Death is a hard thing to deal with. I know that I can't even handle thinking about it, thinking about leaving this world forever, thinking about people I love dying. And my life doesn't even really have anything to do with death.
So what would it be like to live in a place where everyone is just waiting to go, where everyone has been moved to their final earthly destination, just waiting to find out what's beyond? Sounds pretty depressing, huh? And it's pretty scary to think that there's a place kind of like that just a few miles north of campus.
Hanover Terrace is actually one of the nicest nursing homes I have ever had contact with. I like it a lot, actually. Because of the people who work there and the volunteers that go there on a regular basis, the environment is kept pretty much as far from that "death home" image as possible.
But all nursing homes, for me at least, carry with them a constant reminder that we are all mortal beings, that one day things will end. I think it's that smell of sickness, of ignored pain, that keeps most young people running as far away as they can from nursing homes.
But that's exactly why nursing homes are scary; they're scary because no one wants to go in there, because it smells funny, because there's lots of medicine, walkers, urine and vomit. But people live there, too. And I think we forget that.
I think we too often tell ourselves and each other that old people are crabby, that they're mean, that they're gross. We tell ourselves that it's not tragic when the elderly die because they already lived their lives, they were ready to go.
Still, sometimes it's really tragic. Sometimes it's more tragic than when young people die. At least those young people hadn't been ignored by society, thrown into the care of only a select group of nurses and activity directors. Well, thank goodness for them. Thank goodness for the people who are there with those elderly residents who are too sick or too poor or too alone to matter to anyone else.
And thank goodness for the opportunity to volunteer at nursing homes and elder care facilities; volunteering gives all of us the chance to remind our elders that they're important to us and that we care. Certainly, many of us at Dartmouth have taken the opportunity to visit residents at Hanover Terrace through the Tucker Foundation's Adopt a Grandparent program. It's a great program, and one that I began participating in last fall.
By the time I went home last spring, Millie had become more than a volunteer project, and even more than an adopted grandparent. I began to love her like a real grandmother. Though my weekly visits there were often emotionally difficult, I enjoyed looking at the flowers on nice days and chatting on rainy ones.
I'm glad I was there for Millie, who had no children or grandchildren of her own, during her last few months, hopefully helping to make life in the nursing home just a little more interesting.
Millie passed away this summer, but I knew I couldn't just quit spending time at Hanover Terrace. I still wanted to help, and I wanted to make sure those residents didn't feel ignored by the rest of us.
Understandably " I think " I didn't want to just get assigned to another "adopted grandparent." It seemed a little creepy and a lot disrespectful to the relationships that come out of such a program. So the activity director has let me volunteer on Sunday afternoons, calling out Bingo numbers.
But no, life does not work that easily. Rather than offering condolences or sympathy (a common gesture after someone's passing), the Tucker Foundation offered to force this volunteer into involuntary retirement.
Since I no longer participate in a "Tucker activity" due to the death of my adopted grandparent, I am no longer allowed to use the Tucker volunteer cars. Thus, I have spent the last month paying ten dollars each week to the worthless and generally excessively late Big Yellow Taxi just to help a few elderly residents play a simple game of Bingo.
Thankfully, the nice activity people at Hanover Terrace are trying to help me by arranging rides, but it just kind of seems ridiculous that something so simple is causing so much trouble.
Indeed, I think it's ridiculous that the organization on campus with the most noble purpose " the Tucker Foundation " would rather lend their name, money and cars to a program of volunteers that regularly stop visiting their grandparents with no notice or excuse than to a volunteer who actually cares about the program and the people involved.
And so I guess I can just add my experience to the big list of incidences in which the elderly were cheated, put down and ignored. Thanks, Tucker, for your help.
