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Exchanges

8/25/2013

Friday, August 9, 2013

Things looked (and felt) different at Bingo today. Dorothy’s table was empty. A man I’d never met was pushing the prize cart. And the one big table made out of four smaller tables was lined completely with men I’d never seen in my life.

I looked for something or someone familiar—and, as usual, looked first for Ray McDade.

Ray is an excellent welcomer. “Well, bless your heart, dear,” he usually says. And he did.

We hugged and caught up briefly, and I jumped right into Bingo-ing.

Harriet and Doris were in place. So were Faith and David Fox. And Leo Martell’s trusty gang—Royal, Gary C. and Charlie—was in fine form.

Terry the volunteer was calling the Bingo numbers and welcomed me over the microphone.

The new prize-cart pusher was having a hard time keeping up with the winners. At some point, he simply sat down.

“Want me to push?” I asked. “Sure!” he answered.

Gary C. chose an electric toothbrush and asked me to put in the battery. I did, but he wasn’t happy with the on-off switch and wanted to trade in the whole thing. Had Dorothy been there, this would have been a nuclear crisis, but today no one even noticed.

Leo had no luck with his battery-operated prize, either. He chose a misting fan but, unlike the toothbrush, batteries were not included. He asked to trade, too, so I suggested some no-batteries-required chapstick. “Why would I need that?” Leo gruffed. “I’m not gettin’ any lovin’.”

I laughed out loud. “Then you might as well pick this,” I said, and held up the Tabasco sauce.

Ray and I talked between games and after the final Blackout, and I told him I was on my way to see Bill Crowell. Ray said Bill had seemed a little better lately, so I knocked on his door a little more hopeful.

Bill was sitting in his wheelchair with the TV on. He seemed happy to see me, so I hugged him and sat on the edge of his bed. But even though I muted the TV, I had a very hard time hearing and understanding Bill.

I leaned in and looked him in the eyes and concentrated very hard, and I heard him say, “My daughter told me when you die you just close your eyes, and when you open them you’re in heaven.”

I smiled. The image—and the fact that I understood him—seemed to comfort Bill.

“I hope I see you,” Bill said.

I sat a while longer and tried to talk with Bill, but I felt as if we were just talking at each other, with neither of us really connecting.

I smiled, rubbed his shoulder and hugged him tightly goodbye.

It’s getting harder to tell whether my visits are helping or hurting Bill. Or maybe, it’s just getting harder.

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The Whole Spectrum

7/29/2013

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Sunday, July 28, 2013

Today I finally made it back to the Soldiers Home. I’d been sidetracked by a sinus infection, a long Midwestern vacation and then a bonus ear infection, and it’d been far, far too long. So long, in fact, on the way there I worried what I might find—or, more specifically, whom I might not find.

I came out at dinnertime and snuck in a back door, making a beeline for Ray McDade’s room. He was there, headphones on, listening to the pope.

“Well, I’ll be,” Ray said. I hugged him hard. He’d gotten my postcard from Michigan, but the real news was his: He’d been in the hospital for three days while I was gone.

“I have really good insurance,” Ray said. “They gave me anything I wanted to eat!”

Ray asked a lot of questions about my trip: about my parents, about my son’s golf game, about the weather, about our next plans to get together, about good kids and how they get that way. (Ray said he thinks he learned respectful behavior “through osmosis,” because that’s what his parents modeled.)

As we talked, I had a moment of clear, pure gratitude: I am so thankful for Ray.

We caught up and talked quite a while. I gave him the apple butter I’d found for him at an Amish store in Michigan. He gave me a calendar of Hawaii pictures.

He asked what else was new, so I told him. I’ve been sick so often, I’m guessing, because I’m overstressed—about money, about my son’s impending departure for college (which also involves more money), about my impending move from our family home (more money!). (I might be detecting a pattern here. Ray, too.)

“I hate divorce like a poisonous snake,” Ray said.

I love Ray.

He asked whether I planned to see Bill Crowell. I said he was my next stop.

“I stopped to see him yesterday, and I’m not sure he even knew who I was,” Ray said.

I sighed. Ray and I hugged. “God bless you, dear,” he said.

