Old Ladies and Bingo

Every Friday I volunteer at my local old age home and sometimes  go out as a wheelchair pusher on their outings.
I love it ! It confirms the theory that the more one gives and the less one concentrates on oneself, the happier  you will be .
I run the bingo session for them on Fridays. My Mum loved her Bingo. After she died and we went through her things, every handbag had about 5 big fat coloured pens in it. Along with numerous tab ends as she was a Secret Smoker.  She could mark 6 cards at once and never miss a number .  So when a vacancy occurred at the home  , I  kind of  volunteered for her. I  had the idea that she would have approved whole heartedly and had she ever have got to be a very old lady herself,  and lived  in Donnie , she would have been at every single  session, pen poised and enjoying the bingo and the company  hugely. 

I have grown to love all my old ladies and worry if one of them isn't there. If I am not there, they worry about me too  ! Because I was in the bed with the itis-es last week, I missed going and yesterday when I arrived they were so gratifyingly sweet and concerned and glad to have me back .... I felt...... humble. But sometimes, when one of my regulars is missing, it is because they have died and this was the case recently with Kath who I really loved . She was 96 and incredibly thin in her motorised wheelchair  but she was still every inch the glamour puss. She wore tons of jangly jewellery carefully matched to her outfit, huge swinging chandelier earrings  and she adorned herself with flowing scarves and bits of lace and her trademark slash of red lipstick.
Never give up being who you are and don't let your standards fall was my lesson from Kath. Glamour is ageless.  She had such sensitivity and compassion. Some time ago I was busy being  heartbroken and Bingo was pretty much the only thing I could face for some weeks. Even golf had lost its allure. But because its the highlight of my week ( which sounds so sad, bordering on tragic  but really isn't at all ! ) I go,  and I  make the effort to look nice as they all inspect me and comment . A sort of peasant white top with lace and tiny sparkles won admiring comments from pretty much all of them and  they don't like me in  black !

 I digress .... so  there I was, calling out my numbers and pretending that this line was to win a diamond necklace and that full house was to win a world cruise  and I was  doing what I thought was an excellent job of being "normal ". Same smiles, same patter. Same pleasure in being there but inside I was wretched.

Lovely Kathleen, at the end of the session didn't go zooming off ( she could really drive that thing ! ) but stayed at the end  till we were alone. She caught  my hand and held it and said, " don't be sad , I  love you , remember how loved you are , whatever it is will pass " 
She made me cry. Some more ! But in a better way.

I had another sweet lady called Eileen who had never married and seemed to have no family at all. She was bald, just a few wispy grey hairs and had very noisy raspy breathing and some kind of disability of hands and feet.  Almost from one week to the next she became sleepy and would nod off in the sessions and not mark her cards  so I started to put her next to me so that I could help her a little. Then a day came when she was back to her usual alert and happy self and she won 3 times. They play for bars of chocolate which most of them save for grandchildren or their carers. I wheeled her back to her room that day and she thanked me very much for a wonderful time. My pleasure I said, I am so glad you enjoyed it. Oh I do , she said, I have had such a lovely, lovely  time today  , and she thanked me again.

And that afternoon she died.
But its not depressing AT ALL. Oh I wouldn't want you to think that! Its humorous and uplifting and fun !
I have a laugh and a joke with them all the time and I seek their advice and wisdom sometimes and they are interested in my doings. One of my ladies has an eye for the gentlemen and she positions herself in reception so that the one she fancies will be sure to see her when  he goes by. She says, why not. Why not indeed !
Rita is a newer inmate and had a host of new  friends within days of her arrival. I noticed and remarked that it was lovely she had settled in so well and made friends so easily and she said that she had always made friends readily  all her life. I asked how did she do that, and she said , " well people are lovely aren't they and so interesting "
So there is another lesson. One day I was wheeling her somewhere she wanted to be and she said exactly this , " I am so happy here and if I could just walk a few steps, I would be the luckiest woman in the world "
I happen to know she suffers greatly and is in constant pain . So that is why Rita is one of the inspirational women in my life.
They are all such characters ! I think that whatever your essence is, your true nature, that is the one that will become most evident in extreme old age. And that painful , blood curdling honesty that only  tiny children and very old people have is very evident.
They don't hesitate to say exactly what they think to each other ! One of them constantly asks " has the line gone " about every 3 minutes and one of the less patient ones remarks loudly, " I wish she would shut up she is getting on my nerves" !  I was afraid a war would break out but no, they are fine together, just clear about how they feel  !

On a trip out to Asda ( a lot of them love supermarkets ) I was wheeling Irene who's goal was to buy some moisturiser and a lipstick. We spent a full two hours together whilst I read every word on every jar of skin cream  to her . And worked out which one was the best value. And tried every single lip colour on her hand and mine. And bought nothing !
That week my Buddhist teaching and meditation had been on patience so I figured that Buddha had decided I should be tested as soon as possible ! Especially as Irene tends to complain and not appear to enjoy anything very much.

Some of their stories are  heart breaking and I wonder how they had the will to reach old age. Edith was a refugee from Austria and lost her entire family in the Holocaust  and everything she owned,  fleeing the Nazis. She settled in Leeds eventually and married the first man who asked her , she told me her Mother's last advice  had  been to tell  her to find a man and be safe as soon as possible and  so she did and they had one daughter who was the sun, moon and stars to her. The marriage was not happy, he was a womaniser but it was a  long marriage . The daughter became a doctor and she too married and was madly in love with her husband, so much so that Edith said they had decided not to have children as they loved being just them and they had their careers. So,  20 years ago , Edith's husband died and within weeks her son in law got cancer and he too died 6 weeks later. And 3 weeks after that, her precious only child took her life. So Edith lost her entire family , again, in less than  three months.

I found her in reception one day and asked if she wanted to come and play Bingo and she was mortally offended ! I play Bridge only she said. She is a very clever, educated  woman, one can tell. So I asked if she had found people to play with yet because some of my Bingo ladies who are lovely , play all the time. But she was  determined to be the unhappiest woman in the home and refused but asked if I would visit her. So I did and that is when she told me her story. And now she tips up for Bingo every week and loves winning and complains constantly about the pilfering of her knickers ! She seems a little happier lately.
I think of my troubles and they pale into insignificance and I realise that life does indeed go on.

I think I have  learned to be more patient and tolerant  because of them. And to know that it is never over till the fat lady sings ! And that old people are as precious and valuable as children and deserve our respect and care and for us to listen to them.
I hope that I have learned  but I still sometimes fail with my own old person, my Uncle who has only my sister and me  and yet is SO annoying and usually  so ungrateful ( I do sometimes do things that are beyond the call of the duty such as put his socks on ! )  that I feel so much remorse for not being better with him and not doing more... and then he is impossible all over again (  I mean impossible ! )  and so it goes on. He thinks he should be Prime Minister , that aid to India is bloody disgusting and like Jeremy Clarkson, thinks a lot of people should be shot !

I think that shooting anyone is definitely not the answer to anything !