Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Being ill and being mean

A few years ago I lived in a huge high rise apartment building. It was close to a metro, a park, all kinds of shopping and there were about 17 apartments of single people that I regularly interacted with at church, in DC, on trips, and in the complex itself. However, there was a large population of older people in the building that we all got to know because they would sit outside the elevators talking to each other and saying hi to everyone going to and fro.

One of the people was this little lady we referred to as "squirrel lady" because she would take walks around the grounds feeding the squirrels. I got to know her just through little conversations going to and from work and other excursions. She started to make friends with all of my friends and she would always be excited to see all of her "Mormon girls."

About two years into living there, I decided to quit my job. Up to that point I'd worked in a very busy financial firm in downtown DC with month after month of 14-15 hour days only switch to a dot.com company at the height of the dot.com boom(March 2000)...which soon became a bomb/bust. I finally needed a break and was the lucky 1st employee of a very successful virtual company that allowed me to work at home. Suddenly I was considered a regular fixture in the apartment building because I would do errands around lunch time or take a walk for different breaks. I think some of the "old" people thought I was one of them for some reason.

Squirrel lady, in particular, and I would talk frequently and formed a pretty good friendship.

Then she got sick.

I went to visit her and she was a little moody.

I went and visited her again in a care center when she was admitted. She liked me one minute and acted disgruntled the rest of the visit.

I visited her a last time and she went into a rage when I was talking to her. She thought I was the nurse coming to give her some horrible medicine that she hated.

Not long after that she passed away.

That experience really hurt. I didn't know why I was being treated that way.

However, there is someone that I've referred to before that is ill - very ill. I have felt overwhelmed the last few weeks, but have still tried to take time to talk on the phone.

I did so today and experienced that same kind of feeling. It feels so betraying when you are trying to help and you end up feeling like dirt.

Perhaps people that take care of loved ones with a long term illness have experienced this in their life AND after putting a lot more love and attention into those relationships than I have with mine. They must be saints to endure these types of emotions on a daily basis.

Anyway, now that I know this pattern, it makes the hurt feelings last for just a couple of minutes because I know that they would never act this way prior to feeling ill.

Even so, I will admit to being a little leery to make the next call.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yes, yes, yes. This is quite true. I wish you a thick skin and healing heart as you continue with supporting your friend. Also, people act like this in transition time, like when you move away. Some people just don't know how to express themselves . . . and an ARMOR is to hurt before they themselves are hurt. It took me a couple of times working with children that experienced some pretty tough stuff before I recognized this, and then I saw it in adults once I knew what it was.

I think the world of you. Continue helping; you'll know one day how immeasurabley important your love truly is to them.

ME said...

I went to visit my friend Judy who was dying from cancer. Her husband was there and very distraught. They had been married 45 years and here she was yelling at him, "This is your fault. Why did you do this to me??" etc. We knew she was just dioriented and didn't mean it but it was sad to see. We went in the next room and he broke down crying because he knew her time was short.

I wonder what it is that makes us so irritable and honry when our physical bodies aren't in the best shape.

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