"Missing" - An Older Adult, Loneliness Poem

"She waited, grasping like a New Year's resolution..."

 Many older adults rarely enjoy visitors they seldom see during most of the year. Whether at home or in institutions, loneliness can be both difficult and dangerous for their overall health. Too many of them endure the negative impact of loneliness daily.

“Missing” is one of sixteen original poems at the end of each chapter in Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes. A hospice volunteer, I wrote it after witnessing the sadness of lonely nursing home residents who were missing the missing. They coped with ongoing loneliness that could easily have been avoided with gifts of time. But some relatives and friends kept putting off visiting them until it was too late. Consider making every effort to visit those who are ill or alone. Don’t sentence them to another year of missing you.

Missing

She waited,
hoping her years of caring
endured in grown-up minds,
rested in distant hearts,
conveyed how much she missed them.

She waited,
living real-time movies
of restless nights, anxious days
with inhaled hopes of fellowship,
exhaled sighs of deep despair.

She waited,
wishing nostalgic winds
flowed through cotton curtains,
brought relatives and friends
she cherished through the years.

She waited,
grasping like a New Year's resolution,
like a second suspended in time
until her clock stopped ticking
for visitors who never came.

© Frances Shani Parker

Frances Shani Parker, Author
Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers.
Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog, Frances Shani Parker's Website

Nursing Home Mealtimes With Dementia

"Food? What food?"

At nursing home mealtimes, I served as a hospice volunteer at several Detroit, Michigan nursing homes for many years. Hospice residents are predicted to have up to six months to live, but may exceed that time. I had contact often with residents who were assigned or not assigned to me. My assigned hospice residents were always my primary concern. Most of them shared rooms with up to three people. 

In the mealtime stories below, I shared a table with six other residents. Several were living with some form of dementia. Due to limited staff, I knew I would have to supervise, encourage, and generally keep an eye on everybody at the table. A Detroit, Michigan public school principal, I was used to multi-task management and didn’t mind assisting them weekly after school at all. These stories from my book Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes describe typical mealtime experiences with residents living with dementia:

I continued talking to Naomi, my assigned hospice patient, and assisting her while monitoring others at the table. I noticed that Petra had not touched any of her food. Petra was not a very independent eater, but I knew she was physically capable of feeding herself by any means necessary.

“Petra, your food is just sitting there getting cold. You have a whole tray of delicious things to eat. You should eat some and see how good it is. You’re a good eater. Eat your food.”

“Food? What food? I don’t have none.”

“The food on this tray is all for you, Petra. This is your food tray right in front of you. Watch me point to each item. You have coffee, juice, milk, mashed potatoes, fish, broccoli, bread, and fruit. That’s your name spelled P-e-t-r-a.”

“That’s not my name. My name is Petra. That’s somebody else’s name. That’s not my name. I know my name.”

“Well, that is still your food on the tray. You should eat before it gets cold. Go ahead and eat. Give it a try.”

“Eat? Eat what?”

“Your food, Petra, your fish, potatoes, and everything else.”

“Fish? What fish? I don’t have none. Do you see a fish here? I don’t see a fish. I don’t have none.” 

From previous experience, I knew that Petra and I could go on roaming forever around this same circle. Fortunately, she was sitting next to me. I gave her a taste of the fish first because I knew she liked it. Then I placed her fork in her hand and started her off eating. I did this in steps by steering her hand and giving her directions on putting food into her mouth, chewing, and swallowing. Residents with dementia often needed tasks broken into simple steps. Usually, she ate for a while by herself, even with her hands, once I started her off. But without any help getting started, she would sit and look at the food she said was not there. My other hand continued to assist Naomi, the resident assigned to me. My eyes monitored everybody at the table.

