My thoughts, Your thoughts

This time I didn’t see as many people in the hallways, especially in the rehabilitation area. Most of them were inside their rooms, some with families. I almost felt home but two minutes of my day left me uncomfortable again. As I headed to the director’s office, a senior woman seating in a wheel chair called me out and pulled my hand. People around looked at me and away. She stared at me for ten endless seconds, her eyes deep in mine. She, then, pulled her vest and asked me to touch it. I didn’t move. She asked if I could buy that piece of cloth for her. I wanted to leave, but she was still holding me. She stared again, moving her mouth and not pronouncing a word. She let go of my hand. I told her I’d be back.

Although it happened fast it was very uncomfortable. I could say I was afraid at first. Afraid of what, I don’t know. What could she do me? Nothing. But, it wasn’t a good experience.

In the TV room I found a man listening to the radio, the music predominantly Hispanic. Victoriano Arrill, 82, lives in HHC for six months. He suffered an accident six years ago while helping family members to move. A piece of furniture fell cutting his leg and caused him to contract tetanus. He was unconscious for six months. Since then he has lived in a nursing home in West Kendall, one he can’t remember the name. The facility closed down and he was transferred to the HHC.

Arrill is from Puerto Rico. He came to the United States at an adult age but can’t remember exactly when. He didn’t like to work or go to school. He didn’t get married and didn’t have children. His brothers and sisters visit him more than once a week. He doesn’t complain about living in the nursing home. “It’s a miracle I’m alive. I thank God and ask for health to continue on,” Arrill said.

Across the room I see an apparent happy lady. Her eyes were fixed on the television set and she smiled. Margarita Bardez, 90, is known as Margot. I approach her and ask if we can talk. She tells me yes and says she doesn’t have a husband. “I buried him already. He was good man, that’s why he was taken away from me. If he was bad, a drunken man, I’m sure he would still be here with me,” said Bardez. Her husband died after twenty years of marriage. She lived in Cuba in the time. After the incident, she moved to Venezuela, where she had family. She worked for Venevision TV as a stylist for the artists. It lasted two years. She moved to Miami because one of her nieces was pregnant and needed help. “I raised many of my nieces and nephews but they don’t know me anymore,” said Bardez.

She complains about being lonely. Her husband died and they never had children. Some of her siblings are also dead. And from the nieces and nephews she took care of, they don’t visit her. “I’m sure if I had money and something to give them, they’d be here, but since I don’t…” said Bardez.

She was taken to HHC a month ago because of low blood sugar. She was in intensive care for four days. She doesn’t like being there. Bardez is the type who loves to talk. She says she talks to roaches and mosquitoes if she has too. Her room partner is deaf, so Bardez is bored in the room. “I wake up, go to therapy and then I come to this room for the rest of the day. I can’t be closed in my room, on my bed for the whole day,” Bardez said. When she was taken to HHC, she didn’t have extra clothes and shoes. Nobody from the family took anything, although she tried to contact them. All she got was from the HHC nurses. “Nobody visits me, I fell really lonely,” Bardez said.

Bardez looks around at some of her colleagues. “If I ever get like one of them, I’d rather die,” she said. In her young years, Bardez loved to go out to dance and drink. She knows all of the Cuban restaurants and clubs. She was never easy to deal with. In another nursing home that she lived, she escaped intensive care. With the help of a friend, she forged a doctor’s signature and left the place through the front door. In May 2006 she tried suicide after another crisis of hypoglycemia. “The crises drive me crazy,” said Bardez. “I’ve had opportunities to die, if I’m alive is because God wants me to.”

I have to admit she touched me somehow, especially when she told me nobody visited her. I imaged how sad it must be to feel so lonely. I felt like crying.

Bingo starts and the room is total silence. All eyes stare at the numbers in front of them. When somebody yells “BINGO”, they all cheer.

I leave them to their past-time and walk to the reception. The receptionist is Bianca Andulan, 21, nursing student at Miami-Dade College and a Baptist Hospital scholar. Although she works in a nursing home, she wants to be a pediatric nurse. She works at HHC for a little over a year. She doesn’t remember any complaints about the place itself or the staff; on the contrary, visitors usually praise the facility and its cleanliness.

