Ella
Originally published in Portland Magazine
Winter 2004
Listening to the end of life.
Ella is ninety-five years old, by far the oldest resident at The Pines. She is blind, frail, incontinent, arthritic and talks a blue streak. I know very little about her, only that she used to work as a clerk back in the days when there were such things as Dry Goods stores, that her husband died long ago, that she has a son nearing retirement age and that her favorite song is “The Old Rugged Cross.” Oh yes, she loves barber shop quartets. I know this not because Ella tells me – she is beyond being able to communicate such facts – but because her chart, filled out by her son, says so. It’s not clear that Ella has Alzheimer’s – she may suffer from another kind of dementia — but it is clear that her mind is as fragile as her eighty-eight-pound body.
I make the rounds of the west corridor, where Ella lives, sitting for a while with Janet and Dorothy as they watch a John Wayne movie and fold and refold someone else’s laundry, listening to Dan scat-sing as he gets his toenails cut, watching Bob and Carrie nod off, their fingers entwined. Ella is seldom out here in the spacious common area where the others spend most of their days. She would have to be wheeled out by one of the staff, and the caregivers don’t see much point to it. Ella has little interest in others. She has, in fact, very little awareness that there are others. And her incessant talk unsettles the residents. So I go to visit Ella in her room.