“Don’t do that! Leave my food alone! Get your nasty hands off my plate! Help! Can somebody help me?” screamed a resident at our table as if she were under attack. All the nurse aides were occupied feeding residents at other tables and experiencing their own mealtime problems. As the  unofficial table captain, I told Roscoe sternly to leave Charlena’s food alone. He gave me a confused look, pretended he didn’t know what I was talking about, but betrayed himself with a silly grin he thought I didn’t see. I leaned across the table and directed his attention to his own plate by putting his spoon in his food. He picked up his spoon and started eating again. Then I reassured Charlena that everything was okay, and she could finish eating. Charlena smiled with an air of triumph. Roscoe was in trouble, and she enjoyed knowing she helped to get him there.

Rita had been watching me help Naomi and Petra eat. Imitating me, she was attempting to feed George, but with her own used utensils. George had his mouth open obligingly to help. I interceded before any damage was done. By this time, several residents had spilled food on the table or the floor and had food stains on their bibs. Petra had to be restarted twice to eat the food she insisted she had never received. I had stood to lean across the table twice to settle other table disputes involving food and different residents.

Naomi ate quietly during all the interruptions. I had been giving her ongoing praise on how well she was doing. I also praised others at the table when they did well. They savored the attention, and Naomi wasn’t the least bit jealous. She had already told them that I was her guest and even offered me food which I declined. I had not gone there to eat and could not think about eating if I had. 

When one resident was praised, another would often say, “Look at me! I’m eating, too!” This reminded me of students at my PK-eighth grade school. They said the same thing when someone else was praised. I laughed, thinking the world was a universal classroom. Maybe the stars in the sky were created to be placed on foreheads of people around the world when they did something praiseworthy.

© Frances Shani Parker, Author, Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers. Visit Frances Shani Parker's Website.

Are You Asking People to Tell You Your Name?

                                                                                                                             

Seriously, if you do this, please stop asking people living with dementia to tell you your name when you greet them. Don't start the conversation with a test they might fail along with your hurt feelings when they do fail. Just say your name and who you are. If they decide to give you another name, that may be okay, too. Don't say that person has been dead ten years, and you told them that 925 times. Don't say that dead people are never coming to visit them again, so quit asking about them or you will take them to the cemetery to see their graves as proof.

Can we all just get along and lighten up? As a hospice volunteer over 20 years mostly in Detroit nursing homes, I have learned there is no one way of handling dementia issues. A lot depends on the level of the disease a person has and their reality. Personally, I have enjoyed impersonating other people sometimes. For example, I have pretended to be a male hospice patient's deceased wife. When I entered his room the first time, he grinned widely, called me Judy, and said how glad he was to see me. Instinctively, I decided to try being Judy, even though I knew from the brief information I had been given about him that Judy, his deceased wife, had been dead several years.

From that day until he died, I entered his reality world as Judy whenever he decided that was who I was. Although neither one of us sang too well, we loved crooning old Motown songs when we reminisced about our dates at Belle Isle Park when we were married. Passing ships, seasonal surroundings, and our general joy were back-in-the-day scenarios we revisited. I often let him take the lead with his descriptive memories that were enlightening, amusing, and welcoming to me. I felt like I was right where I belonged being Judy. I knew we were making progress on some level.

When each visit ended, we BOTH had created more wonderful memories of our special time together at the nursing home. We could recall later with pleasure our experiences featuring a union of minds that made perfect sense to us. And I knew that I could always go back to being Frances Shani Parker in my own reality world any time.

Frances Shani Parker, an eldercare consultant and retired school principal, is author of Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes. This book is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers. Visit Frances Shani Parker's website.                                                                   

Hospice Book Reviewer Faces Death Fears

For some people, death is a terminally ill taboo that should be feared. They avoid talking, hearing, writing, or even reading about the end of life. A hospice volunteer for 20 years, an author, and eldercare consultant, I have been told on several occasions that death is just too depressing and final to welcome on any level. 

This reluctance to examine mortality visited a friendship of mine. I had given her a copy of my book BecomingDead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes. After reading the book with a mixture of curiosity and hesitance, she shared this book review with me. I’ll call her Alice. She approved my writing this post.

