LOVE

Stories from the Staff

II

Having been asked by various groups what items could be bought for the unit, and all staff involved in thinking of things the residents might enjoy, I had talked with them at length about state regulations requiring that items used with the elderly residents must be "age-appropriate". This meant that, for example, although the resident may enjoy moving and stacking blocks, it would not be appropriate to use ones that were obviously meant for infants. This was the prevailing concern when buying or requesting numerous things we would use during activities with the residents on the unit.

One resident was admitted with a baby doll. The family explained that, once having lost track of him while at home, they found him in his granddaughter's room, talking to a baby doll that was sitting on the little girl's bed. They had then bought him a doll of his own and he carried it, talked to it, and loved on it most of the time.

Once on the unit, we found that several of the residents would pick the doll up and carry it around, rocking it, patting the doll's back and feet, and asking us at various times, "Isn't she sweet ?" etc.

A stout resident, once a state policeman, was a resident on the unit and quickly became a favorite of many staff members. He smiled when spoken to, and established eye contact, but rarely spoke. His wife, when she noted his attraction to the doll, began to pick them up at yard sales. She would wash them, find clothes for them, and even embroidered a red heart with "I love you" in the center, and bring them to the unit. One day he held a doll, staring and smiling at it. She sat next to him, making comments about his "baby". This particular doll had the eyes that opened when the doll was upright, and closed when the doll was placed on its back. He sat with the doll on his lap, rocking it forward and back, which made its eyes open and close repeatedly. He looked at us and said, "She needs to go to the doctor. Her eyes are going about a hundred miles an hour!"

One resident would take the dolls to his room at the end of the hall and line them up on his bed and windowsill and dresser top. Another would hide dolls behind the couch and chair cushions in the lounge area. One particularly endearing resident would hold the baby, patting her feet and on her back. He would croon to her, "There's a sweet baby" and "She's a mighty sweet girl". One day he held her up, facing him, and said repeatedly, "Oh, you're a sugar baby, Oh, you're a sugar baby." Suddenly he changed his chant, in the same sweet sing-song voice, to "Oh, you done [messed] on yourself" which was made even funnier because of the beautiful smile on his face when he said it.

I once made the comment to his daughter how much he loved rocking and holding the baby, and that he must have been a wonderful father. She stated, after hesitation, "No, that's the sad thing. He never had time for us and hardly spent any time with us at all." She added that she had four siblings and that she was the only one that had anything to do with him, stating that her siblings had not visited him in years and never even asked about him.

All of this was a lesson to me that I should not assume or presume what the residents would enjoy, but should follow their lead, watching to see what appeals to them and what they seem to like.