On my way to Bill’s room, I happened to look into the assisted-dining area. After about 10 steps, it hit me that I might have seen Bill sitting there. He didn’t require help eating the last time I saw him, but I turned around, anyway.

It was Bill.

He recognized me enough to ask for a kiss, and then he told me he’d like the Lord to take him soon. “It’s nothing but old veterans here,” he said.

I had a hard time hearing/understanding most of the rest of what he said, and Bill seemed to have a hard time finding words.

But not all of the time. “In my eyes, you’ll always be a princess,” I heard Bill say very clearly.

I put my arm around him and kissed the top of his head. I told him I’d see him soon at Bingo. I wish I had said, “God bless you, Bill.”

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In Memoriam

6/9/2013

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One of the two Memorial Day cakes.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Today’s Memorial Day program at the Soldiers Home was standing-room only—Chilson Hall was more crowded than I’d ever seen it—which is good and bad.

The good is obvious: These residents—and all veterans, everywhere—should be heard, and seen, and appreciated by as many of us as possible. And the bad is selfish: Maybe everyone doesn’t have to stand right in front of me.

My friend Don came with me today and immediately grabbed a spot right behind Ray McDade, who’s always there early, and who’s always seated right in the front row. I left them to catch up and took my position at the cake/punch table.

Doreen also is a habitual early bird, so everything already was set up. We skimmed through the program together.

“Where’s the Roll Call?” I asked. Every Memorial Day, a resident reads the names of the residents who have died in the past year, and the program always includes that list. It’s always shocking on a couple levels: Besides the sheer size of the list, there is always a name or two that surprises me. But this year: no list at all.

“Too many died,” Doreen said. “They said they couldn’t fit all the names in the program.”

We both agreed that was a shame—again, on a couple levels.

People just kept streaming in. The Boy Scouts wheeled in residents and took them to designated areas, but a lot of visitors couldn’t find seats, and all of a sudden the space between the last row of seats and the cake table was filled with people. Talkative people.

The Boy Scouts, who had taken over a table toward the back of the room, cleared frequent paths through the crowd to get to the bathroom. At one point another volunteer said, “They really should give their table to the public.” And at another, the just-in-case EMT stood right smack in my line of vision.

Though I couldn’t really see the podium, the program itself moved quickly. Marie led the Pledge of Allegiance. Harold presented the governor’s proclamation, and the two guest speakers seemed to connect with the crowd. Then Greg, formerly a regular Bingo caller, read the Roll Call list—more than 50 names. I had expected to hear Gary Walling’s name, but still I tightened a little when I heard it. Then Greg announced the name “Lyle,” and I thought, “Oh no. I didn’t know Lyle had died”—but it was a different Lyle than the one I’d known from Bingo. But then, fewer than 10 names later, Greg read that Lyle’s name. And I said it out loud: “Oh, no.” I hadn’t known he’d died.

I teared up, as usual, at “Taps” and at the military songs. At one point, a woman toward the back of the hall started sobbing very loudly.

Everyone stared—except for one Boy Scout. Two minutes earlier, that same Boy Scout had squeezed through the crowd on his way to the bathroom, and I almost said something about respect and manners and courtesy. But now, without any direction at all, he voluntarily knelt next to the sobbing woman and put his arm around her shoulders—and all of a sudden I wasn’t irritated at a single thing.

Our little refreshment table was overwhelemed by the crowd. I couldn’t cut cake quickly enough. At one point a volunteer next to me told me I was “getting sloppy.” Luckily I had passed the irritation point.

Greg came through the line, and I told him he'd done a nice job with Roll Call. “Some of those names are tongue-twisters,” he said.

Afterward, Ray, Don and I talked. I asked why Bill Crowell hadn’t come. “I saw him on my way in,” Ray said. “He was headed in the opposite direction.”

Don and I hugged Ray goodbye and walked down to the pond. The pond, of course, was my special place with my amazing Soldiers Home friend Mike, and I feel his presence there more than anywhere.

“Hello, Michael,” I said out loud.

An eagle squawked in response. Mike and I always looked for eagles at the pond, so naturally I took this as a sign.

“That was Mike,” I said with certainty.

And then I cried a little, again, for all we’ve lost.

Ray McDade, front and center.

Veterans stand as their military song is played.

Ray and me, apres-cake.

