An Empty Space at the Table

When my Mother resided in a senior care facility, I sometimes saw things I didn't want to see. These things fell into different categories, but they all had something in common. They showed a side of life one does not see unless they are in a senior care facility. Most of what I didn't want to see were things that made me feel sad for someone.

When Mom resided on the lower floors of the facility and could carry on coherent conversations, my visits were more "normal" with light conversation, walks, meeting others, and eating together.

It was when my Mother started to display more overt signs of dementia that we were counseled to move her to the third floor memory unit. All those who lived in the facility discussed the third floor in hushed tones and became anxious at the thought of being relegated to living there. It was just one of those things that signaled that you were no longer able to care for yourself in the way you would like and that you were going to be with others who acted in ways you may not like.

My Mother cried when she had to move to the third floor and yet, as the facility was very right in suggesting, it was for her own dignity to be in a place where others did not look at her in an odd way or make her feel out of place when she exhibited clear signs of her dementia. The problem was, the third floor ran the gamut of behaviors. In a perfect world, there may have been three separate divisions within the third floor to separate out more severe behaviors from those with mild memory impairments.

I visited my Mother often enough to get to know each occupant by name and became enthralled by the interactions that took place. I tried very hard to keep emotions of all kinds in check as I would quickly weary if I didn't.

There were times, being a writer, that I would pull out my notebook and pen to make notes on something I found poignant or humorous. My Mother was quick to ask what I was doing. She clearly stated that she did not want me to, in any way, diminish the people around her. Regardless of the behaviors my Mother witnessed that were unlike her own, she was quick to defend the third floor occupants. And, she was quick to defend me if anything took place that might compromise me.

So it is with the greatest respect that I relate a story of Sarah who, was, in her eighties, still very proud of her scholastic achievements in middle school. She wore a beautiful ring with a large red garnet that, she told me, was her gift for achieving some type of excellence in school. (I must admit, I would have worked much harder in school had jewelry been on the table as a reward!)

Sarah sat at the same table as my Mother at most meals, and so, I spoke with her on occasion. By all accounts, she seemed to belong on the lower floors as her ability to communicate was, in my estimation, without reproach. She was very quiet, spoke softly, and sometimes asked if I had seen her parents, which was par for the questions I was asked regularly by those on the third floor.

It was only when someone began to sit in the empty place at her table that Sarah became loud and assertive, quickly telling anyone who attempted to sit that the place was saved and to move on. Most times this was met with astonishment at the severity of the reproach, but no one attempted to sit after such an encounter. I asked Sarah who the place was saved for and she responded that it was for her husband, a man who, I knew, had died many years before.

And so, the place at the table would remain empty during the meal. Sarah never acted as though someone was actually sitting there; she did not carry on conversations, she just sat next to an empty space. Occasionally, she told me I could sit there if I wished to join them for a meal. I started to think that Sarah was just picky about who joined them at the table and this was her ploy to pick her dining mates, but no, I believe that, in all the morass of a daily life where one feels devoid of those dear ones who know their accomplishments, personality, and talents, that this was her one hold out - she was never going to succumb to a life without her husband and her parents - those who loved her most in the world. And she would never take off that red ring, an obvious reminder of a young girl who knew a thing or two.