Desert Destination

Making my way along a carpeted hallway, I admired the bucolic prints of warm-hearted country scenes adorning the walls between suites. Moving at a brisk pace so as not to be late, I nodded my head in greeting to the residents sitting in wheelchairs alongside their rooms. They couldn’t see the smile behind my mask. Near the hallway’s end, I spotted room 2107 and paused at the door to her suite. This journey would become routine, but today was the first to this desert destination (refer backstory: https://carolinmparadis.com/2024/03/28/desert-guilt/).

Desert Delight

I had been suitability impressed when entering the main building at Humber Heights retirement home, part of which had once housed privileged school children. Twenty minutes of processing, through strict COVID protocols, had allowed time for a thorough examination of the foyer. High ceilings leant an airy feeling to a spacious common area. The expanse included a grand piano mid-hallway and behind a bright dining room. Mid-day light streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a cultivated interior courtyard. Too early for spring flowers, but the winterized garden beds suggested cultivation and great promise in the month to come. The appetizing smell of a concluded lunch hour enhanced my impression of the residence. It was not what I had expected.

Nor expected were the half-dozen people crowding Pam’s room. From the hallway, I peeked for a few minutes as the staff welcomed Pam to her new home. She was smiling. Delighted as they bantered, laughed and peppered her with questions. Although it was unlikely she could hear half of what they were saying while speaking through COVID masking. Still, I marveled at the warmth in their welcome. From her response, it was clear she felt it, too.

Desert Diagnosis

I could hardly fathom the change in Pam from a month ago when I had last seen her carted away by emergency medical services (EMS). Then, first-responders had lifted her slight body with face scowling and legs kicking onto a stretcher to remove her by ambulance from my aged mother’s house. The hospital later reported a severe urinary tract infection. In older adults, this infection can lead to delusions and paranoia. Before Pam’s discharge from the Montreal rehabilitation hospital and later move to Toronto, it became clear the Montreal staff had missed this simple diagnosis. It was beyond understanding; likely her Toronto hospitalization had been avoidable. And until I heard the diagnosis, so too, avoidable, the terrible guilt I had harboured at the dramatic medical intervention and the stress that led to its decision. Pam had not been able to help herself. It was me who had called EMS.

Terrorizing my mother’s home with her aggressive, paranoid, and delusional behaviour was not an expected or welcome outcome of Pam’s visit to her friend. EMS involved the police, who invoked the Mental Health Act to get her the medical attention she needed but could not decide for herself.

Afraid she would wander, at first the hospital posted a guard at Pam’s room door. Treatment lasted a month before her infection and psychosis subsided to allow a transfer to Humber Heights’ retirement residence. Her new home in Toronto.

Desert Dawn

Now, from the hallway watching the scene unfolding before me in Pam’s retirement suite, her transformation seemed like a desert dawn on Easter morning. Her person resurrected; reborn and filled with light. Relief flowed through my body, releasing a barely acknowledged tightness carried in my chest over the last month. With my heart unlocked and delighted at how happy she looked, I smiled broadly, stepped over the threshold, and into the warmth of that joy-filled room.

Desert Design

It had been a long Lenten journey with my aged friend, Pam, seeming to mirror Jesus’ forty-day walk through the desert.  

For many years leading up to our Montreal intervention, whether by phone (difficult because of her poor hearing) or by letter, I had sporadically said or written to Pam: “If you need my help, and I am able, I will help. If I can’t, I will tell you.”

But I did not know the breadth and scope such a burden of care might entail when I was called upon to fulfill my promise, especially for someone not related to me by blood and particularly as Pam’s health and circumstances changed.  

Through a series of events that led to a friend’s physical and mental incapacity, God narrates a cautionary tale. Perhaps his desert design? A story to share but with a challenge to explore and exam an important life consideration. A worthy Lenten exercise. Although incapacity happened to an aged retired nurse, calamity doesn’t discriminate by age. What happens when we cannot speak or do for ourselves the everyday necessaries? Who do we trust to advocate for our needs and take care of our daily affairs?

My desert journey with Pam reinforced my conviction. The importance of power of attorney representation was the desert destination. To assure someone we trust, who cares for us, can care for us when we can’t.

I was called to trust in God’s provisions when a landscape turned barren and unforgiving. Lost and not knowing what to do next, my desperate pleas went heavenwards. Help and guidance came, strengthening my dependence on and faith in that unknown, unseen presence that quietly percolates in my spiritual DNA.

Thus, laying the groundwork for the next three years: a whole other story.