ELLEN

🌹 My mom Rose, in her mid-nineties, was a nursing home resident for three years. She was assigned a roommate, Ellen, who was in her fifties.

Ellen was very bright and an excellent conversationalist. She had flawless porcelain skin, smooth and silky hair to her shoulders, and a wide and winning smile. I have some sense of the maladies that landed her there . . . a confidential matter.

She kept books, magazines, and stuffed animals in cartons all around her, always fighting with the administration to retain her stashes of personal items strewn about, lined up on the window sill, piled on the floor, or boxed under her bed. She created collages of magazine clippings, photos, and mementos and taped them onto her section of the wall, as high and wide as she could reach.

Occasionally, I’d bake pumpkin bread or corn muffins for mom and her roommate. Ellen became more comfortable with this routine and eventually let her preferences be known. She saved bananas from her breakfast tray and gave them to me, a hint to make banana bread. Since I’m a nurturing type, I enjoyed this routine.

During the entire three and a half years of my mother’s stay, I never once saw a visitor in Ellen’s room, other than her elderly father for a while, early on.

My beloved mom passed away peacefully in 2014 at nearly ninety-nine. But I couldn’t just cut Ellen out of my life.

Every other month or so, I punched the code into the entry door to the wing and found her in her room, always dressed in a skirt and blouse but propped up by pillows on the bed—her control central—cutting out coupons from magazines, writing letters to religious organizations, entering sweepstakes contests, complaining about the poor quality of the food, and describing recent altercations with the staff, last time for their unauthorized removal of several stacks of her reading materials.

Ellen could have used a small desk to write letters and organize her paperwork, or a little round table for a place setting for us to enjoy tea and muffins, but there was no extra space in her room—now shared with a successor roommate— to conduct the important business of her life with dignity.

On the surface, the crowded scene looked like the private domain of a hoarder. But think of it, every possession that she owned had to fit into one half of a hospital-sized room. Her artistic expressions and collections were seen as inconvenient, even disruptive, by the staff, enforcing rules and regs of a medical facility subject to state inspection and rankings.

No activity provided by the nursing home interested Ellen—sing-a-longs, crafts, a visiting therapy dog. She lived in a locked unit although she clearly did not have a dementia illness like most of the others, and wandered up and down the hallways without assistance. Her only interaction with people her own age or younger was the rotating staff of nurses and aides.

It was obvious to me that Ellen was one of a kind in terms of diagnosis and age range in this setting. But she was content to busy herself with her reading and writing and decorative activities—and every so often, our chats. Maybe she felt safe there but I don’t really know; she guarded her history and her feelings as carefully as her possessions. Fortunately, her bed was on the window side with natural daylight and a hillside view of the changing seasons. The state of the weather was always a useful beginning to our conversations.

All of the above served as the parameters of Ellen’s life for the years she been institutionalized.

When I knocked on her door, she set her personal business aside to share a half hour of her time, along with my homemade treat washed down with a cup of tea from the utility kitchen across the hall. On her birthday and Christmas, I brought her a Strawberry Frappuccino loaded with whipped cream. Her smile widened when she saw the large Starbucks paper cup in my hand.

After my mom passed, I left her clock on the wall and her gilt-framed mirror underneath it. This room resonated for me with memories of my mother’s life here. Ellen remembered her too.

Many residents have come and gone in the past three years. Just four others besides Ellen, all elders, remained of the dozens that I knew when my mom lived there. If her health remains stable, then Ellen’s future is foreseeable—more of the same for years on end, her area bookended by the picture window on one side of her bed and a privacy curtain on the other. Her door opens to the nurse’s station in the fluorescent-lit corridor, the double exit doors at the far end of the hallway requiring a code known only to staff—the doors that they open for me to leave, but not for Ellen.

About a year ago, Ellen’s older sister moved into the nursing home. They didn’t occupy the same room and I don’t know if they had much of a relationship. The sister looked bedraggled, her darkly dyed hair tangled, her eyes crazed or scared, not sure.  When I stopped in, I never saw them together.

Ellen’s limited institutional and personal life greatly saddens me. Yet, I will continue to stop by, in memory of my mother and for so long as Ellen welcomes my visits. My mom left me many gifts, beyond measure. This is only one of them.

POSTSCRIPT:

When COVID-19 hit in March 2020, no more visitors were allowed so I wrote Ellen an occasional note on a decorative card. I didn’t hear back from her but no matter, she had her rituals that kept her occupied.

A few days ago, September 10th, I received an envelope marked “Return to Sender—Unable to Forward.” I thought, maybe she transferred to another facility? Or was hospitalized with Covid? Or worse? When I was able to reach the Head Nurse, she told me what I had dreaded to hear, that Ellen had died of a seizure months ago, at age sixty-three.

I mourn her loss. I look with sadness at the returned mail that never reached her. I wonder what happened to all of her special belongings that she protected so fiercely. I regret not having a photo although her distinctive appearance remains vivid to me, most notably her beautiful blue-gray eyes. It pains me that I had no chance to say a proper goodbye.

I miss our visits, yet another loss as life goes on. I cared about her.

I wish I knew more about her life but our relationship was a simple one. She liked hearing about my family and then showing me the various certificates displayed on her wall acknowledging ongoing support of Catholic charities. Our lives were completely different but we accepted each other in friendship.

I couldn’t find an obituary with any more family or background information. But I’m not sure that anyone else had a relationship with Ellen anything like mine, lasting for eight years. It took us a long time to get to know and each other, and we weren’t done yet . . . .

Her life, beginning June 26, 1956, ending April 13, 2020.