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Familiar Comfort, and Discomfort

5/25/2013

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Bill Crowell and me, August 2012.

Friday, May 24, 2013

This has been (still is!) a time of Giant Change for me, so lately I’m realizing (and appreciating) the value of familiarity and comfort more and more—and few things are as comfortably familiar as Bingo at the Soldiers Home. Everyone has a regular seat. Most have a favorite topic of discussion. And you can always count on someone to claim a regular Bingo during Blackout—and on Charlie to yell, “It’s Blackout, you moron!”

Today was especially familiar. I walked in and waved to Dorothy, Doris and Harriett and headed straight for Ray. He looked especially good. We hugged, and Ray told me he’d been to Wal-Mart. “Radio Shack,” George piped in. Yep; the van had made a special stop there, too, because Ray had needed computer gear. They asked about my son’s prom experience, and I was happy to have a keychain photo for show and tell. “Cute!” George exclaimed.

There was a new volunteer, so the prizes were split between two carts to speed the delivery process. This was unfamiliar. Dorothy does not like the unfamiliar.

“No offense,” she told me; “but if I win, I want the other cart. I don’t know why they couldn’t just put all the prizes on one cart.”

My cart wasn’t only inferior prize-wise, but at one point the clunky thing caught on my shoe and nearly killed us both. Prizes flew all over the floor—and I caught myself just before I joined them. One can of soda crumpled so completely, I had to throw it away.

Billy won a pair of sunglasses, which he wanted to wear immediately. But they were cluttered with stickers and tags, and I had to knock on the kitchen door to find scissors.

At one point the bingo board became possessed, and numbers kept lighting that hadn’t really been called. For a while, anyone who claimed a Bingo with an “I” number in it was wrong—and upset.

Dorothy and I talked about my puppy. Ray and I talked about Bill. “He is not doing well,” Ray told me. “But he sure looks forward to seeing you.”

After Bingo, Ray said, “You’re going down to check on Bill, aren’t you?” I was. So I asked him to join me.

Ray and I found Bill sitting up. He was wearing a stained T-shirt, tattered sweatpants and one sock.

Ray almost literally said hi and goodbye in one breath. “You’re leaving?” I half-whimpered. He was.

Bill launched into a monologue about me, and him, and us. This, too, has become familiar.

He was slurring words and looking down as he talked, so I couldn’t quite catch everything, but there was no mistaking the general theme: He loves me.

For weeks I’ve been trying to stress our friendship to Bill: I am his friend, and I care about him, and I always will.

But Bill is no longer really Bill, and I'm not sure what he's hearing or retaining. At one point, trying to show him the duration and depth of our friendship, I pulled out the photo of us from the Soldiers Home family picnic in August 2012. (Above, just because I like seeing him happy again.) Bill didn’t remember it, and I realized that he no longer looks anything like that engaged, cheerful man in the picture. Bill, as Ray had warned me, is not doing well.

I said goodbye hoping Bill was at least OK.

“I'll see you at the Memorial Day ceremony on Monday, at 2,” is how I left it.

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Big Sigh

5/12/2013

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Ray, left, and Bill reconnect at Bingo.

Saturday, May 4, 2013
Today I crashed Doreen’s VFW Bingo out of desperation—and selfishness. I’d been absent so long, I really needed perspective and connection. And, in all honesty, I needed to make sure Bill Crowell was still alive.

I got there early so I could check on/talk to Bill before Bingo, but Dorothy already was pushing her walker up the sidewalk to the Bingo room. I had seen the Soldiers Home newsletter just that week and somehow managed to remember her birthday had been listed. I told her happy belated birthday, and she beamed.

“My daughter sent me a card,” she said, and dug through her stuff to find it.

I left her in the hallway outside the Bingo room and told her I needed to check on Bill.

He was alive, but he was not exactly Bill.

I woke him when I walked into his room and, as he often does, he launched into a rambling monologue. But this one was especially disturbing on several levels.

Bill mumbled something about me standing at a podium, turning around to look back at him and walking away. “And then there was that time in the car,” he said. I was really struggling to understand him—and calm him—but Bill seemed to think he had upset me. He seemed half apologetic, and half mad that I was mad. But, of course, I was never mad.

So I told him that.

“You haven’t been out here for a long time,” he said sadly.

I told him I was sorry, but I had been (and still am) horrifyingly busy and stressed trying to juggle my son’s senior year of high school and my job.

“Do you work at night?” he asked.

Ouch.

I told Bill I was not upset with him, and he said he’d forgive me. I asked him to come to Bingo, just to get him up and out of his room, which set off a 15-minute process of getting his shoes on (which I did) and getting him into his wheelchair (which I asked a staffer to do).

Bill was wearing sweatpants, which was new—and symbolically more sad than you might think. Worse, they had a scary dark stain on one thigh. “What happened there?” I asked. “Must be spilled tomato juice,” he said. I didn’t push it.

I wheeled him into Bingo and was thrilled to see Ray McDade already at his table. Ray was thrilled to see Bill, but Bill barely reacted. I sat with them both, but only Ray was carrying on a conversation.

He asked about my son, and I told him Carson had committed to the University of Washington. “What are you talking about?” Ray asked. He’d thought my son was a sophomore. No such luck. I showed Ray, George and Bill a picture on my phone of Carson and his lovely prom date.

“How much did that cost?” George asked. I told him the tuxedo was almost $200, which seemed ridiculous. George shook his head. He had meant my phone.

Ray asked how much college costs. I told him. It’s quite a bit more ridiculous than a tuxedo.

“When I graduated from high school, my dad gave me $50,” Ray said. “I took that to college, and it paid for my entire first semester—tuition, room and board.”

I sighed. “That sure sounds good,” I said.

Bingo went smoothly. Doreen hands out cash instead of prizes, which speeds the whole reward process immensely, and tends to make the winners very happy.

I talked to all the regulars—Leo Martell (who said he was saving his dollars to take me to dinner), Harriett, David, Royal, Robert and Billy—and found myself genuinely smiling in gratitude. I’d missed these people.

I stopped by often to check on Bill, but he wasn’t keeping up, and he kept saying he couldn’t see the number board.

While I was tidying up after Bingo, I could overhear Ray talking to Bill. “Don’t be in a rush,” Ray said. I turned around. I couldn’t imagine Bill rushing to do anything today. “Do not be in a hurry to die,” Ray added, and I almost cried right there. “You drag it out as long as you can.”

I told Bill I’d wheel him back to his room, and I hugged Ray goodbye. Tightly. “He’s fading fast,” Ray told me. “I’ll stop in every day and say the Rosary with him, but he won’t know I’m there.”

I thanked Ray and settled Bill back in his bed.

“So all is forgiven,” Bill said. I still didn’t know which one of us was forgiving, or forgiven, but I said yes.

“I can call you?” Bill asked? I said yes again.

“I love you,” Bill said. And I told him I love him, too.

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Bizarro Bingo

3/24/2013

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Friday, March 22, 2013

Today was one of those Bingo days that just never gelled—lots of people showed up late and sat in new places, and everything seemed disjointed and chaotic. Or maybe that's just me.

But any time I walk in and don’t see Ray McDade, I’m thrown. Today Dorothy saw me looking at Ray’s empty spot—and looking lost—and told me to pull up a chair. “At least your purse can sit down,” she said. We talked about my baby/puppy (“It’s a good thing he’s cute,” I told her), and I walked over to greet Doris and Harriet.

Terry the volunteer was calling the numbers, and another volunteer had claimed the prize cart, so I was unmoored. I wandered around and lingered with Leo Martell (who was sitting and bantering sweetly with Royal, which I’ve never seen but loved), and even well into the second game, aides kept pushing in more players. Harriet, who keeps attendance, had to get up midgame and track down all the new faces.

Richard the volunteer was staying close to a man I’d never seen. I walked over to his table between games, thinking I might introduce myself, and the man said, simply and not especially pleasantly, “You’re in the way, lady.” I started to laugh, but he was not joking. I looked behind me to see exactly what I was in the way of—the next game hadn’t started yet, so the number board was useless—and he must’ve followed my gaze and my confusion. “I apologize,” the man said. “You are not in the way after all.”

During the first Blackout, I finally spotted Ray—in the hallway outside. He and Charlie had been at a Residents Council meeting, and neither had realized it’d lasted all the way into Bingo. I dug out Ray’s card and caught it up, and then he asked me to play it for a few minutes. “I really have to take a leak,” he laughed.

