Today I went to visit my 99-year-9-month-old Aunt Hazel She is really my great-aunt, but long ago, she asked me not to call her that because she thought it made her sound old.
Until recently, Hazel lived alone, puttering around her adorable house in the heart of the city, going to her weekly hair appointment and doing her errands via Care Links, the elderly transportation system. Her amazing sense of humor was intact and she was always up for an adventure. She was sharp as a tack and read the paper each morning and kept the latest book by her bedside.
All of that changed about four weeks ago when she slipped and fell, fracturing a vertebrae. Her tiny little body didn't have sufficient padding and the fall proved to be very troublesome. She went into the hospital and from there into a rehabilitation facility, which is where I visited her today. The uncharted atmosphere was uncomfortable for us both.
Hazel and I have always tried to make the most of our time together. We would go shopping or out to lunch, where over a glass or two of wine, we would catch up on the events in our lives or share secrets. One of our favorite things to do was to celebrate birthdays or holidays with another couple of our our old friends. More often than not, the four of us would part ways with out sides hurting and watery eyes from laughing so much.....usually at ourselves!
Most people who saw Hazel and I out together assumed we were mother and daughter, and we never told them differently. But really, we were more like good friends than anything else.
Today, was a different sort of visit. We tried to do the best we could as we sat in uncomfortable straight-back hospital style chairs in the small room that she is sharing with her bed-ridden roommate. Even though the sparkle in her eyes was gone, her mental facilities were astute as ever as she told me the place was "okay" but all she really wanted was to go back home. She told me about how she spends her days and about the people she meets in group physical therapy and in the cafeteria.
But then she motioned for me to lean in closer as she told me about her nighttime visitors. Her deceased mother and daughter had both paid her individual visits this week. She said her mother had come two nights ago, knew about Hazel's fall and was taking care of her, just as she had done when Hazel was a young girl.
I had a million questions to ask her about these visits. Her recollection of their time together was as vivid as if they had left just before I arrived. She said they are both happy and doing fine, but that she was very sad when she woke up and had to leave them.
I felt guilty when it came my time to leave her too. She looked so small and frail and lonely sitting there in that unfamiliar room. I had to walk out that door, but it broke my heart to do so.
I thought about her the remainder of the afternoon, but I couldn't figure out what it all meant. I do know that to a certain degree, our reality is what we make it. A very close and dear friend I have known since childhood told me recently that she has put herself in a "happy place" in order to deal with the chaos around her. She is a very intelligent, wise and well respected woman whose opinion I depend on and value greatly. And I think she had found the secret to making this thing called "life" work.
So, somehow, someway, my almost-100-year old aunt has found a way to go to her "happy place" in her present, rather unhappy environment, through her visits from her mother and her daughter.
And I thank them from the bottom of my heart for taking this journey with her.
