Stories Behind Wrinkled Faces: part two

Last Thursday, I shared stories about some of my In-Home Support clients in Santa Cruz County, CA. Today I'll wind up with a few more and then discuss what I learned.

photo from Pxhere.com

Crystal Martin

When I arrived in Crystal's apartment, the space was piled with boxes full of merchandise from her closed gift and floral shop, leaving a narrow aisle to move around. Unlike most of my clients, Crystal was young, perhaps in her late 50s early 60s. Illness had forced her to close her shop, but I wondered how much of her condition was depression and hypochondria.  She was always in bed, surrounded by stacks of failure. She complained most of the time about her "forgotten woman" state. She claimed her business associates, her children, even the neighbors had all deserted her. Granted, hoarding was not an issue here. All of the debris was inventory rather than pizza boxes and animal feces.

She had somehow gotten embroiled in some brouhaha as secretary of a bridge club in the community. People accused her and another couple of taking money, etc. etc. A tempest in a teapot as far as I could see, but it was one more thing to demoralize her.

When she wasn't moaning about that, she told me about her father whom she visited in a Walnut Creek nursing home once a week. It sounded pretty grim and helped me later on when I looked for a place for my own father.

Eventually, she and I went through the boxes, preparing to sell her stuff at the flea market. We loaded the boxes into her car, opening up the space in her apartment. Rather than rejoicing at having all that wreckage removed from her view, she complained bitterly about her granddaughter, who took the stuff to the flea market and came back with almost nothing to show for it. Hey, that's the flea market economy. Pennies on the dollar!

For Crystal, however, nothing in Santa Cruz was ever as good as it was in San Clemente, where she had lived in style before moving to this shabby little beach town. The people were rude and the shopping options were meager. Santa Cruz would never measure up to SoCal.

I wonder if she ever moved some place more congenial for her. Because she was single, and never talked about a husband or father of her children, it appeared she endured great losses over the years. At the young age of sixty-something, she had many years of disappointment left to bear.

Mary Ann Sherinian

She was another "poor me" who had to sell her shop in Capitola, when she got cancer. She had far too much spirit and hell-and-damnation to die, though. At least she hadn't gathered her inventory around her like Crystal did.

One day we cleaned out her closet and found an antique framed photograph of her grandmother and a friend. Both had bandoliers crisscrossing their chests and held rifles in the photo because they had fought alongside their men in the Armenian struggle against the Turks. The other woman in the photo was grandmother's best friend until she was caught with grandpa. Unfortunately, I can't remember if the best friend was dispatched with the rifle or not.

(image found on Facebook that looks just like I recall of the photograph)

That was Mary Ann's legacy: stoic, hard-hearted, stern. Here we are cleaning out her closet on the hottest day of the year and she throws a fit when I sit on her bed to rest. I quickly smooted out the wrinkles I had made and asked for a glass of water. Even that was asking too much. She wasn't paying me to sit and drink water. News flash: she wasn't the one paying me.

She used to brag about her son, George, a lawyer and supposedly a personal friend of Dick Smothers. Then one day, he came over to help move furniture for her. Just one look into his eyes and I saw a long-suffering, vulnerable man behind that tough lawyer façade. Occasionally, he would glanced at me and roll his eyes in dismay. Even thought Mary Ann was in the throes of dying, she probably outlived George.

Idell C. Smith

She was the ultimate born-again Christian, claiming to have heard the trees clapping when she regained her faith in Jesus. Actually, trees clapping isn't all that strange to me, especially cottonwoods or aspens in the wind. That's exactly how trees sound.

Anyway, Idell lived in a run-down trailer court and suspected the woman next door of stealing from her. Whenever Idell needed a ride somewhere, though, that woman would be there for her. Idell even tested me to see if I was a thief by leaving her purse wide open on the table. I avoided touching it as I cleaned around it. Though I didn't know it at the time, she was spying on me from the back bedroom and realized I wasn't going to steal anything from her. Some of us just aren't attracted by other people's stuff.

Another neighbor was a young man in her church who, when she introduced me as a non-Christian, he glared at me in such malevolence, I feared for my safety. "Well, just so she believes in Jesus." Whatever!

When Idell wasn't concerning herself with the neighbors, she busied herself with sewing crafts. With fabrics, patterns, and sewing books crammed in her trailer, she could barely navigate through the contracting space. In fact, I can't remember where her sewing machine was. Now as I look at my growing stash of yarn, I'm glad I've done a fairly decent job of throwing out or donating ALL my fabrics to quilter friends and not purchased any more yarn until I knit up what I have. Living in earthquake country makes one cautious about stacking stuff too high.

Dorothy Grossman

Dorothy lived with her adult son in a dilapidated stucco house what looked like it was slowly collapsing. He worked at the hospital as an aide, but lived with her to take care of her. She always sat like a shapeless mass in a recliner, smoking one cigarette after another as the television blared. I don't know if she really knew or cared what was on. A lot of elders keep the TV on to cancel out the noise of a ticking clock. Loneliness doesn't relish the passing of time.

