Lady Red Bird

A chapter from the book

“Transitions”

By Encore’s Director of Environmental Services

 Robert Milstid

Lady Red Bird

She would call out the words, “Red bird.” She said this time after time again. Miss Hattie was her name. Her old frail body sat in a wheel chair covered in a soft and worn handmade blanket. She wore colorful striped socks but no shoes. Her hair was white and her eyes were light blue.  Her eyes were amazing.  She had the most beautiful and piercing eyes I have ever seen.  Maybe that sounds odd, but they seem to have kept their youth while the rest of her body is frail and aged. I never saw anyone visiting her so I wondered where all the colorful socks came from.  The socks made me wonder if I should stockpile what I want to wear and use when I get super old myself.  This place has made me think of things I never imagined I would think about.

Lady Red Bird would bask in the daylight coming through the skylight windows of our atrium courtyard. That area was her favorite spot to exist.  I say exist because to me her stage of live seemed to be just that, existing.  I would watch her day after day in the atrium.  Her raspy voice would call out the two words, “Red Bird.” She had a face that would go from a serious stare to a smile that would light up a room.  She seemed to keep an eye on me as I walked to and from the hallways, and I smiled at her each time I passed by; she would always return the gesture.  We had a growing unspoken friendship and I enjoyed knowing she wanted me around.  At least I assumed she did.  I was getting that feeling from multiple residents as the weeks passed. They accepted me, and some were under the impression that they had known me my whole life. No harm done there. If it brings them comfort then we all grew up together as far as I’m concerned. I was finding a good amount of comfort these days in my maintenance position.  I’ve settled into a good pace that seems to be keeping my bosses happy.  I do like it here, although the smells and sounds of my environment will still take some getting used to.  I might never get used to it.

Today I found myself more focused on Lady Red Bird; a name I think well suits Miss Hattie.  I keep her nickname to myself so as not to step on the toes of family members and visitors who might not get the connection. I mention family members but I have yet to see any visitors to Lady Red Bird.  She does have some family I would think because of the photos I’ve seen in her room.  In these photos she is young, maybe late twenties or mid-thirties. She seems to be married or at least that is my assumption based on the man that she is seen with in two of the photographs on her bookcase. I believe there is also a sister from the striking resemblance of the other woman in an ornately framed eight by ten photo of two young ladies sitting on her nightstand.  I have looked at her pictures many times while changing a light bulb, unstopping a toilet or during the weekly water temperatures checks in her room.

I admit that I do look at most of the photos in the rooms while I go in to take care of my maintenance responsibilities.  I find them amazing.  All these forgetful men and woman have had full lives and have gone to all the places that people go to.  Many of them have had large and exciting lives.  The bulk of them either came from or had parents that came from the Depression Era.  This time was especially interesting to me; our country was in transition.  People worked extra hard back then just to have food on their plates and shoes on their feet.  World wars were fought and America was full of heroes.  The pictures in the resident’s rooms were of many different sizes and shapes, from foreign countries and cities and varied locations all across America and abroad.  I love the black and white photos the best; I like them because they seem to be from a time when things were a bit slower.  When I was very young we watched TV in black and white. I watched The Three Stooges, Lassie, and Leave it to Beaver. The dials of my TV would get me to one of four available channels as opposed to today’s 132 million channel choices.  Time seemed to move at a snail’s pace back then; summer days were long and I would all but wear out the tires of my bicycle from riding it all day.  Pictures follow us through time, giving us all benchmarks to say I was there or I did that.  This is what the photos do for me.

There is something quite grounding in an old picture. It’s the memories that you want to remember; they are the memories that we stole from time.   They can remind us of parents, old friends or even youthful innocence.  As time goes by so fast these days I take comfort in my own photos that Ella and I have out around our house.  I’ve got a great one of my dad years before he went away in front of some mountains in Wyoming smoking a cigarette and holding a can of beer. He was handsome and proud. Pictures are powerful. Most of the rooms would contain pictures of men in military uniforms. Men would get married in uniform more often than not in the era that these residents grew up in. With the wars that we were fighting as a nation, many would get married just before shipping out to their perspective stations or while on leave.  It was good to be witness to the previous lives that our residents had lived. Their physical conditions and mentalities that I have been exposed to during their stay at our community is obviously not the whole story that is their lives.  The strong friendships, vocations, family vacations and countless memories that are known by each resident are frozen in time and on display within the rooms.  It is sad that they have fallen so far in their disease, but at least they were lucky enough to have had good lives and realized dreams early on.  They had the benefit of growing up in the most freedom filled and prosperous country the world has ever known.  They came from a generation that saw their glasses half full for the most part.

Lady Red Bird and her sister must have been very close.  There is one black and white photograph on her dresser that shows them together at the beach.  The two women were smiling at the camera with an excitement gleaming across their faces.  You could see the waves crashing far off in the background; they appeared to be having a great day.  I wondered if Lady Red Bird remembered this day at the beach.  I wondered what she remembered if anything.  I learned in one of my training classes that the people with Alzheimer’s have a process that they go through that is a form of reconciliation; they are aware of what is happening to them on some level even towards the end so they try to tie up loose ends in their subconscious.  I wondered what she was reliving through her periodical proclamations of the words, “Red Bird.”

Maybe Red Bird was a pet Mrs. Hattie once had.  Maybe her husband called her that.  Maybe it has nothing to do with anything that might be rational to the average person; it could represent something completely unrelated to the words in their practical sense.  Whatever it is, it belongs to her and it’s not up to me to take it from her with a guess.   She calls out Red Bird with a spark in her beautiful blue eyes.  That’s something that makes her special; we all need something that makes us special.  I finish bolting up the tank to the toilet base that I’m working on; it will leak no more.  That’s a good thing. Nobody likes a leaky toilet.  A couple of halls down I can hear the soft voice in the atrium calling out …….“Red Bird.”

Transitions is available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle!