J0an and R0yce

This morning J0an took me to visit her husband, R0yce at his nursing him. He had a bad stroke four years ago and now has stroke dementia, as well as other physical difficulties caused by the stroke. He's mostly confined to a wheelchair, although he can walk.

J0an told him that I was a neighbour, that I'd moved in after he'd left the house, and for a minute he thought we were in a different town. But Joan corrected him gently, and he seemed satisfied. He's still got his sense of humour, as J0an had already told me. At one point he put a kleenex into the little breast pocket of his t-shirt, and he patted it and said, "Now, you know this is just a kleenex. I'm not built this way." We laughed, and he continued, "Although that would be fun!" I laughed a lot at that, and he turned to J0an and said, "She's got a dirty mind too."

I've been in a nursing home before, and I was a little surprised by it. People share rooms, sometimes as many as three beds in one room. And every bed had little collections of humanity: stuffed animals, family photos, and other decorations. The people I saw were mostly lying on their beds or sitting in chairs. I saw a lot of vacant stares.

R0yce's roommate is named D0n. He seems quite well, physically, but totally lost, intellectually. It seemed like he could never quite figure out where he was, and at one point I think he said, "I don't know what the word car means." Gentle light came in the window and highlighted one side of his face while he sat on his bed, and I so wanted to take his picture. But I didn't. But I would like to pursue a way to photograph people there ethically, once I finish some of my other projects.

Again and again, I find myself fascinated by the ways that people stamp their individuality on structures that are the same. Doesn't matter if it's a subdivision, a university residence, or a nursing home -- I love those signs of life, the things that people proclaim outward from within their private space.

J0an felt guilty that nobody will be around for Thanksgiving with R0yce this weekend. Her daughter who lives in town is away on vacation, and J0an and her other daughter are going to visit her granddaughter who was hit by a car just before I met J0an, then onto a bigger family gathering. But R0yce didn't care. He said he doesn't matter.

When we got back to J0an's house, she showed me the decorations she's making to donate to a craft sale at R0yce's home, and we had a nice cuppa tea. Pretty much every time I visit, she says at least once, something along the lines of, "Well, this is what we've been given to deal with. Nothing we can do about it." She says R0yce is not at all the person she married. I asked her if she still feels sad, and she said she feels very sad, and sometimes she gets mad at him, when she's alone in the house and something needs fixing.

Now that her grandson has moved out (he just bought a house), she'll have to ask the kids down the street to shovel her driveway for her this winter. I want to offer to do it, but we do such a lousy job on our own driveway, I'd hate to force anyone else to accept our low standards. I want to be the kind of neighbour who helps, but I feel so stretched these days and I just don't know how to fit it all in.