Andulan is from the Philippines. The official language is Philippino but there are over 90 dialects spoken all over the country. She said she was somewhat shocked to see a nursing home at first because there aren’t any in her country. “In our culture, we have a lot of respect for the elderly. We take care of them in our own homes,” she said. The trend is cultural and not religious since 80 percent are Roman Catholic. When the elderly needs a doctor or a nurse, the family calls one to the home.

She misses her homeland and wants to go back but only to visit. She says there are many Philippines scattered around in Miami.

I was surprised to know she was Philippine. It was the first one I met in eight years living in Miami.

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Then, I went outside where residents usually sit. There was only one woman accompanied by a nurse. The activities director said the woman is never by herself but doesn’t know why. I approached her and asked if we could talk. She said she was afraid of not having interesting things to tell me. I said it didn’t matter. Something in her pulled me to stay. She didn’t look directly at my face and answered short and dry. Her name is Portia Bender, 62 years old. She tells me she doesn’t live at HHC; she’s there because she doesn’t feel too good. “This is not my home. I own this place though,” she said.

From the moment she said those words, I knew I was dealing with somebody different from the others.

She doesn’t know what her problem is; only that she is not feeling well. And the only reason why she wants to be under special care is because of her son. She lives to see her son succeed in life. He doesn’t visit her much, and she would like to see him more often.

Portia Bender used to be a model in her early twenties. Her career lasted until she was about 35 years old. Most of her work was in New York, although she did some things in Miami. She misses the fun and glamorous life she had back then. Also, the friendships she made. “The only thing I didn’t like was changing clothes 30 times a day,” she said. She did both pictures and run-way, but liked pictures more.

Although she likes HHC, she would prefer to be somewhere else. “I wanted to be in the beach, cruising, swimming, golfing…anything fun,” she said.

I tried asking some of the staff why was she there. Contrary to Muñoz, Bender’s health is noticeably not normal. However, nobody told me what her problem was, alleging it was private information.

From what she said, I don’t know how much is true. I searched her name on the web, trying to see her model pictures but it turned out unsuccessful. She obviously does not own HHC. Rumors I heard is that she was involved with drugs. Nothing is official.

From that, I talked to a young volunteer. It was Anisley Garcia’s first day as a volunteer at HHC. She’s there because she needs ten hours of service for her degree. “But, I’ll continue after the ten hours. They feel lonely, I want to help them,” she says. She feels that the elderly need more assistance than children. That’s why she chose a nursing home. “I found HHC in the internet. I came today and I love it. It’s clean, the resident’s look happy and the staff is very nice. I’ll stick to this one,” she said.

Garcia moved to Miami from Cuba three years ago, leaving her entire family behind. Her husband just finished a master’s degree in engineering from FIU. She is enrolled in the Honors College of Miami-Dade. The couple doesn’t have children. “We want to study first,” she said.

Garcia thinks about the future. “I live for tomorrow, for my husband, for my future children, for the hope of bringing my parents here and always keep my family together,” she said.

Garcia sees her stay as volunteer as a way that will help her treat other people better. “Also, I’ll get old and I don’t want to be lonely. That’s why places like this are important. I’ll do my best to help these people. And I know they have a lot to teach me,” she said.

The residents do have lots to teach other generations. This time I spent more time talking to some interesting people. I left the place thinking of what I had seen and what I had heard. Ms. Baxter has an amputated leg and can’t take care of herself. Still, she loves herself and has a strong personality to say what she likes and doesn’t, what she’ll do and don’t. She’s happy and talkative, even not speaking the predominant language in the facility. This woman has all the reasons to feel lonely and sad. Nevertheless, she doesn’t! And so I ask, who am I to feel sad and lonely?

Then, there’s the 89-year-old who had a brain stroke. Just from seeing her and talking to her, one cannot tell she has or ever had any health problem. She has a boyfriend, wants to work and get married. Although she is in the end of her life, she wants to enjoy as best as she wants, doing what she likes and being around people she loves. And so I question why I sometimes feel tired and unwilling to continue?

These people have health problems or they don’t have families and friends to share their lives. Their houses, which is now the nursing home, looks and smells like hospital. The food is hospital-like. Some will live there to the end of their days.

Still, they all want to live.