Smoke cloaked the windows and furnishings. A haze of it hung like a wraith waiting for her to die. One day I cleaned the windows and nearly changed the color scheme in the process.

There were pictures in her bedroom that suggested a simple life. One was of a man and woman dressed in fine apparel, perhaps her wedding photo. Not much else in the house spoke of prosperity. Just one photo of a day of hope, romance, and love that sat upon her bedside table.

Eventually, she landed in a nursing home where she died of heart failure. One day during my year-long sojourn with her, though, she called me over to her chair and asked me for a kiss.

Photo by Anthony Rae on Unsplash

The Butlers

This couple should never have been on SSI. Obviously very affluent, they had a $5000 silver tea service that I was forbidden to touch. Their double-wide mobile home on the north side of Soquel displayed quite a collection of oriental porcelains and souvenirs from all over the world.

Mr. Butler had been a rodeo promoter and earned enough to live for many years along 17-Mile Drive in Carmel. From what Mrs. Butler said, this double-wide, as elegant as it, had been a terrible come-down. On tope of that, their Black maid in Carmel had dropped dead on them after forty years of service. By Mrs. Butler's reckoning, the ungrateful woman died for spite. And when Mrs. Butler received a call from the In-Home Support people, she was shocked to learn my employment service was actually a county welfare program.

Working for her was quite an education. Most clients were satisfied with a bit of vacuuming, dusting, cleaning kitchens and bathroom, spritzing the floors with Mop'n'Glow, and errands. Beyond all that, she wanted me to polish the bathroom fixtures with Jubilee, clean the crystal chandelier every week, dust the shoeboxes on the closet shelves, and rake the shag carpeting on my way out the door so my footprint wouldn't indent the rug.

All this I did while she groomed and ribboned her pet Yorky. It was the cutest little bag of fur I've ever seen, but what really cracked me up was when Mr. Butler leaned over the arm of his chair and said, "Shut up, you mangy cur." That dog was their "child" as had been two cats whose ornate urns sat on the bedroom bureau.

She proudly told me the twin beds, made of beautiful blonde wood with a lovely grain and porcelain insets in the headboards, had been designed for them two years after the were married. That explained the lack of human heirs to this fortune.

Mrs. Butler would "supervise" me constantly and would boot her husband out of his chair so we could clean in the living room. He was hardly in the way, but she seemed to be snarling at him for some silly thing or another. The poor man! All he wanted was to sit in peace and read.

Then one day, he got sick and went to the hospital for several weeks. I thought she'd die of loneliness and despair. She fretted constantly, chain-smoking on the patio to relieve hr duress. He finally returned to her, but I'll bet that when one of them died, the other followed within a day or two. There was a lot of love behind their snarling.

Dorothy Smith

Dorothy lived in Capitola Gardens and had read East of Eden many times. At that time, a TV version had encouraged me to read the novel and we talked about how the movie interpreted the book. Years previously, she and a friend were obsessed with the story and had travelled around Salinas and Monterey to find the scenes in the book. They had managed to find nearly all of them except for Cathy Trask's house of ill repute in Monterey. After this book became a world-wide hit, the townsfolk of Salinas reviled Steinbeck for portraying their town in such a sordid light. Apparently, Monterey was already too gritty to care about such things, but the farming culture of Salinas has a respectable reputation to maintain. Cathy's whorehouse had to be located elsewhere!

Agnes Fitzgerald

A stern old Scottish woman, Agnes had hung pictures of Jesus and Robert Burns on the wall in her mobile home. It was a mystery which was the more revered. Agnes was also quite starchy when it came to social position. She became livid when I had the temerity to wipe my hands on her guest towels. "You're not a guest!" So what was I supposed to do, daub my hands dry with toilet paper? Soon thereafter, I was fired.

Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

Fannie Bryant

She lived in a trailer that smelled heavily of Lysol and medicine. She told many stories about how her children wouldn't visit her and how she caught her husband in the barn screwing the goat. Truly a miserable situation. On top of that, she wanted me to eat supper with her to keep her company. I didn't have the emotional maturity and stamina to do that, especially after I saw the pool of thick bacon grease in the iron skillet. I just couldn’t handle it. Thus, she was the only client I asked to quit after only a month of working for her. Understandably, she was upset, but I just couldn't cope with it. In fact, I wonder if I could even now, several decades later. Perhaps she would've been the most interesting person of all if I'd had the courage to push through my misgivings. Everybody has their stories to tell and their loneliness to disspell.

