This one’s for you, “My little elegant Italian lady”
A
s soon as she was done eating, she got up, put her serviette aside and slowly started walking away from the table. Noemi never stayed still, she was always on the move, I always wondered how many kilometres she managed a day inside the Alzheimer’s ward. She also ate fast, after all her meals are always mashed or mixed, and she has no teeth left either (smile). Noémie never said much. She could not. She is not only in her 80s but I reckon the disease robbed her of her ability to speak too. The reason I noticed her as soon as I started work at the hospital was her elegancy. Noémie may have memory loss, she probably does not remember her name, but she did not suffer from style loss. I later on found out she was of Italian origin, thereby my nickname for her, “My little elegant Italian lady”. Her trademark, has always a chic foulard (scarf) around her neck every day, it always matched her little classy ballerinas. Her colours were always perfectly matched, a little grey here, some yellow, a little light grey and some black. My very own Miss Prime and Proper. This particular day, a few days into the confinement, with my gloves and mask, covered to the nines, I noticed her leave her table, she was on the move again, but she had not cleaned her mouth. “Attendez Noémie, je vais vous nettoyer la bouche. Voilà, vous pourriez aller, vous êtes belle comme un cœur (Noémie wait, let me wipe your mouth clean. Voila, you are a pretty as a heart), I told her. She looked at me, smiled and said “Merci”. My heart flipped. Since January I have seen Noémie, I once fed her when she could not eat, and not once had she smiled or even said a word to me. That was the, a few days into the confinement. Today I worked the Alzheimer’s ward, and when it came to Noémie’s room, they had placed a warning sign on her door, no one was allowed in without the permission of the nurse. She was not to be fed, she could not eat. I stole a look in her room, I was fully protected mask, gloves and all, the order of the day now, Noémie was in bed, a machine her, another there, oxygen; a shadow of her old self, she did not move, she was so pale, jaws hallow, Noémie is has good as moved on into the other realm.
18
www.thevoicenewsmagazine.com
By Elizabeth Kameo She will be the second resident on the Alzheimer’s ward to succumb to Corona virus. I cried, the Carer who was with me looked at me, she probably did not understand why I was crying for a woman I hardly knew, a woman I had only met at the hospital. But to me, Noémie and a few other patients on this ward have found a special corner in my heart. I have come to care for and love them, because after all they are just like you and me, only they are older and cannot remember what day it is, who they are or where they are. I call them Bisousnours (the French version of Care Bears) they are in their own world, some day it is filled with colours, and others, it is dark, grey and troubled. Noémie is the second, who will be the third, another of my favourites? A man? A woman? Will I cry again? Will there be any residents left at the hospital once this is all over? Will this be over? When? How? Shall we shake hand again; kiss again, hug again, live again? Will life get back to normal? When? But in the meantime, this one is for my little elegant Italian lady, NOEMIE!
