I can’t say I was ever inspired by a politician, a humanitarian or a celebrity/actress. They seemed too out of touch with reality and often their lofty phrases were too well crafted. I listened, I admired them but they never inspired me. I was inspired by more of the ordinary women I worked with everyday. The ones that were flesh and blood, that had real stories of life and had raised their families amid hard times, death and abuse. The ones that had walked away and made new lives for themselves and took life as it came.
I started my first real world job when I was in my first marriage. I had given birth to my daughter the year before and spent the following year attending school for dental assisting. I absolutely hated it and quit with six weeks left in the course. I searched for employment after quitting school and found myself working nights at the local nursing home as a nursing assistant. This was in 1971 so there was no such thing as being ‘certified’ or ‘registered’, you just went to work. Which is what I did. This is where I met the women that would leave indelible impressions on me for the rest of my life.
They have built a new ‘Care Center’ now in place of the old nursing home and they will be tearing down the old building. I visited the new place yesterday and it is devoid of any personality. It seems cold and impersonal with no vibrancy echoing down the halls. The noises are muffled and the mud-colored walls show little signs of life. With well orchestrated decorations of today’s contemporary motifs and curving hallways that seem to be all the rage, it appears institutionalized in it’s own captive self and each resident seems to be lost in the new rooms they occupy. The staff appears removed from their work as caregivers and the heart of the old place is gone. The women that worked those long ago days and nights and took pride in the place where they were employed will not occupy the new space. It’s a new world in the ‘art of caring’ and a new world of show for the community to admire from afar. The memories of the old place soon will be gone when each brick is removed and carted off. Only a few of us are left to remember the women who filled the old place with warmth and dedication.
There was Opal, Georgia, Leona and Ruth. Opal took pride in her job as a cleaning lady and she was serious about her work. In the summer she worked in the hot, stifling rooms painting and deep cleaning each wall and piece of furniture. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind and ate the lunch she brought from home every day. Georgia worked nights, she had raised six children and finally left her abusive husband when her youngest was in high school. She wove rugs on a loom for extra income. Her sage advice wasn’t something she found in a book but had come from the lessons life taught her. Leona worked the night shift and gradually went to evening shift. She never gossiped and rarely talked about her family but taught kindness through her care of the residents. She was soft spoken and gentle with the frail older bodies and listened to them when they talked of aches and pains. Working with her taught you not to rush but to give them a few extra minutes even if it meant you ate supper a few minutes late. Ruth was the nurse who was the charge nurse of the home. She was always dressed impeccably and every hair was always in place. She wore her white dress uniform, nursing cap and school pin with pride. She ruled with an iron fist in a velvet glove. She was the first one to encourage me to go back to school for nursing.
There was Helen, the cook. You never dared cross her. She was gruff and spoke sharply but she always gave you a bit more food on your plate or would leave at the end of the night and say on her way out the door, “check the top shelf of the frig” and sure enough, you would find a treat she had left. She worked hard, gave sound advice on marriage and raising children and believed a woman could work and still have a good family.
Through the years I worked with Elsie, Norma, Louise and many more that each left me with words that I still remember today. They were women that had been through the Depression, World War II, births, deaths, divorces and other events that life threw at them. Some of them worked well into their 70s and often became residents of the nursing home a few years later. They worked because the social security they received didn’t stretch far enough or they were widowed by men that never had jobs that paid into social security. They often took care of their own relatives, neighbors and friends but the one thing these women had in common was their kindness.
I did heed the wise words of these women and eventually I divorced my husband, went back to school for nursing and learned to maintain my independence even in my next marriage. Ever so often I think of the women of the old nursing home and in spite of all the new ideas that have come along in the care of the elderly and infirmed in our newly crafted care centers I can no longer see the faces of the women that taught me about life as they left their words of wisdom etched on my heart.
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