After Blackout (Ray tied but lost the draw-off), I returned the card deck to the Bingo table, and Billy rolled up to ask whether we were done. “Not yet,” I said. “It’s halftime.” “Halftime?” Billy asked. “Will there be a wardrobe malfunction?” It took me a second, but I had finally had a good Bingo laugh.

Faith came in late and told me she’s planning a trip to California. Leo and I spent a few minutes trying to make his new Easter-chick-keychain prize chirp. It would not.

Ray hugged me goodbye, and I collected my purse from Dorothy’s table. Bingo had taken longer than usual, and I still had to go in to work, so I debated whether I should stop in to see Bill. But not for long.

Bill’s curtain was drawn, and when I peeked around it, I saw him snuggled in bed under the covers. He looked sound asleep, so I started to turn, but he must’ve sensed my presence. Suddenly he was awake.

I sat on the edge of Bill's bed, and he pawed my nearest shoulder as if I were saving him from drowning. “I was going to come to Bingo,” he said. “But I wasn’t sure you’d be there.”

I told him I had to get to work but wanted to check in, and he told me he loves me. I told him, again, that I’m glad we’re friends.

He asked whether Ray had shown up at Bingo, and I said he had. “I get the feeling that Ray tries to Monopoly you,” Bill said. “Is that the right word?”

We both laughed. “Maybe ‘monopolize,’” I said. “But I knew what you meant, and I don’t think Ray does that.”

Bill asked whether he could kiss me goodbye, so I leaned in. “Cheek,” I said. He might not have heard me. “Cheek,” I said, a little more forcefully than I might have wanted to. Or maybe not.

I kissed Bill on his cheek. “See you soon,” I said.

“Call me,” Bill said, and I left him just as I’d found him.

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All Bets Are Off

3/7/2013

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Poker pals Bill Crowell and Ray McDade.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

I beat the Tacoma HOGs to Reno Day today—which sounds like a string of random words, unless you’ve been to four or five Reno Days already.

So, a little context: Once a year, members of the Tacoma Harley Owners Group thunder out to the Soldiers Home and turn the cavernous Chilson Hall into a casino. Residents use free tickets to play casino games and win huge piles of chips, which they can use to buy Bingo-type prizes—or coveted Harley gear.

And every year, Doreen the amazing VFW Auxiliary volunteer makes dozens and dozens of dozens of traditional ham-bun sandwiches, and I help out at the food bar.

This year as I pulled in, a couple of HOGs stood sentry near the Soldiers Home entrance, waiting to direct the bikes. As soon as I parked, I heard their unmistakable, car-rattling roar: The HOGs had arrived.

I joined Doreen and another helper, and after we’d whipped the snacks into shape, I ventured out to the gaming area with a tray of drinks. (Another tradition: At least three people always ask whether they’re spiked.) (They are not.)

Ray McDade, Leo Martell, David, Doug, Charlie, Dorothy and Wesley always come to Reno Day. Leo always parks at the blackjack table, so I waved my hands in a lucky spell over his cards—but it really didn’t matter: The HOGs tend to be rather generous with the chips, win or lose.

Ray scoped out the prize table to gauge how many chips he’d need for a flashlight. David was intensely focused on his poker hand. And sweet, tough-looking Wesley was giggling as he tried to catch a plastic fish from a kid’s game.

And then there sat Bill Crowell.

Someone had wheeled him in, but he didn’t make it all the way to a game. I walked over and hugged him and casually asked how he was.

“Kind of down, I guess,” Bill said.

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked, but I did: “Why?”

“Oh,” Bill sighed. “Probably because of you.”

I squatted down to his level, because it seemed as if this could/should take more than a second.

“I know this is never going to work out,” Bill said.

I squeezed his hand. “We can be friends forever,” I said.

That seemed to help, but not enough. “But what about Ray?” he said. Well, I told him, I’d always be friends with Ray, too.

That seemed to help a little more, so I suggested Bill might enjoy the diversion of a good round of poker. A HOG took him under his HOG wing, and I went back to my food post.