Because Alice works in a hospital, I was somewhat surprised to discover that she felt strongly that death, a scary stalker of her dreams, is her enemy. She explained that death has stolen too many of her loved ones, including pets. She worries about losing even more. My own positive acceptance of death, which comes across clearly in my conversations and writings, seems too accepting of her persistent adversary. While she says she would consider hospice care for herself in the future, she admits being a hospice volunteer caregiving terminally ill patients would be frightening.

What is her feedback regarding Becoming Dead Right, my non-fiction book? She cares deeply about the residents’ interesting stories and my interactions with various people in the nursing home world. My original poetry, which concludes each chapter, also pleases her. She finds the discussions on hospice, nursing homes, caregiving, dementia, death, and bereavement very informative. She appreciates that, while the book is appealing on a universal level, it includes the often-missing voices of urban dwellers, including people of color. She finds the intergenerational school-nursing home partnerships through service-learning uplifting. The ideal nursing home described in the last chapter is particularly impressive. Basically, she loves the book, but not the premise that there is a “right” way to die.

I am glad that this book meeting with her dreaded death demon impacts her so positively. Those of us who embrace the topic of death will continue to be viewed with dismay by people who cope with mortality through avoidance and resignation of themselves and loved ones as victims of death’s imagined malicious powers. Alice’s death revelations  remind us of the significance of promoting death as a natural part of life that should be experienced with dignity by everyone. 

Death conversations that we initiate can enhance lives of fearful naysayers one person at a time. These efforts empower them slowly with death acceptance even as they resist the message. I value Alice’s frankness in sharing death’s distressful presence in her life and in giving me positive feedback on my book. Most of all, I commend her willingness to become a ball of courage rolling into the high weeds of her life where the death demon lives. 

You can read more reviews and excerpts from Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes at my website: http://www.francesshaniparker.com/     

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers.
Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog

Caregiver-Patient Joy (Dementia-Music Poem)

When caregivers approach patient care with win-win expectations, they can be surprised by them at any time. Meaningful conversations and feelings drift into a now/here place that are not forced, but still joyous and explosive moments. Many times the experiences are subtle, quiet with a settled satisfaction that brings whispered gifts of personal knowing about life lessons that strengthen the bond between caregiver and patient. One reason some people assume caregiving is always depressing is that caregivers don’t share their joyful caregiving moments enough with people who are unaware of powerful scenarios that occasionally occur between caregivers and patients.

I recall a few of the very special moments I have known as a bedside hospice volunteer caregiver in Detroit nursing homes. This poem describes one of my favorite caregiving moments. I had a very challenging patient whose name was Katherine. She usually lay in bed sleeping or looking up at the ceiling. I couldn’t tell if she was bored, unhappy, mellow, or all three. Rarely speaking, she never sat up on her own or walked. We mostly stared at each other while I talked. But I kept trying to think of ways to climb over the walls that separated us. That was my challenge as her volunteer.

Knowing that Katherine had been active in her Baptist church in the South at one time, I decided to use my CD player (old days) with headphones to help her enjoy music sung by Mahalia Jackson, whom many hail as the greatest gospel singer ever. After reading this poem, you’ll understand why it’s one of my favorite caregiver-patient joys and why I still smile every time I read it. If you have a special caregiver-patient moment of joy, share it so others can smile with you.

                          Sounds of Ecstasy

Headphones frame your head.

You look at me, your volunteer,

wonder what they can be.

Mahalia Jackson’s song erupts,

“When the saints go marching in...”

Sleepy eyes widen like popped corn.

“It’s a CD player,” I say.

Your mental video rewinds

through time from the nursing home

to an Alabama church service

where bodies rock to music.

I join you clapping with the choir.

Your stiffened hands move

with a powerful energy that rises

like a resurrected hot flash.

“It’s wonderful,” you whisper.

Mahalia responds singing,

“Walk all over God’s heaven...”

I picture you joking with Death

when it’s your time to holy dance

to the Other Side of Through.

Mesmerized by the music,

you soak in every song.

A CD player exhilarates you

with sounds of ecstasy.

Such an easy thing for me

to bring, but before I leave,

you say you love me twice.

