At the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens ca 1944

On February 7 my mother became dizzy and fell in her apartment; she fractured her right arm, went into the hospital, was sent to rehab, got sick in rehab, went back into the hospital, was sent to another rehab where she remains. Her insurance doesn’t cover more than ten days and now we have to pay fifty dollars a day for the indignity of food that is unappetizing, for occasional neglect, loneliness and discomfort. There is little choice; this is the healthcare system. This is where the broken go with the hope of being mended. Then they find that these places are a travesty. This is where my mother has been not sleeping and not eating. This is where my mother became so exhausted she could barely lift the phone to answer it.

This is where my mother might turn ninety-five years old.

I called her last night and the receiver was lifted and dropped. I called the nurse’s station and asked who my mother’s nurse was. I was speaking to her. I caught her ear and she listened with compassion and went in to see what was going on. Her name is Frieda.

Someone had turned off the air conditioning and the Florida heat was suffocating my mother, drenching her in the felt sling she has to wear to keep her arm suitably placed. Frieda made everything right and reported back that my mother was feeling better. She promised to look in on her all night. She told me to sleep well and not to worry. I did. For the first time in a long time.

When I called this evening Frieda said that my mother went to sleep around 9:00 pm and awoke at 7:30 am. It was the first time in weeks, maybe months, that my mother slept through the night. Frieda made my mother feel comfortable and secure. That’s all it took. An angel.

Mom in the first apartment in Stuyvesant Town ca 1948 where we had
one of the first television sets

[This series is linked: see “continued here.” Also, below the line there will be links for the previous post and the next.]

continued here

The series starts here