One of my favorite parts about Reno Day is introducing residents to the HOGs. As I carried Charlie’s plate to a table, I simply told two HOGs, “This is Charlie,” and suddenly three men were friends. Charlie had wanted a plate of barbecue meatballs, and he’d wanted me to pick a drink for him. “I brought you Dr. Pepper because it goes really well with barbecue,” I told him. Charlie took a sip and smiled. “Yeah, it does!” he said.

As the games were winding down, a HOG came in and announced, “I need the blonde at the bar.” Well, as it turned out, today there were two. “The one for Bill,” he said. Yes; that narrowed it down.

I met Bill at the poker table and counted his chips—somewhere around a gazillion. I pushed him to the Harley table, and he picked out a nice biker T-shirt. But he still had more shopping to do. We went to the expensive end of the prize table—20 chips!—and Bill picked a plastic Jesus clock that might also have been a picture frame.

Bill told me his favorite picture of me is the one with Ray and me getting out of the back seat of the car. I have no idea what that means, because there is no such picture, and that made me very sad. I bent down again to hug my friend goodbye. Erin from Activities came to collect him and wheel him home.

“I’ll see you the next time I come out,” I told Bill.

As I watched Bill leave, I heard Erin tell him, “She said she’ll see you the next time she comes out.”

Leo Martell starts amassing chips.

The ladies who do lunch.

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A Little Friday Unease

2/23/2013

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I like this "official" picture of Bill and me because 1) he has slipped on his fancy jacket (and I somehow got his rose attached to it!) and 2) he looks very happy.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Bingo was more packed today than I can ever remember—I lost count at 30 players, and then lost my bearings over all the new faces: At the Soldiers Home, new people move in only when other people leave, one way or another, and I just couldn’t fathom how many people suddenly must be missing, and whom they might be.

All the Bingo regulars were there, though, so I reassured myself that I hadn’t lost a treasured friend this week, and moved on to my next struggle: trying to find a path for the prize cart through all those feet and wheelchair wheels and walkers. It was so crowded, I had to travel the perimeter—certainly not the shortest distance between two points, and noticeably not the fastest route to prize-winners. There was a lot of impatient, “Hey! Over here!!”-ing today.

“You’re going to run your legs right off,” sweet Harriet told me.

Leo Martell just kept winning, and thankfully spotted what he wanted from the cart before I had to try to maneuver it in next to him. “What is that pussycat on there?” he asked. It was a big stuffed blue toy, which he said he’d better take. (I am still smiling that he said, “pussycat.”)

I talked to Ray McDade, David and Dorothy—but my happiest breakthrough was with Michael, who had bristled a couple Bingos ago when I’d picked up the bandana he’d dropped. Michael was having a good Bingo day, so I was visiting often with the cart. Afterward, I commented on his impressive stash of loot and asked whether he’d like a bag for all of it. He smiled and said yes, and my heart melted. “I did all this with my lucky Irish charm all the way over there,” he said. There was something green and buttonlike at the other end of the table. I picked it up and said, “This?” And he smiled again. “Hold on to that,” I told him, smiling back like an idiot. “It seems to work.”

There was a new Bingo caller today—Erin from Recreation told me the Sergeants Association is about to start hosting a monthly Bingo, and she was training members to call the numbers. This man was pleasant and respectful and very capable, and on his way out, we thanked each other.

Eileen from Recreation had given me the official Soldiers Home photo of Bill Crowell and me from our Valentine’s Dinner, so I thought on my way out I’d stop and show it to Bill.

Bill was lying almost diagonally on his bed but apparently not quite asleep, because he started talking the second I walked in.

“I was just thinking about you,” Bill said. I hugged him and showed him our picture (he already had a copy, tacked to the bulletin board right above his head). “That night was spectacular,” Bill said—and then he launched into a monologue that was sweet, sometimes-incomprehensible and a tiny bit worrisome.

I didn’t get it all, but I did get that he needs to talk to me; that his phone hasn’t been working; that he loves me and would like to hug, caress and/or marry me; and that he can’t stop thinking about “the other side, where everything is perfect,” and how we’ll be together there. Forever.

My head was reeling: At the same time I was trying to understand him and really hear him, I was trying desperately to think of The Right Response. Quickly.

I’m not sure I landed on it. “I’m very glad we’re good friends,” I told Bill.

