TheBanyanTree: Young at Heart

[Kitty Park]

I volunteer at the hospital gift shop on Thursdays and every other Saturday. 
There are three shifts each day and generally
two people work together on each one.

On my Saturday shift I work with a woman who just turned 90.  Nine zero.  We 
figured out yesterday that she's volunteered in the gift shop for about 14 
years.  Julia's daughter is here in town, but Julia lives in a retirement 
home, a beautiful facility where each person/couple has their own small 
apartment.

Our gift shop duties are to replenish the supplies of candy and sell a 
plethora of magazines, gifts and food items.  If a gift is going to a 
patient, we offer to put it in a white gift bag and surround it with 
colorful tissue.  If someone purchases flowers from the shop, we will 
deliver them to patient rooms if asked.

Operating the cash register is not complex.  Although many sales are cash, 
we also accept checks, credit cards and charges against employees' payroll 
checks.  Each sale requires entering the transaction as cash (the default), 
credit (R) or check (H).  Julia is comfortable doing cash sales, but we've 
noticed lately that sometimes she falters when making change, one time 
giving the customer in change, the amount of the sale.  She does not 
understand the process to run charges or checks.  Therefore she can't be 
left alone, since Linda (the woman I alternate Saturdays with) or I must 
complete the transaction.

She can no longer deliver flowers to patients because she tires out.  Her 
light footstep has become a shuffle.  Yesterday she lost her balance twice 
but caught herself before she fell.

Julia asked the other day where the Chapstick would be if we had any.  (It 
was in the same place it's been for the last 10 years.)

Julia rides to the hospital via a curb-to-curb bus service.  On the weeks I 
work, I take her home.  After she has lunch, I ask if I should call to 
cancel the bus scheduled to pick her up.  She always says yes, so I make the 
call and then tell her the ride's been cancelled.  Without fail, she will 
ask a minimum of three times if I called to cancel her ride.  Her short-term 
memory is gone.  And because it is, she doesn't remember that she's asked 
and that I've answered.

We save copies of all non-cash receipts.  Last week while working with 
Linda, Julia had a receipt in her hand and asked where it belonged.  The 
procedure hasn't changed; it still belongs in the blue envelope.

Linda and I have worried over Julia's situation the last several months.  We 
have watched her become frail and more forgetful although still eager to 
work.  We finally talked to the supervisor of the volunteers early last 
week.  When she realized that Julia's safety has become a concern, Mary said 
she would tell Julia it was time to retire.

Julia's last day was Saturday.

When Julia came in, I asked if she was okay and she said, "Well, no!  Why 
did they say I had to retire?  Whose idea was it?"  (Sorry, but I didn't 
raise my hand.)  I replied that it wasn't anyone's idea, but the office 
realized when she turned 90 that it might be time for her to give up her job 
in the gift shop.  They were concerned that she might fall and hurt herself; 
it was a safety concern.

Waiting for her were a floral arrangement and card from the Volunteer Office 
thanking her for her years of service.  Shortly after the shop opened one of 
the cafeteria workers brought in a small cake decorated with the words 
"Thank you Julia" and juice boxes to share with well-wishers who might come 
in.  To those who said they'd miss her, she replied that leaving was not 
*her* idea.  But I'm also confident that they realized that while her heart 
was certainly still game, her body no longer is.

After work last night, Julia's son picked her up at her apartment and took 
her to his family's new cabin in the woods a couple hours east of here. 
Julia will spend the week and their extended family will celebrate 
Thanksgiving together there in the woods.

I wonder what I'll be doing when I'm 90.

Kitty
kpark at sssnet.com
www.parkplaceohio.com