Please-Don't Forget Me!
Rachel Hertzenson
prepares for physical
therapy. ..
6:40 p.m. Most residents are off to see To
Sir with Love, being shown on the first floor.
But tiny Rose, the one who tells strangers "I
love you," isn't interested. She sits alone and
bewildered in the lobby.
Most of Rose's life today is remembering.
She often mumbles short, incomprehensible
phrases about her family. This evening, she
begins to cry as she thinks of her father say-
ing a blessing over her at the Shabbat table.
"I want to go home:" she wails. "I want to
go home to mother. I've lost all hope."
10:30 p.m. The religious woman from the
bingo game is roaming the halls. She still
asks, "Is it Shabbos? Is it Shabbos?"
An aide is cleaning a bathtub; a resident
in his bathrobe stands aimlessly in the hall.
11:15 p.m. Blasting, screaming tears into
the dark night: a siren. A woman complain-
ed of chest pains, and now the ambulance is
here.
The medics take her temperature and her
blood pressure. The resident doesn't
cooperate. She won't tell them about her
health habits.
Finally, the men decide to take her to the
hospital. They place her frail body on the
stretcher.
1 p.m. Richard Nalley, in charge of floor
care at Borman Hall, likes what he sees: a
smooth, clean floor that shines with his hard
work. It takes him weeks to do these floors.
He's got to move all the furniture and put
down seven coats of wax. Sometimes, he has
to clean up urine and excrement off the floor.
Second floor. A sign hangs near the nur-
sing station. It says: "God is love" and shows
a smiling face.
But there is little love lost now between an
aide and a resident. The resident went tem-
. . . An aide assists
Hertzenson as
she begins to walk.
30
FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1990