Lost December (24 page)

“Sorry that took so long,” he said. “Mrs. Mather had a lot on her mind today.”

“No problem,” Carlos said, “we just finished lunch. Luke, this is Dr. Kuo. He’s our resident physician.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“Likewise,” he said, shaking my hand. “Carlos told me that you got mugged last night.”

“Yeah. I think they broke some ribs.”

“Let’s go see.”

I followed the doctor to his office halfway down the east hallway. Once we were inside, he shut the door and said, “Take off your shirt, please.”

I took it off, folding it over the back of a chair. My body had dark, purple bruises all over.

“They left a few marks,” he said. “Any place hurt in particular?”

“Mostly the right side.”

He gently ran his fingers up my ribs. “Are you having any trouble breathing?”

“No. But it hurts when I cough.”

He placed his stethoscope on my back. “What we worry about is a punctured lung. Try to take a deep breath, if you can.”

I breathed in slowly.

He moved the stethoscope to my other side, listened, then removed it. “Your lungs sound fine. You probably just bruised your ribs. It will take a few weeks to heal, but you’ll be okay. You can get dressed.”

I put my shirt back on.

“Are you on any medications?”

“No.”

“Allergic to anything?”

“Not that I know of.”

He wrote out a prescription. “They can fill this here. Just
ask one of the nurses. I’ve prescribed Tylenol Three with codeine. You probably can get by with just regular Tylenol during the day, but this will help at night.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. If the pain gets worse or you have trouble breathing, I’m always on call.”

“Thank you,” I said again. It felt good to say it. It felt good to feel truly grateful. I had learned a great truth: Joy isn’t the natural response to blessings—joy is what comes from acknowledging them.

Helping others carries its own rewards—the first of which
is a return to humanity
.

Luke Crisp’s Diary

I went back to Carlos’s office, filled out my job application and tax forms, then reported to Sylvia for work.

“What did Carlos tell you about the job?” she asked.

“Not much. He said I’d mostly be helping with the meals.”

“Exacto,” she said. “Tammy told me you met Harold.”

I nodded. “The Hun.”

Sylvia frowned. “I don’t like that they call him that. He’s not a bad guy. He has pancreatitis so he’s always in pain. Pain will make anyone cranky.”

“I didn’t mean to be offensive,” I said.

“I think what’s even more painful to him is that his son doesn’t visit him. He only lives a couple miles from here. I just don’t know how these people neglect their parents. You’ll see it at Christmas. You’ll see some of these residents sitting around waiting for family who will never come. Whatever happened to honor thy father and mother?”

I didn’t say anything but felt a pang of guilt.

“Anyway, Harold’s in our wing, so you’ll be helping him. He usually just stays in his room.”

“They can choose to do that?”

“Yes, they can do what they want. They’re adults. This is a residents’ rights facility. We honor the residents’ wishes. So, here’s the dealio. We have fifty-four beds, with an average seventy percent occupancy rate.”

“About thirty-eight residents,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, “So you’re good with math. We actually have forty-one right now. You and I have the west wing with twenty-two residents. Our meal times are seven-fifteen to eight-fifteen, lunch is twelve-fifteen to one-fifteen and dinner is five-fifteen to six-fifteen. Usually about ten of our residents eat in their rooms, the rest we bring out to the dining room.

“Most of the residents have special dietary needs. The kitchen has their meal orders. I’ll show you how it works.”

I followed her to the dining room, then back into the kitchen, where three women in hairnets were busy preparing the evening’s meal. Once inside the kitchen, Sylvia lifted a slip of paper from the metal food preparation counter. “The kitchen manager prints off a ticket for each resident and gives it to the kitchen, and they prepare the meals according to this slip.

“After you’ve brought the residents to the dining room, you deliver the meals to those who stay in their rooms. It’s important that you compare the meal to this slip to make sure they match.” She handed me the piece of paper. The slip had the resident’s name, room and bed number.

“You’ll notice this sheet says where the meal is to be served.” She pointed to a place on the slip that read
DININGROOMTBL9
. “That means that this resident eats in the dining room at table nine. This right here says what kind of beverage they can have.”

“What’s this Diet Cons?”

“Diet consistency. Some of the residents can’t chew normal food so we have regular, soft mechanical and pureed. Say they had ham for lunch—regular would be the way you or I would have it, soft mechanical means it would be ground up or cut up in tiny bite-sized pieces. Pureed means …”

“Mush,” I said.

“Exactly. Like baby food.”

“What’s this RCS?”

“Restricted concentrated sugar,” Sylvia said. “It means she’s diabetic.”

“What time do we begin?”

“We start taking residents into the dining room on the hour. The state requires that residents may not be brought in more than a half hour early. I guess in the old days, some facilities would park the residents in front of their tables a couple hours before their meals. Cruel, but it saved money on staff.

“So, after you’ve helped the residents to the dining room, you’ll deliver meals to those who stay in their rooms.

“Then you come back to the dining room and assist me in feeding the residents or whatever. After they’ve eaten and we’ve taken everyone back to their rooms, you pick up the plates in the rooms and take them to the kitchen.”

“You were doing this all yourself?” I asked.

“And watching medications, bathing and dressing the residents and a thousand other things.”

“You’re amazing,” I said. “What do I do if someone doesn’t want what’s on the menu?”

“The residents can choose something different if they want. They can have a chef salad, soup and sandwich, or a fruit plate. We have one resident, Mr. Bills in 16, who eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every night. I’ve even picked up a meal for residents at the In-N-Out Burger.”

We walked back to the nurses’ station. “Is it true you’re living here at the facility?” she asked.

“Room 11,” I said.

“That’s different,” she said, then added, “At least I don’t have to worry about you showing up for work.”

I helped Sylvia with a myriad of errands until a few minutes before five, when I started wheeling residents into the dining room. The process was slower than I thought it would be, and I realized that the profession required an immense amount of patience. It was a different world from the copy industry, where everything was measured in speed and deadlines.

I delivered the meals to the rooms, including Harold’s, who had either forgotten that he didn’t like me or had changed his mind about me. I asked him why he didn’t eat his meal in the dining room. He replied, “I’m not eating with all those old people. It grosses me out.”

Several of the residents were very interested in me and thanked me profusely for my help. One said to me, “You’re very kind. Your mother did a good job with you.”

“My father did,” I said.

At 10
P.M
. I said goodnight to Sylvia and clocked out. I got myself a soda and a piece of apple pie from the kitchen and took it to my room and lay back on my bed. I felt remarkably grateful. More than that, I felt like myself again.
How strange
, I thought. I wasn’t just happier than I had been on the streets—I think I was happier than I was in Europe.

The truest indication of gratitude
is to return what you’re grateful for
.

Luke Crisp’s Diary

A few days later Carlos called me to his office. As I walked in, he asked, “Did they teach you anything about marketing at Wharton?”

“Yes,” I said. “And I used to handle the marketing for twelve of my father’s stores. I’m actually pretty good at it.”