Both Kathleen and Irene V told me, – you do not want to work at nursing. Kathleen made a face and it was a definite no no for her. Irene V asked, “Remember how it was at clinicals? You have to spend entire day giving them showers,” she teased.

If it is just making money, I would go caregiver route. But it is making money and more than making money. Why the fixation on the elderly? Why nursing home? Because even if I work at one unit, I am directly or indirectly in contact with every one of the elderly there. It becomes like being part of a big community there and not just one on one.

At that nursing home, I found myself gravitating toward the new who were fully cognizant. Later it came to me, that was too easy. I should relate more to those losing the ability to speak. Like Maria, I was a bit intimidated by her. She was not able to speak, she could kick her foot only and makes loud noises. Later, I found it was the only way she was able to communicate.

There was a young woman, handicapped. It took me a while to connect with her. Tom, the big cowboy type was easy. He took to me on the spot. There was another who liked to make sexual innuendos. They were innocent enough to me but the cna hated it and could not stand him. She must be one of those straitlaced prudish type.

Yet another was a merry older Jewish man. He talked a lot and knew it but he was bright, cheerful and fun. He had cancer and his son put him there. He showed me all the things his son got him. He looked happy and cheerful enough. The most comical thing which I recounted to my sisters was when we finished giving him his shower. He told the cna he needed to dump and the cna told him to go ahead. Casually, he did it, a big pile. It was comical because we just had him cleaned and he did it so casually.

One woman I really admire is a woman who was on calendar there. She was able to move around in a power chair, using her mouth to grip and manipulate the chair. It took forever to get her ready to go into the chair and Mani was very patient about it.

The one thing I marveled at, it was not the women who were gentle but these young tall black men who were there working 16 hours during weekend to put themselves through school and they were very gentle. It made me rethink about male cnas.

Once she got ready, she was ready to go, living a full active life there. She was hardly ever in. I helped her once to get coffee then later found myself doing the ward she was in.

It all depends on attitude. I have long since learned that. One could make life at a nursing home as good as it gets or miserable. That was what that gentle woman did, she made it as good as it gets. Not one of them is like my mother.

“Ah Gert, take me home,” she instructed me. “Ah Gert, if you do not do it, I will not cut you any quarter. I will fight with you.” She actually hit me one time and can deliver quite a punch. “Ah Gert, take me home. Oh why does nobody take pity on me and take me home. I want to go home.”

“Ma, you are home, how do I bring you home?” that scene was one I dreaded most. At the hospital, I could bring her home, when she was in her house, how do I bring her home? Her old homes were long gone. And it was these homes she wanted to go to not recognizing her most recent home.

“Ah Gert, I am serious. If you do not bring me home, I am going to get angry,” and when I did not and could not, she lay down and turning her face to the pillow started crying, “nu neh, nu neh, (mother, mother)  why is life so hard.”

For a truth, I have never seen an elderly patient who could rage as long and hard as her, without any let up, once she wants to go home. And now she fell again and has a bump the size of an egg at the back of her head.

Nursing home, elderly, living, dying, it is all part of it.