I’m not sure he really heard me. He asked me to help him sit up so he could hug me better. I said maybe it’d be best if he just rested where he was. And then I thanked him again, for his friendship, and for Valentine’s Dinner, as I hugged him goodbye.

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My Fuzzy Valentine

2/16/2013

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Thursday, February 14, 2013

Exactly 365 days after Bill Crowell asked me to Valentine’s Dinner, I pulled into the Soldiers Home hoping he knew I was coming. We’d worked through months and months of pre-Big Night Out anxiety—over my corsage, our dinner choices, our outfits—but we hadn’t talked in a couple of weeks (I was sick, and our back-and-forth phone calls just never connected). Finally, I called Eileen in Activities, who told me Bill had signed us up for the 4:15 p.m. seating, had ordered my corsage and had chosen my entrée: baked fish. I laughed out loud.

Bill was ready.

As has happened the last three Valentine’s Dinners, my date was dressed and ready and waiting inside his room. But Bill was listing decidedly to one side like a crippled cruise liner, and he didn’t look completely himself. Also, he was still worried about my corsage.

I pinned on his boutonniere, and a nurse offered to take our picture. “What would you like as a background?” she asked Bill.

“Hawaii,” he said.

Ah. Bill was in there, after all.

It took two nurses to slip on his suit jacket and readjust his weight in his wheelchair. I pushed him to dinner and told him he’d be surprised when he saw Chilson Hall transformed into a swanky restaurant. He was.

It turned out my corsage was waiting for me at the hostess stand (whew), and after our official dinner picture, we were led to our table—the same one where Ray McDade and I sat last year.

John, our waiter, went over our dinner choices, and when I explained I am not really a fish person, I almost broke the entire event. “I think I have to bring you what’s on here,” he finally said.

John poured sparkling cider into our heavy real-glass glasses. I proposed a toast, but Bill couldn’t lift his glass. “Did they tape this to the table?” he laughed.

Next up: another fish item! I scooted my shrimp cocktail over to Bill, who nibbled but looked like he wasn’t quite sure he was nibbling. Out of nowhere, the new superintendent, a kind man named Lael Hepworth, climbed on stage and jumped down into full splits after a group countdown. “What just happened?” Bill asked. I’m not sure I explained it sufficiently.

When dinner arrived, I transferred my baked fish to Bill’s plate, cut it into flaky bites and squeezed some lemon on it. Bill was kind of randomly sliding his fork around and eating whatever it picked up.

Ray—dressed beyond handsomely in a full tuxedo—scootered in with a woman I didn’t recognize. “That’s a woman from church,” Bill whispered. I told him we’d go say hi on our way out.

Midway through dinner, Bill announced, “My back teeth are floating, as they say.” I pushed him back to the hostess stand, and a nurse escorted him to the restroom. When he came back, Bill asked, “Do all your dates leave you in the middle of dinner to go to the restroom with a nurse?”

Bill asked me whether I plan to marry again. “Probably not,” I said. “But I think I would enjoy a companion.” Bill talked about his ex-wife, his childhood and love and heartache and loss—and then volunteered for companion duty.

He told a long, rambling story about a shy woman in England—I had to lean way in to hear him over the piano music and conversation, but I’m pretty sure it involved testicles. It made him laugh.

We did stop over to see Ray and his dinner companion, and when I said I wanted a picture of the men, Ray admonished Bill to “sit up straight and look at the camera.”

On the way back to Bill’s room, he asked, “Once this whole day is over, could I kiss you?” I said I would be honored.

In the hallway outside his room, a nurse asked Bill how his head was. “Fine,” Bill said. “Good,” she said. “That means the Vicodin worked.”

Oh, for crying out loud. No wonder Bill was listing. Nothing like a nice narcotic cloud for Valentine’s Day.

Back in Bill’s room, he asked me to stand him up so he could perform the kiss properly, but I didn’t want to risk us both crashing to the floor in a flurry of flower petals. “I’ll just bend down,” I said. “And I assume you mean my cheek.”

He did not. But he got my cheek, anyway.

“I do love you,” Bill said. “Not in a sexual way, but as a friend.” I told him I feel the same.

He held my hand and kissed that, too. “I know I’m stalling,” Bill said. “But I’m happy.”

Bill said he thought he might cry.

