Forgotten
by Kimberly KatiliusRays of light streamed through the cracks in the dirty windows. The shadows played against my patient’s face, making her look older than her eighty-three years. Her wrinkles were defined and her gray eyes held that certain sadness brought on by age. Thin cracked lips curved up into a small smile as she noticed my presence. She lifted a shaking hand plagued with arthritis, beckoning my soul to comfort her broken one. She was desperate like so many elderly people in this institution for some kind of human contact. Their own children now raised and gone, are too busy with their own lives to visit. She took out an old worn picture. The color in the picture was faded leaving an ancient tea stained shade unknowingly tainting the people within it. She pointed to a young girl with dark hair braided into pigtails standing in front of the ocean. The young girl was beautiful; her eyes were full of magic and excitement. Another smile came to her but this time it was found in her eyes. I started to change her fluid bag. "She's beautiful Rosalie, was that little girl you?" I asked calmly. She nodded, "Ya, she was, she was me." Rosalie had had a stroke a few months ago damaging the tissue in her brain on the left side and leaving her incapable of communicating. She began to talk again. This time it was slower and less pronounced. "We beached…we beaching…we..." Tears formed in her glazed over eyes as she tried to form the words that were playing in her mind. " I…sorry." I heard her whisper before she sat still lost in the phantoms of her past. Gingerly I laid my hand over hers, feeling the soft touch of her wrinkled hand. "It's okay, well get you back to your normal speech pattern. Right now try to form the words in your head and we'll talk when I come back tomorrow." Her eyes had lost their warmth. They returned back to their lost cold stare. It was as if she didn't exist when I wasn't by her side.
Staring at the blank computer screen, I moved my hands towards the keys, ready to fill out my report for the day when a desperate cry echoed through the hallway. I continued to type waiting for an assistant to help the crying man. Another cry sounded, his words digging deep into my heart. I jumped up from the computer following the lingering plea. He lay on his bed flailing his arms and legs around as if he were drowning desperately trying to claw to the surface. The poorly painted room reeked of urine the elderly man covered with it. I ran to his side and helped him back into his bed. Laughing could be heard from across the hallway. The man lay there lifelessly; his eyes glazed over letting him enter into his haven. "An assistant will be right in to help you." I spoke the words hastily; he wouldn't hear them.
The assistant sat in a broken chair tainted with rust. Her long fingers ran through her dark graying hair a dying cigarette in her hand. "What are you doing? Go over and help the man across the room." A spark of defiance lit in her cold green eyes. "Don't tell me what to do." She waved her cigarette hand trying to dismiss my presence. A wisp of smoke twirled up from the butt wildly dancing towards the plastered ceiling. Anger filled her being, her words laced with a defined hate she got from life. I strode closer to where she sat. "You will go into that room and you will help that man. It is your job." Jumping up from where she sat, she pointed a finger at me. Her sun-wrinkled face scrunched up, "I have to work two jobs to support my three kids. Don't you dare tell me I can't take a break!" I sighed deeply. " Whatever you do in your spare time is your own business but when you're here you are going to take care of these people. I'm going to have to report you if you continue to neglect the patients." A forlorn look played across her face making me feel a pang of regret. The soft buzzing of my watch echoed through out the room, pulling us both back into the flow of life.
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Last updated on Friday, April 18, 2008.
