GOODBYE, GOOD FRIEND!

I was sitting in the executive Director’s conference room, doing my Tuesday morning duty of signing checks over $7,500 for the Board of Directors. There is a door that leads to the Executive Director’s office, and standing near it was a woman who is a Social Worker and coordinator of the Guardianship Committee of which I co-chair. She gently entered the room, and by the look on her face, I knew something bad had happened. I was right.

There is a developmentally disabled gentleman named Paul, who resided in my Daughter Ellen’s wing of her home. Paul recently became ill, and the agency could not care for him. It meant that we had to send Paul to a hospital, where he was ‘wired up’ for survival, which is all I will say about his illness. From there, the warmth of the hospital did not want to have anything to do with him, once they were done, and we needed to move him out. After much difficulty with the State, we finally found a nursing home that would take Paul.

TLW (The Little Woman) and I both knew and loved Paul. Paul would sit on a chair by himself, a look of sullenness on his face, which belied what was behind that mask. Paul was an anxious person by nature. He sat alone, occupying himself. My daughter in her eagerness to mix with people would go over to him and ‘help’ him put plastic blocks into a laundry basket. She was the only one allowed to assist him.

Whenever I visited Ellen’s home, I did what I felt I should do, and remove my hat, then greet each of the seven other people that lived there. When it came to Paul, I was afraid to go near him. He is a man about 5’3” tall. What I was afraid of was his rejection of any overtures to friendliness on my part. Then one day I decided to risk his wrath and go over to him, get in close and say hello. I bent down close to his ear and with one hand rubbed his back, and with the other held it to shake his hand. I said softly: “Hello Paul, how are you?” I was shocked at what occurred next! Paul leaned toward me, and kissed my check! He then returned to what he was doing. From that afternoon onward, whenever I saw Paul, it was the same ritual for us. A silent bonding occurred, one that will last forever. Paul and I were friends.

Well, this morning, Shelley, the Social Worker gave me the news that Paul had passed away last evening. A heart attack claimed Paul. In his silent world, his closed lonely world of suffering, Paul had an agency of people who loved him. He had a woman named Shelley who cared; one would think it her brother who had passed away. She said she felt so bad. I had to remind her she was the one that worked so hard on his behalf.

People like Shelley and her assistance, make the agency work so well. This could not have been just another mentally disabled person to her, no one to get too excited about. And, it is not. Saints help people, my people and angels like Shelley, too. Paul is probably better off now, now that he is not suffering.

I have a niece of whom I am very proud. She is a nurse, a special person, and an angel from God himself. People like her make life and death tolerable, in a sense, understandable. We go our way, think nothing of criticizing them if they do not run to our aid fast enough, but they hang in the shadows, when the doctor takes all the credit. They enable the doctor. Shelley, although not a nurse, enabled Paul to die loved.

Now, at every meeting of the Guardianship Committee, when Shelley speaks of one of my people in need, I will try to understand what her pain is, also.

Please remember all those that need our hopes and prayers, especially my brother-in-law, John.