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In my second visit to the Harmony Health Center I was able to talk more freely to some residents. However, I still left frustrated for not being able to talk to authorities of the place. The nursing home is privately owned, for profit organization and not linked to a chain. The last time I went, I was told that some of the residents don’t have family. So, who pays for their stay? Most of the staff didn’t want to talk, and others didn’t know.

Away from this frustration I looked for the two residents who I spoke to in my first visit. Miguel Angel Luis was taking a nap after his lunch. And Maria Conceicion Gonzalez was not in the facility because she participates in day care, which runs from Monday through Friday. I went on a Saturday. Due to the same reason, the activities director was a different person. This director let me walk freely in the halls and approach more people.

Walking around the facility made me sick. The further inside halls look exactly like a hospital. They smell exactly like a hospital. Some elders sit in wheel chairs outside their room

with pale skin, deep black eyes and a sad looks. I asked Jessica, the activities director, if I could speak to any of them. She said that it would be impossible for most of them have mental problems.

She took me to the same TV room as last time. She introduced me to Dorthy Baxter and left me alone. Dorthy Baxter was the first black resident I saw at HHC, a predominantly Hispanic nursing home. We were interrupted by a nurse telling Baxter that Bingo was cancelled and asking if she wanted to stay at Willie’s birthday party. Baxter said, “Birthday party? I thought it was yesterday and I had missed it. I hate birthday parties. I want to leave.” Baxter doesn’t like the social events in HHC, not because of the events themselves but because of the food they serve. According to her, the cake and pastries are nasty and if she says “No, thank you” to an offer, people look at her weird. She prefers to avoid the situation as a whole. But she admits to love bingo and win gifts like shampoo and perfume.

Ms. Baxter lives at HHC since 2002. Her family took her to a nursing home because they don’t have time to take care of her in the house. She has an amputated leg, heart problems and needs kidney analyses. She can’t take care of herself. “I don’t like being here, but my physical state won’t let me be anywhere else,” she says. Her family visits her and takes her the food she likes and clean clothes. “I don’t like the food here. They might be good for us but I don’t eat it,” she says. Baxter says residents are usually served veggies, rice and mash potatoes, but they are not made the way she cooks and therefore, she’ll only eat what she feels like eating. Although the family visits, it is not very often. “I’m not a baby. I don’t need them to be here all the time. I know how to make a phone call if I need. I’m not a baby,” she said.

Baxter was born in Savannah, Georgia, where she went to school. Her parents moved to Miami in 1955. Her brother and she didn’t want to move in the beginning but ended up in Miami in 1956. She is 76 years old. She has eight sisters and one brother, no children and no husband.

“I love me. I don’t do anything for looks or to please others. I only do what I want, and that’s why I want to continue to live,” she said.

We were approached by a healthy looking woman who looked 70 years old. She was smiling and speaking in Spanish to Baxter. “She’s my friend,” said Baxter. “She speaks Spanish, I speak English and somehow we manage to understand each other.”

Josefina Muñoz, a Cuban native, is actually 89 years-old. She lives at HHC due to a brain stroke. She fell from a ladder while painting her house. She lost consciousness and “awoke from her dream” in the nursing home. “Believe me or not, I dreamed that I was in this exact place. When I woke up, I was here,” she said.

Muñoz says she likes HHC but she rather be home working. “I need to work, I need money. I love to sewn and I can’t do that here. I sewn for a living and without money I can’t have anything. I need to go back home,” she said.

She has a daughter, a son and three grandchildren who visit her every week.

Muñoz found a boyfriend in HHC. She wants to leave HHC, get an apartment, marry her boyfriend and live with him. But she says that her kids don’t want her to have a boyfriend. They say her boyfriend is in heaven, referring to the dead husband.

“Josefina, he’s not your boyfriend. He’s a dirty old man. Your daughter says no, remember? Josefina does not have a boyfriend!” said Baxter to Muñoz, who stared at her and laughed.

A nurse took Josefina to have her checked. Baxter talked about her.

According to Baxter, Muñoz loves to talk. When they go to counsel meetings, Muñoz picks up the microphone and talks for hours. Baxter also admires Muñoz vanity, calling her “so cute” especially when she puts make-up on. If she doesn’t have blush, she’ll use lipstick as such. Also, that she gets very excited when University if Miami students show up to do their nails.

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