I recently started
working as a counselor at the Community Based Adult Services (CBAS)
center, located in Los Angeles, and close to Compton. The majority
of the residents within the neighborhood are African Americans, and
95% of all the participants at our medical center come from the same
population. Considering that this is a low income neighborhood, many
participants are living in low income housing or board and care, with
few participants remaining homeless. All of our participants are in a
day care program, which means they come in at 9am, receive food and
medical services, and leave around 2pm.
This personal reflection
is about one Caucasian participant named Grace, who was suffering
from the late stages of dementia. She was bound to a wheelchair and
had a very unique temperament. She was usually unhappy about being at
the center and was aggressive with staff and peers around her. She
would often get in altercations and quite often throw things around
her, such as her plate of food or the crayons that she sometimes used
for her drawing adventures. She would get so mad that her cuss words
were coming out of her mouth along with white foam and spit. People
that were sitting close to her knew that Grace can easily get angry
and tried to stay away from her. No one could help Grace to calm down
when she gets upset. The other participants found this amusing and
laughed at her, made jokes in front of her, and complained to THE
staff if her outbursts personally affected them.
Two weeks ago, when
Grace began to act in same way, she aggressively pushed her table
around and turned it 90 degrees to make a barricade between her and
other peers. When the nursing assistants tried to put the table back
so that they could serve breakfast, Grace yelled at them and threw a
tantrum. I was watching the whole thing because she was just 15 feet
away from my office. Grace managed to rip the multicolor flower
designed tablecloth down to the floor. All twenty tables are
decorated with the same table cloth. I came out of my office to pick
up the cloth and as I placed it on the table I accidentally turned it
inside out. We discovered that the other side OF the tablecloth was A
shiny white color. Grace seemed to like the white side, and began to
fix the tablecloth so that it was perfectly aligned on all four
sides. She stroked the cloth to fix it, and really made sure it fit
perfectly, leaving no wrinkles. When she finished she sat in peace
for a moment reflecting on what she had done. She turned towards me
and communicated, “I want to go home,” and I reflected back to
her, “I hear you, you want to go home.” She smiled. My sense was
that she felt understood and that felt good to her. We did A few more
exchanges like this, and she started rolling her wheelchair into my
office. She got to the door and rolled half way in and just sat there
watching me type my notes.
The staff was surprised
that Grace was at my office door, and started to make jokes about how
she must be getting counseling. I heard one person say, “Look,
Grace likes Slobodan.” This lasted about 20 minutes, and then she
rolled back to her original place and began to turn over the other
tablecloths to the white side. The Activities director came over and
said out loud in front of Grace, “Look, Grace wants to make all
tablecloths white.” By the end of the day Grace managed to turn
over three of the tablecloths closest to her. As she was rolled out
towards her bus, Grace waived for me to come close to her because she
wanted to say something. She pointed towards my silver ring and
communicated that she would like to see it. I took off my ring and
gave it to her. She admired the ring and made A few gestures showing
me that she liked it a lot. She was smiling and acted like she wanted
to keep it, however she knew that ring was mine. I asked her to
return my ring but she wanted to place it on my hand herself. She
proceeded to place it on my ring finger and I said, “Not there, I
wear it on this finger, not that one.” She looked at me, but would
not have it. She had to place it on my ring finger. As she was placed
it, she had the biggest smile on her face. I have never seen her like
that. Right before she boarded her bus, she turned and pointed to my
finger and sent me an air kiss with her hand. This was on Friday.
As
I went to work on Monday, I was thinking about if she was going to
continue rearranging THE tablecloths, and what will her reaction be
when she sees that my ring was not on my ring finger. I waited, and
waited, but she did not show up. I asked another worker where Grace
was and she said, “Grace died this morning before they were going
to pick her up. She had a smile on her face.” I was surprised that
no one mentioned to me that she died until I had asked around midday!
No one said anything, not even the owner or her peers that sat next
to her! There was no speech or anything else for that matter. It was
so strange to see that other participants did not acknowledge her
passing in any way. I felt sad and was filled with symbolic thoughts
of what had transpired between Grace and I just three days prior. I
thought of the significance of white tablecloths and her fascination
with them. I was pondering what she wanted to portray when she placed
a ring on my ring finger. I was stunned that no one seemed to notice
that she was not around anymore. Two weeks later, I am still
pondering if on some level, Grace knew she was ready to go and that
she wanted to arrange the white cloths for her passing. I feel that
her placing the ring on my ring finger was a way to let me know that
she was longing for unity, a mergence with something good, and
someone who understands her. It is also possible that I helped her to
see that white is welcomed in the midst of multicolor tablecloths,
which possibly provided a necessary impetus for her to leave home
with a smile.
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