About a decade ago, I made friends with a neighbor, I'll call George.
Well, first I made friends with the widow of his best friend, a poet who liked to take after dinner walks around my neighborhood. I met her, liked her, she wanted to copyright her poetry and we started talking about that. I began to visit her at the Assisted Living where she was living. I'll call her Marge.
Marge had only one grandson to visit her, having lost her son, and having a daughter with a serious mental illness that prevented any real relationship. Her grandson did his best but was working full time and not feeling so hot himself.
Marge introduced me to George. George and his wife, who had been childhood sweethearts, and Marge and her husband had been friends for years and when George's wife, who had been his childhood sweetheart died, he went into a deep depression.
When they'd given up their houses for Assisted Living, they picked one of the swankier ones, and for some time they barely needed any of the Assistance. It was more than no one felt like cooking or making the beds anymore.
When Marge finally explained her situation to me, I offered to pick up things from the store that she might need when her grandson couldn't. She held back from taking me up on it. She just needed company. I started making mini visits with her, usually on my way to or back from work.
I learned she liked mint hard-tac candy but when I offered to bring her some she said I should not and if I did, she would never speak to me again. I worked till 7 and would call her every night when I got off to see how she was. I knew she had been to the hospital a few times but it wasn't until another resident whispered to me that she actually had colon cancer and it had been decided that she not know, that I realized she wouldn't be on this earth for long.
One night I called her a little after 7, and she was whispering into the phone. She said that she was in trouble and that no one at the front desk had been summoned when she rang. "I'll be right there," I said. And I must have flown on a broomstick because before you could say Boo, I was in the kitchen finding the desk attendant having a long personal conversation on the phone. "Get off that phone this minute," I said, "Do you not know that Marge is sick and has been waiting for someone to go up to her room?"
The desk attendant did hang up at once (and I've since wondered about my sudden authority) Then I said, "Has her doctor been called?" The desk attendant said yes, but it was a lie, which I found out when I demanded that the doctor be called again, she called back, and I spoke with her. An appointment was made for her in 2 days.
Then I went up to Marge's room for the first time. Like most Assisted Living rooms this one had the basics, and her possessions had been pared down to a few family photos. She was in bed. The first thing she said to me is "Where is my mint hard-tac!"
"You said you would never speak to me again if I brought you some!
"Well I changed my mind."
In the bathroom, Marge had left her Depends. She told me that it had taken her about a half hour to crawl back across the floor and hoist herself into the bed.
I told her to get settled in. Then I put on the television and searched for a good station. There was a Pavaroti concert on.
"Oh I love Pavaroti!" she said. And she rested back to just listen, with a slight grin on her face.
I left the room, and downstairs another resident told me that Marge had let the staff know that I was like a daughter to her and that's why I was now allowed in her room.
The next day after work I made my usual call, and found out that Marge had died in the middle of the night.
I may have been the last person to talk to her.
Her grandson came and took her few possessions away. If there were ever a memorial service, I never heard about it.
But three days later, as I was walking down the street, I saw her face with a huge smile in my mind's eye, and I knew that she had been ready, willing, and able to pass into the next life and that she had made it to heaven.
This left George more alone than ever.
When I would walk past the Assisted Living on my way somewhere, I would see him sitting outside, and I went and said hello to him. I told him that Marge had really admired him.
One day he decided the heck with the swanky Assisted Living and moved not far away, to one smaller and more humble. It cost less, the food wasn't so good, but he thought they took good care of him. The real problem was that he was one of the few people in this place who not only had his wits but who also liked to be opinionated and debate a little, and that there was no one else to talk to.
Oh, he tried their little Bible study - that was enlightening - but he could skip bingo and soap operas on the TV.
George fought his depression by participating in writing classes and theatre outings with other seniors, and his one child who lived not too far away got him a personal computer, an e-reader, and a few other gadgets, so that he was up on his technology and could read his favorite genre - detective novels - with less strain on his eyes. He managed to read over 60 of them when he got bad news about his eyesight. This tweaked the depression, and he started saying his next move was Oregon where suicide was legal!
My friendship with George was much different than the friendship I'd had with Marge. We talked about writing, but he preferred politics. An ardent Democrat, George died before he could vote for Hilary Clinton in the California Primaries, and no doubt has been lucky to miss the antics of Presidential Candidate Donald Trump. George had made it through the Great Depression as a ditch digger, married his childhood sweetheart after his service in World War II, had worked in aerospace but had lived past his retirement savings, and was the esteemed patriarch of a small but loving family.
Sometimes months would go by and I wouldn't have contact with George, but then I'd call or go visit. He continued to claim that he couldn't get around but could be hard to get because he was so often out!
One day I heard on the radio that there had been a violent crime at the store right next to this Assisted Living, and I knew that the more mobile residents went in there to get themselves snacks and drinks. The whole town was shocked. I decided to visit George on my way home and got there right before his dinner time. Though George claimed to be bored with most of the other residents and opted out of so called activities, he had a few woman friends who loved to have their meals with him at the table - a man! George looked white, the only time I had ever seen him looking sick, and told me that he had just returned from two months in the hospital.
"So that's why I wasn't able to get ahold of you. Tell you what, I think I will call you or come by here again when you're up to it to talk to you. How did they treat you at the hospital?"
"Terrible!" he growled.
I didn't believe that, but I knew he was in a terrible mood.
Two days later I called and was told that his daughter had come and moved him out. He had been put in a hospice.
I called her.
"When did you see him and talk to him?"
"Just two days ago!"
"We had just taken him out to dinner. It was like you said. He had clarity. But now he doesn't know where he is and he can't recognize me."
Sam died two days after that."
I wasn't the last person who talked to him. Just the last person who had talked with him where he had his wits.
He was 95 years old.
The other day I saw his face in my minds eye.
Mom used to say, "Two things never change. Death and Taxes."
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