A Friendly Visit

Today I went to visit a lady who is a hundred years old. She asked her caregiver to contact me because she wanted to put some thoughts on paper and she can't write anymore. I felt honored to have been called for such a service, and I set out in the morning with a notebook and pen and drove to the little house she has lived in for seventy-five years.

She was sitting at the table in front of the window looking out at the oak trees. It turns out that what she wanted to write was a thank you letter to someone who had been kind to her. But what she wanted most was company, a visitor to sit and talk with her for awhile.

She spoke a lot about losses, recent and long ago. She cried a little, and I hugged her. "It's a wonderful world," she said, "but I don't understand it."

"I don't think anybody understands it," I said. I tried to talk about happy things, about being here in this safe, familiar place, about grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and how much she matters.

"Just keep talking," she said. "I'll get it eventually."

That's when I realized her hearing aids were not in her ears and she wasn't hearing a word I said. With the help of the caregiver we replaced the batteries and put the devices into her ears, and that helped a lot. But still, she was feeling isolated.

"I have a terrible time," she said. "I don't belong to the town. I don't belong to the valley anymore. I don't even use the telephone."

Oh, how my heart went out to her!

We sat side by side in front of the window and chatted, and I wrote a few things on paper for her, and she thanked me for having come, and I promised her I would visit her again next week and as often as I can.

"That would be nice," she said. "And how will we handle payment?"

"Payment?! Oh my goodness, there's no payment," I said. "I'm here because I'm your friend, and I care about you, and I'm happy to come."

Here's a curious backstory: in recent weeks I have been searching to find a volunteer to be a friendly visitor for my 90-year-old mother who lives in an assisted living facility in Orange County. I try to get down there as often as I can, but it would help so much to have someone local who could commit to even a weekly visit just to cheer her up and be company for awhile. I figured in such a dynamic urban area there must be a volunteer program like that, but so far no one had turned up.

About an hour after my visit with this lovely lady today, a message came in from one of the agencies I had contacted about my mother. It said: We found a volunteer to visit your mother, beginning this week.

I don't know about you, but I think there's some kind of karma involved.