thankfully, it turned out to be chocolate, but I already had that image in my head from the Shutter Island movie previews and I was totally freaking out on the inside. But since I embarked on this whole experience to face my fears in the first place, I decided to say a personal goodbye to Ethel and walked over to her chair. She repeatedly beseeched me to open the little gate on her odd wheelchair that kept her from falling forward to the floor. I tried to change the subject but she kept asking me to open the little gate. Finally she said something I couldn't understand and I nodded my head in agreement, hoping to appease her in some way, and she seemed to calm down and sat back down in the square chair and allowed me to finally walk away. I have no idea what I agreed to. Chances are Ethel doesn't, either.