Today, I lost someone who'd touched my life with barely saying a word. She did it with her face, a face remarkably unlined for a woman of her age.
When I first met her, she had two black eyes and a bump the size of a hen's egg on her bruised, sunset colored forehead. She was lying listlessly in her bed, until she saw what I had to offer.
“Hi,” I said, “This is Miss Dulcie. Would you like for her to get up on the bed with you? I'll make sure she doesn't step on you.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. So up went 25 pounds of strawberry blond cocker mix to lie beside her. The rec director helped pull a stiff and resistant hand out from a layer of blankets to touch the silken fur spilling out from under Dulcie's work harness.
And there it was; the magic of a face lit by the lamp of pure pleasure. That first visit, the woman couldn't take her bright blue eyes off of Dulcie, though her spasmed limbs often snatched her hands off the satin of Dulcie's coat.
For most of our visits, our new friend was heavily medicated and unable to respond to much talk. But it was understood that Dulcie was always welcome on her bed. So after I settled Dulcie carefully on the bed, tucked as close to the woman's hands as possible, I sat on the floor beside the bed. Gently, I would take a hand and place it on Dulcie, and every time, I saw that miraculous facial transformation from dullness to radiance.
Dulcie spent a blissful fifteen minutes a week, lying on that bed, looking at the woman with the adoring look she had previously conferred only upon me. With grace and delicacy, she would slip her maundy nose under the woman's hand, nudging for a pat. If she didn't get one after a few tries, she would sigh and lay her head on the woman's chest, big brown eyes blinking sleepily in the quiet, warm room.
Sometimes I suspected the woman and Dulcie were sharing a laugh; Dulcie would sit up on her hind legs, slowly collapse backwards onto the woman's abdomen, all the while panting merrily and making chittering noises.
Mostly it was the woman, Dulcie, and me sitting in the relative silence of the room, but staff would drop by and fuss over Dulcie, who continued to be enthralled by the woman. As the weeks passed, and the woman got weaker, touching Dulcie became very difficult. But that luminous look of joy always appeared when she felt the weight of Dulcie come to rest on her bed.
The past few times we came to visit, I found myself reaching to take the woman's hand, not to guide it to Dulcie, but simply to hold it. She had long, strong fingers, and as I held her hand, I felt the lingering power of a determined woman. It gave me courage to face my own life, those fifteen minutes watching my dog and my friend enjoy each other. I found myself seeking and finding joy in circumstances that before I'd only expected to yield pain and sorrow.
A couple of weeks ago, I meant to find the rec director and ask her to call me if our friend died; I sensed the end was near, and I wasn't sure I wanted to be surprised by the news a week after the fact. But she wasn't to be found that day, so Dulcie and I went home.
Last week was spring break, and I was busy taking care of 2 houses full of animals in addition to my own. I'd told the nursing center residents the week before that Dulcie wouldn't be coming to visit because I wouldn't have time to bathe her. I didn't even take time to run by our friend's room and say hello.
The evening before our next visit was fraught with wrought. I was chatting with a friend online, and we were talking about some painful things which brought tears to both of us. But I could not seem to stop crying, and the longer I cried, the more my whole body ached. The night was spent crying, a great sadness filling my heart and causing Dulcie to velcro herself to my back as I lay in bed, tears filling my ears and swelling my eyes. If I slept at all, it was snatched time. I was still crying at 7:30 when my niece called to talk, and got her incoherent auntie instead. She pulled me out of the salt water abyss and sent me on my way.
I took special care to get Dulcie groomed, carried her to the car (mud season!) and she arrived at the nursing home well swathed in my sweater to keep her dry. She always protests at this, but even a clean dog is stinky when wet. We visited our first resident, and as we walked down the hall toward our friend's room, the rec director stepped in front of me. One look at her reddened nose and eyes said everything. Our friend had passed that morning, after two days of struggle.
My first reaction, after the emotional night I'd had, was to sit down right then and there, clutch Dulcie to my side and howl a memorial. But they train you in therapy work to be professional, and so I swallowed my tears, put a smile on my face, and went to visit another resident, the tail scratching woman Dulcie liked so well.
I realize now that part of the outpouring of pain and sorrow the night before was because I had unwittingly tuned into our friend's last hours on earth; that in some way both Dulcie and I were on her mind as she crossed over. It didn't make my loss any easier, but it helped to remind me how we are all so very connected.
It's hard enough to have to go to WalMart when you feel good. When you're hoping you can still put one foot in front of the other, it's pure hell, perhaps one of the inner rings. As I stumbled around getting food and phone cards, I remembered one of the things my chat friend had said the night before: that I must always be ready to see an angel when s/he appeared to comfort me.
My particular angel that day was a gorgeous Hispanic man near my age, neatly dressed in new jeans, a cream and caramel long sleeved plaid shirt, with beautiful white teeth. Most importantly, he looked me directly in the eyes, and generously gave me the smile I so desperately wanted and needed.
Perhaps it was also the woman's way of reminding me to keep looking for the joy, no matter how many times pain tries to bury it out of sight.
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