A Day At The “Retirement Community”

It’s midnight — 12:00 a.m., or the witching hour.  Elsewhere in this world it is a different time, maybe sunset at the other end of the country, maybe sunrise to the east.  People in those places are doing something that is different from what is being done here and now.  In some individual places nearby the night shift has just settled in, geared up for work.  Some people are in bed asleep.  And, the bartender at the saloon has fleetingly thought about the key to lock the door, when the time comes for that.  In the apartment building, someone is in the laundry as it is a chance at the machines.  And, someone is taking the dog out for the last time. 

It’s 8:00 a.m.  The property manager just slipped into the office.  A construction worker outside is carrying equipment somewhere.  Daylight streams in through the windows while residents who were asleep at midnight drift outside to look at the morning in the outside world.  Nearby office workers are settled in, and since it is mid-month no one is rushing to pay a bill.  As has been said, someone will die today and someone else will be born.  And, someone may get married, be fired or get a job.  EMTs may or may not be here.  The media has presented its morning offering of yesterday’s news.  The dog’s up and eager for the day’s events. 

It’s 6:00 p.m.  People employed by the old folks’ home left, except for the maintenance that lives in the place on call for emergencies.  The residents have run their errands to the grocery, the doctor, the government offices, the bank or wherever else they need to go, and the television beckons, the bingo waits and the friend down the hall is outside watching the traffic on the bridge across the river.  Those not-so-well look to bed with a wish for a better tomorrow.  The homeless person downtown heads for a free meal, a mat for the night and more at the shelter eight blocks away.  It’ll take a while to walk it.  The would-be sophisticated look to the evening haunts.  Midnight comes soon. 

Some things can be a lot longer than they are…. 

Death Comes Anywhere

Although death comes anywhere, some places are more likely than others.  The more likely places have the shock element missing.  It’s ordinary in places like a hospital; a likely place is an old folks’ home.  Even if the old folks’ home has many residents, it is not on a daily basis there is death, but it’s not particularly rare, either.  At times it’s after a hospital stay, but not always.  The coroner removes the body, the family removes the belongings and maintenance removes fixtures no longer usable.  Some cleaning and painting is done.  Management writes up a new lease for someone else to occupy the space usually without knowing what was there before. 

Basically, “old” is the state of not being able to keep up with current mainstream life.  It’s a variable number of years as some get old sooner than others and the mainstream is different from place to place.  And, the way life is supposed to go is that one drifts in a mainstream year after year until unable to keep up.  At that point ("old") one "retires" to the slower often more confused old age existence, what an old folks’ home is geared to handle.  Then one shifts to nursing home (maybe hospice), and only then to a funeral home.  At times things happen to cut short the sequence.  One goes straight from old folks’ home to funeral home.  And, people more or less take it in stride. 

A neighbor died.  She was a nice lady who didn’t bother anyone.  Indeed, it wasn’t too evident she was there. For about a year, it was a good guess she wouldn’t last much longer as one day an attendant was trying to get her to walk the hall with oxygen.  She was an old neighbor from the previous apartment, not a current one, but that’s recent.  The fact that she died wouldn’t have been known except there was a reason to go talk with people outside as the coroner was retrieving the body.  Some people went about things as if nothing happened.  It was rightful to wait a bit out of the way and follow the stretcher outside at a short distance and whisper good-by. 

People need to be remembered.