                  © Frances Shani Parker from Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes (an original poem after each   chapter)

Frances Shani Parker, Author
Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers.
Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog

Nurse Staff Shortage (Video 3:27)

The context of patient care has everything to do with patients’ quality of life. Staff shortages play a major role in that context of care. Whether at home or in institutions, that context includes policy makers, staff, equipment, race, and location. That context also includes me, and that’s why I advocate for patients.

In my book Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes, I refer to the ongoing healthcare staff shortages I experienced in my role as a hospice volunteer in urban nursing homes: “Sometimes a shortage in staff had harmful consequences for residents. This included being left in unchanged beds, not being fully clean, and not being assisted when help was required for eating. Some residents tried to feed themselves using their hands when they couldn’t see their eating utensils. Residents waiting for help sometimes stared at their food while it turned cold. Those with depression or dementia often had little interest in food. They needed someone to motivate them throughout the meal.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US nursing field will have more than one million vacancies by 2022. Healthcare providers in various healthcare environments nowadays are looking ahead to an increased need for nurses as the population ages. But it's not just new nurses that are needed. Seasoned nurses will be in short supply as well and in high demand. Even though the nationwide nursing shortage is increasing, schools across the country are turning away qualified applicants due to a shortage in nurse educators to teach nurses. This video shares more information:

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers.

Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog

Hospice Book Review by Reader Scared of Death

The reading audience of hospice and other books about death includes many who approach this subject with fear. They also avoid talking, writing or reading about the end of life. An author, eldercare consultant and hospice volunteer, I have been told on numerous occasions that dying is just too depressing and final to share openly.

This reluctance to deal with mortality visited a friendship of mine. I had given a casual friend a copy of my book Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes. Wanting to be sensitive and not knowing her feelings about death, I decided not to talk to her about the book unless she mentioned it. Eventually, she did. I’ll call her Alice. She approved my writing this blog post.

Because Alice works in the healthcare profession, I was surprised to discover that she feels strongly that death, a frightening stalker of her dreams, is an enemy that terrifies her. She shared that death has stolen too many of her loved ones, including pets. She helplessly dreads the thought of losing even more. My own acceptance of death, which comes across clearly in my conversations and writings, seems inappropriate to her. She finds my views too accepting of her adversary, too casual a regard for life. While she says she would consider hospice care along with other options in the future, she admits she could never be even an average hospice volunteer. It would be too painful.

What is her review of Becoming Dead Right? She loves the patients’ stories and my comments about interactions with various people in the nursing home world. The original poetry, which concludes each chapter and probably nudges her own poetic abilities, pleases her. She finds the discussions on hospice, nursing homes, caregiving, dementia, death and bereavement informative. The explanations about intergenerational school-nursing home partnerships and the ideal nursing home described in the last chapter are particularly enjoyable. But she dislikes emphatically the premise that there is a “right” way to die.

I am not sure if her hostility toward death has changed much, but I hope that this book meeting with what she refers to as “the monster” has impacted her positively on some level. Those of us who embrace the reality of dying and death will continue to be viewed with dismay by those who cope with mortality through avoidance and resignation of themselves and loved ones as victims of malicious end-of-life  powers.

Alice’s revelations reinforce the importance of promoting dying as a natural part of life that should be experienced with calm and dignity by everyone. I believe conversations and writings enhance lives of the naysayers one person at a time. These efforts empower them slowly with death acceptance even as they resist the message. I appreciate Alice’s frankness in sharing death’s distressful presence in her life and in giving feedback on my book. Most of all, I commend her willingness to become a ball of courage rolling into the high weeds where the death monster lives.

You can read book endorsements, excerpts, and more at my website.

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback and e-book editions in America and other countries at online and offline booksellers.

Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog

After Death To-Do List: Can You Add to This Checklist?

A sun has set. Someone has come face to face with the Other Side of Through.

This checklist includes tasks to do immediately after death:

1. Some airlines have bereavement or compassion fares available for family members traveling for an imminent or actual death. These fares are discounted off the full price, but may not be the lowest fares available.