I squeezed his hand and told him I’d always remember this night. I put his boutonniere in his refrigerator and told him I’d see him at Bingo.

And then I hugged him and kissed his cheek and thanked him for inviting me to Valentine’s Dinner.

“I’ll do better next year,” Bill said.

Buddies Ray McDade, left, and Bill.

Bill's nicely decorated lapel.

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Please Pardon the Cloud

1/26/2013

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Friday, January 25, 2013

My goal as a volunteer at the Soldiers Home—and especially at Bingo—is always the same: I always try to bring a little brightness with me. But every once in a while, I drag in my own hovering cloud, and every other once in a while, I find the whole experience horribly sad.

Today was that rare day when both dark elements collided: I was sad before I got there, and more sad once I was.

Today, as soon as I walked in, I just sensed decline: Ray McDade was hidden behind a blue anti-germ mask; Charlie’s burly arms were wrapped in gauze; Leo Martell had sprouted an oxygen tube; and one man with one leg simply slumped, asleep, through it all.

Ray, it turned out, wasn’t trying to stay healthy; he was trying to keep from spreading his germs. He looked tired and run-down, and we didn’t talk much at all. I did talk to Dorothy about my puppy (she always calls him “the baby”), and to Robert about his newest macramé project, but I felt an uncomfortable disconnect, as if I were having to try too hard, maybe, and even though I said hi to all the regulars, I just wasn’t picking up on any happiness at all—or spreading much myself.

And that feeling just built. A newish, younger man had dropped his bandana on the floor, so as I rolled past with the prize cart, I picked it up and set it on his table. “I could have done that myself,” he said. I stammered to explain that I was just passing by and it was no problem at all, but I felt bad—and he left soon afterward. When I brought the prize cart to Gary C., he asked about a packaged “dream catcher” on the bottom shelf. I told him you were supposed to hang it above your bed (Mike had had a huge one), and it would take your bad dreams from you. “I believe in Jesus Christ,” Gary told me, and I felt as if I had offended his very core.

Then at the last Blackout, seven people (!) Bingoed at the same time, so I had to make the rounds with a deck of cards for the deciding draw. I had gotten through three or four people when Charlie started yelling, “We need one over here!” Several times. And after the dramatic draw-off (two people had tied with aces in the first round), Billy called me over to yell at me, too. Sometimes (a lot of times) I have trouble understanding Billy, but his voice (and body language) could not have been any more clear: “I was waving my card and yelling, ‘Blackout,’ and nobody checked my card,” he said. “I had Blackout!” I apologized several times, but Billy was mad at me—and I felt pretty much like crap.

On my way out, I asked Erin from Activities about the Valentine’s Dinner, which usually is the week before the actual Valentine’s Day—except this year. Surprise. Which meant that after I checked in on Bill Crowell, who literally had invited me to this year’s Soldiers Home dinner the night of last year’s, I would get to cancel my other plans.

Bill looked sad, too, even before he realized it was I, the gloomy one, standing before his bed. I assured him we’d fill out all our Valentine’s Dinner paperwork on time, and that whatever he decided to wear would be fine, and that the corsage is really not a big deal—and then he told me he’s ready to die.

Instead of driving straight home, I let my puppy/baby out of the car and walked him down to the pond. I had called my mom to mope, and when I set the leash down to put my phone away, I heard a splash. This was very hard to process—until I saw Bentley’s head bobbing in the pond. I didn’t know whether he’d jumped in or slid in, or whether I was going to have to jump in to save him, but I laughed out loud, and he scrambled up, wiggled and shook as if that had been the happy plan all along. (Thank you, lady! Thank you!)

I called my mom to update her on that unexpected moment of happiness, and it struck me that Mike, had he been there (I really, really miss him lately), would have laughed until he ran out of breath.

That made me smile.

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Author
My name is Sandy Deneau Dunham. I'm a journalist who’s worked at The Phoenix Gazette, The (Tacoma) News Tribune, The Seattle Times, Town Hall Seattle and Pacific Lutheran University. I'm now back at The Seattle Times, as associate editor of its gorgeously glossy Pacific NW magazine. I've been a volunteer at the Washington Soldiers Home and Colony in Orting, Washington, since January 2009, and I am still a remedial videographer.

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