More Than a Job

Cleaning someone's home is an intimate relationship. As I grow older and more infirm, I don't know if I could have someone else clean my toilets and fold my laundry. A lot of trust is needed when someone comes into one's home. Hopefully, chore workers are vetted with care, although some of my clients told me they experienced questionable behavior from previous workers. Household help will be rummaging around the photos, trinkets, and memorabilia on night tables, bureaus, and shelves. Elderly clients know they are vulnerable to abuse and theft, if not something worse, so their suspicions are backed up by acquired knowledge and what they've heard from others.

Even their own family play havoc on their psyches. A brother and sister I worked for suffered this ordeal. Fairly senile, he would accuse her almost daily of stealing his money, insisting on trips to the bank to verify the truth. She just looked at me and shook her head as he raved on. There was little she could do other than endure the aggravation.

Old people don't generate a lot of dirt or grime, so most of the time, I lent an ear to their concerns and fears. Leroy encouraged it, having the coffee and cookies ready and waiting. He sat and watched the world literally going by him, knowing his relevance in others' lives was long gone.

Crystal bent my ear with all kinds of sorrows and dismay. Still middle-aged, she raged against the waning prospects of her life. She still had it … dammit! Yet she felt pushed aside by a business failure and the lower standard of living with little time left to regain it. Looking back on more prosperous times takes a huge toll on one's self-esteem. I sat there listening to her troubles most of the time.

Photo by Marek Studzinski on Unsplash

There's always the inevidable loss of a beloved client. One elderly friend asked me once to clean her house. While doing so, I saw she seemed agitated, as if she were seeing ghosts. She sat on the edge of her couch, glancing around in wide-eyed dread. I asked her if she felt all right, if I could help her in some way. She looked at me in that fearful stare, but shook her head. Days later, I heard she had died that afternoon.

Other times, a call came canceling my contract. Usually, it would be a relative. Sometimes they would graciously ask if I wanted some little memento from among the client's belongings. I always declined, telling them my affection for their relative would sustain memories of them. And, as you can tell by this series of stories, that's very true. Some people you just can't forget. It's been decades since I worked with them and memories are still strong.

Patience is required to be able to cope with the slow movements and apparent befuddlement of our elders. I sometimes had to stifle my need to assist Ella as she rummaged around her purse, slowly counting out change at the checkout counter.

Eighty-year-olds have a totally different time sense. At thirty, I still struggled to find my niche, my career, my personal values among roommates and friends in a flurry of goals, beliefs, and active futures ahead of them. We were all searching for that elusive paradise, always in the rush of ambition. I don't really think that search really ends. My physical strength, mental acuity, and energy pushed me daily to meet challenges and occasional setbacks then. Like those elderly friends, I've lived come to enjoy a slower lifestyle pursuing hobbies rather than careers.

My energetic sister-in-law is resisting the approach of her eighth decade. After a vigorous business career from which she works hard to detach, she exhibits an almost panicky fear of losing purpose. During recent visits, she comes in calmly at first, but builds up to fever pitch as she tells about her travails with divestments, health problems, and disengagement. By the time she and her husband return to their car, she literally jumps on her toes, screaming, "You've got to have a purpose, you've got to have purpose in life."

Photo by Sergiu Vălenaș on Unsplash

So what if my purpose is to slow down, enjoy the fruits of my labors, and enjoy the occasional invasion of my grandchildren? My clients' purposes were to enjoy the time they had left, their relationships with friends, neighbors, and family, and dealing with either the joy or frustration that the sun rose on yet another day. Ella spoke often of her disappointment every morning of waking up alive … sigh … again. In her nineties, this was indeed a dilemma. Well, Ella, you need to finish that damned Star Crossword.

One disturbing aspect, though, was that I was slowly becoming an old person mentally. That scared me. When I stepped into the world of the elderly, life ticked by more with few changes except for the ultimate change … death. My off-work lifestyle, however, spun faster with boyfriends, social events, religious affairs, classes, and working toward whatever future would follow my chore working days. Was this my career choice or a temporary income source? I found it difficult to reconcile the two worlds, yet it was hard to leave the camaraderie of my older friends.

These musings pushed me to find other work, to get back into my own developmental stage. With so little success in establishing a vibrant future, it was tempting to succumb to the daytime TV and small talk mode. One woman, Donna, lounged on her sofa most of the day watching soap operas. Deeply involved in them, she would greet me with the latest gossip about Luke and Laura or Robert and Holly, as if they were real people. Woowoo! It snapped me into finding other work.

Within a couple of years, I married and became a mother. New demands and opportunities came with my daughter, including homeschooling. The seduction of those old friends wore off which pushed me into the present rather than floating around inside someone else's past.

Sometimes I miss my older friends, even the grumpy ones, and know they have long since passed. Their stories enriched me. I learned to see others as being like me rather than alien beings bumping around me. They helped me crack open a barrier to relating to others. In-Home Support was more than a job. It inspired continuous epiphanies.

If you enjoyed this essay, feel free to explore other essays, stories, and poems in the Ring Around the Basin Archive.