2. If possible, the exact time of death should be recorded. Loved ones may want to spend time with the deceased. Institutions where deceased persons lived will have procedures to follow regarding death.

3. Family  members, hospice staff, and possibly others such as a spiritual advisor and a mortuary for funeral arrangements, should be notified.

4. Several certified copies of death certificates will be needed to collect insurance and other death benefits. These copies can be obtained from mortuaries, vital statistics offices, county health departments, and online at county and state Web sites. Wills, trusts, birth, marriage and divorce certificates should be available. Social security cards, veteran papers, an obituary, and other documentation will be needed.

5. Family members may want to notify newspapers about publishing death notices and obituaries announcing the time and place of funeral or memorial services.

6. Arrangements with an online memorial service, often affiliated with newspapers, can ensure that those who do not attend funeral or memorial services in person will have the opportunity to participate online.

7. Contact should be made with insurance companies, unions, fraternal organizations, government offices, banks, credit unions, credit card companies, and real estate agencies to change titles if necessary.

8. Employee benefits from all previous employers should be investigated.

9. Arrangements for child care and out-of-town guests must be considered.

10. In the midst of all this activity, family members and friends should also consider their own feelings about death and the person who has died. The occasion that they may have been expecting while the loved one was ill has finally come. A life has been lived.

Information above is from Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes.

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback at many booksellers and in e-book form at Amazon and Barnes and Noble booksellers.

Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog

Hospice Book Review Haunted by Death Monster

Don’t be afraid to read this. Death in American society is still a terminally ill taboo in great need of palliative-hospice care. Too many people avoid talking, hearing, writing, or even reading about the end of life. As an author and consultant on hospice and eldercare, I have been told on several occasions that the topic is just too depressing and final. If you’re a hospice worker, you may have noticed that people often think we’re a little strange because we choose to work with people who are dying.

This reluctance to deal with mortality visited a friendship of mine. I had given a casual friend a copy of my book Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes. Wanting to be sensitive  and not knowing her feelings about death, I decided not to talk to her about the book unless she brought it up. Eventually, she did. I’ll call her Alice. She approved my writing this post.

Because Alice works in the healthcare profession, I was somewhat surprised to discover that she feels strongly that death, a frightening stalker of her dreams, is her enemy. She shared that death has stolen too many of her loved ones, including pets. She helplessly dreads the thought of losing even more. My own acceptance of death, which comes across clearly in my conversations and writings, seems inappropriate to her. She finds my views too accepting of her enemy, too casual a regard for life. While she says she would consider hospice care along with other options in the future, she admits she could never be even an average hospice volunteer. It would be too painful.

What is her feedback regarding Becoming Dead Right? She loves the patients’ stories and my comments about interacting with various people in the nursing home world. The original poetry, which concludes each chapter and probably nudges her own poetic abilities, pleases her. She finds the discussions on hospice, nursing homes, caregiving, dementia, death, and bereavement informative. The explanations about intergenerational school-nursing home partnerships and the ideal nursing home described in the last chapter are particularly enjoyable. But she dislikes emphatically the premise that there is a “right” way to die.

I am not sure if her hostility toward death has changed much, but I hope that this book meeting with what she refers to as “the monster” has impacted her positively on some level. Those of us who embrace the topic of death will continue to be viewed with dismay by those who manage mortality through avoidance and resignation of themselves and loved ones as victims of death’s malicious powers.

Alice’s revelations reinforce the importance of promoting death as a natural part of life that should be experienced with dignity by everyone. I believe conversations and writings enhance lives of the naysayers one person at a time. These efforts empower them slowly with death acceptance even as they resist the message. I appreciate Alice’s frankness in sharing death’s distressful presence in her life and in giving feedback on my book. Most of all, I commend her willingness to become a ball of courage rolling into the high weeds where the death monster lives.

You can read book endorsements, excerpts, and more at my website.

Frances Shani Parker, Author

Becoming Dead Right: A Hospice Volunteer in Urban Nursing Homes is available in paperback at many booksellers and in e-book form at Amazon and Barnes and Noble booksellers.

Hospice and Nursing Homes Blog