In
late 1976 I came back from South America completely broke. I took the first job offered to me, an aide
in a nursing home. They assigned me to
the men’s wing where I made beds, gave showers, emptied urinals
and bedpans, and coaxed my guys into signing over their Social Security
checks to the home. I also learned the
depth to which some people live alone.
I met
Ted there. Ted was a bachelor farmer, an only child of deceased parents. Ted was living in a mobile home when he
suffered a debilitating stroke. The
right side of his body was completely paralyzed.
The
other nurse’s aides claimed Ted was so morbidly obese that EMTs had to enlarge
the doorway of his trailer with a power saw to get him out. Ted never walked or talked after his stroke
four years earlier. He communicated by
pointing and grunting.
“Ted
was morbidly obese?” I asked.
“Before
we put him on a diet.” my co-workers said proudly. “He was 550 when they
brought him in.”
I
looked down the hall at Ted slumped in his tall back chair behind a tray. He couldn’t have weighed more than 175. That would explain the huge folds of loose skin
that hung from his body in the shower.
“I
guess that’s why he’s so hungry,” I said.
Ted
was beyond hungry. He was ravenous. We watched him
closely around the snack cart. When you
did you would see Ted inching towards the cart, pushing slowly with his one
functioning foot.
Ted
betrayed himself by looking up and smiling.
Ted rarely smiled. If Ted got his
left hand within range of the cart, he attacked it. Within seconds his
left hand was furiously stuffing food into his gaping mouth.
It
wasn’t only food. Ted ate toilet paper, tissues, anything. Ted
was in constant danger of choking. Ravenous gluttony took over Ted’s
life.
At
Christmas, visitors to the nursing home increased. But no one visited Ted. Mail
increased also. All the other residents got
Christmas cards.
I
delivered mail to my guys. Every day Ted watched me from behind his
tray. The skin on his face sagged and made his eyes look
bigger. He looked up hopefully.
“No
mail today, Ted. Maybe tomorrow.”
On the last mail day before Christmas, there were lots of cards to pass out. When I came to Ted’s room he was slumped sideways
in his chair, his eyes glued to me like I was a pan of brownies.
“Ted, you got a card.”
His
eyes grew big. I straightened him up in his chair and laid the card
on his tray. He fumbled at the envelope, so I opened it. It
was a card from the nursing home administrator. Every resident got
the same cheap card. Her signature was stamped inside. Before
the card’s message, she wrote “Ted.”
“Look
Ted, she wrote your name.”
Ted
looked up at me and his eyes filled with tears. He sobbed openly
because he got a Christmas card from someone who rarely left her office and
didn’t know Ted from a bale of hay. That was the moment I knew I had to
get out of that job. It was just too sad.
* * * * * * * *
On
Christmas Eve I headed to my parent’s farm, anxious to be with family. Christmas on the farm was special. As I left town, I stopped for gas near the
nursing home. Under the cash register was a rack of candy bars.
“Give
me a couple of those Snickers, would you please?”
I
parked, went in the side door, and up the back stairs. It was after dinner but
before lights out. I went to Ted’s room. He was still in his
chair, slumped to one side, sleeping. His Christmas card was tacked
to an empty bulletin board.
I
turned on Ted’s bedside lamp. It was too hot in there, the radiator cooking,
air not moving. Behind it all was the
faint smell of urine. Christmas Eve in the nursing home.
“Wake
up Ted I’ve got something for you.”
I
gave him a minute to get used to the light before straightening him up.
“Ted,
I brought you a present, but you got to cooperate. It’s not on your
diet and I don’t want you talking to your buddies about this. But
you’re a guy who can keep his mouth shut, right?”
Ted
may have gotten the joke, but I couldn’t tell. When I took a Snickers
out of my coat pocket his eyes lit up.
“OK
Ted, you’re going to eat this slowly, so you don’t choke. You understand?”
When Ted
realized what was about to happen, he literally began to drool. I
got tissues off his nightstand and wiped his chin. Then I cut a piece off
the candy bar with my pocket knife and put it on his tray. His left
hand flashed out. The candy was in his
mouth instantly. He looked at me as if I
was going to dig it out of his mouth as I had done so often before with other
things.
“Chew
that good and swallow it before I give you more.”
He
did. I cut off another
piece. We repeated that five times with the first candy bar.
“You
feel OK Ted?”
Ted
nodded enthusiastically.
“You
don’t feel sick?”
Ted
shook his head vigorously in the negative. I wiped his chin with the
Kleenex again.
I
took out the second candy bar. We did it again.
“This
is the last piece, Ted.”
I
laid the final chunk of Snickers on his tray. Ted didn’t take it.
“What
are you doing, Ted?”
He
stared at me.
“It’s
yours, Ted.”
Ted brought
his left hand up, pointed at the candy, and pointed to me.
“What
the hell Ted?”
He
pointed at the candy again and then at me.
Then
I understood. The guy who would eat the
envelope his only Christmas card came in was sharing his candy bar with
me.
I ate
it. Ted smiled at me as I chewed the Snickers, his big old eyes
bright.
I believe
people talk with their eyes. I think Ted said thanks. And Merry Christmas.
“You’re
welcome, Ted. Merry Christmas to you too.”
I quit the nursing home in the spring. Ted died that fall. Choked on ham sandwiches. I suspect someone didn’t watch the snack cart closely enough. I will never forget Ted, or the kindness in his eyes. If we let it, Christmas brings out the best in all of us.
