Postscript: The Girls From Table 5

The Girls From Table 5

I hated the table from the start.

Any other dining room arrangement would have been more appropriate to satisfy Mother’s needs as well as my own. She had been assigned to the smallest of tables in a corner of the dining room seemingly away from any semblance of friendly interaction and conversation. I immediately spied another table of women who genuinely appeared to enjoy each other’s company and quickly recommended the change. But it was not to be.

Mom was stuck in her place at the proverbial children’s table with a couple of cantankerous looking old women. I was not hopeful.

Thankfully, time and experience teaches most of us that initial impressions rarely ring true; the girls from Table 5 would eventually win our hearts.

There was Lola, the pill-hoarding, wardrobe/manners Nazi, whose idea of discretion was to hold a cupped hand to her mouth while offering unsolicited and not-so-quiet pronouncements of guilt at any wardrobe offense or lapse in decorum. She was clearly an old curmudgeon poorly disguised as a sweet old lady.

Then there was Murel – NOT Muriel. My first thought was that she was the picture perfect embodiment of what advancing age would have done to the innocence of Cindy Lou Who from the Grinch. While Seuss’ Cindy may have preferred Who Ham or Roast Beast, Murel’s favorite meal would surely have consisted of a tub of margarine.

Today, I write of Ms. Delia, who came to GVM in October of 2008 and subsequently joined the troika – rounding out a foursome at Table 5.

I freely admit to immediately falling for this feisty, breathlessly frog-throated woman. She was the perfect counter balance to Mother’s shyness among strangers, Murel’s sparkling lunacy, and Lola’s demand for order in an otherwise chaotic environment.

A product of the Depression, Delia, nonetheless, doggedly pursued a college degree in education from Wayne State University going on to teach “everything” within the walls of a Nebraskan one-room school house. In the years that followed, her marriage, coupled with the demands of her husband's ever-changing career, had the family move through various incarnations in Nebraska, Texas, Louisiana, and, finally, Roosterville.

While they never knowingly met, this also happened to be the same untouched farmland hamlet into which my Mother and Stepfather eventually settled.

It is a small world.

When Delia arrived at GVM, she was full of energy and took every opportunity to engage in vibrant conversation and a good game of Skip Bo with her daughter and a friend. She also didn’t shy from handing me a good measure of well-deserved grief on occasion.

I am not personally inclined to treat these elderly residents with kid gloves; I feel that to do otherwise is to deprive them of the intellectual respect they are due. With time and the development of trust, I zeroed in on some of the buttons which pushed each of the ladies in sundry pleasant directions; they genuinely seemed to revel in the good natured (and well intended) give and take.

Often the prodding would have Lola loudly labeling me a “smartass” all the while assuring me that she loves me. And ever incandescent Murel certainly could do no wrong blowing kisses my way, supporting a fragile male ego by further asserting that I am a “very handsome man.”

And, there was Delia. She rarely dropped a beat, almost never missing the opportunity to give as “good as she got.”

Over the past year, we have all been fortunate to share in her joy as a beloved granddaughter married and subsequently wasted very little time providing Delia with her second great-grandchild, Kane. While I was never certain if the couple had moved to Wyoming, South Dakota, or Kansas, the specifics really didn’t matter. She beamed with pride at the telling of every twist and turn.

She clearly loved her family. I distinctly remember the moment she proudly uttered the declaration that her family “was the most important thing I have ever done.”

Delia’s family and friends began the process of mourning today; she passed away late last night following a devastating stroke.

While extremely sad, I am also compelled to smile and inwardly laugh at the thought of Delia and the great joy and laughter she brought to the lives of those around her.

Over the past year, a persistent source of consternation for Delia came at the hands of a less than agreeable roommate at GVM. Her daughter assured me that Delia never had so difficult a relationship with another person in her life. Delia desperately wanted nothing more than for her “problem” to disappear.

As it turns out, Delia finally got her wish.

Just a few days ago, the roommate was moved to another room after breaking her hip and leg.

The immediate question that came to my mind – and out of my mouth – was, “Did Delia do it?”

Absent Delia’s death, Table 5 was already no longer what it used to be. Wheelchair bound, Mom no longer takes meals in the dining room instead preferring to eat early within her room; Murel has become a veritable vagabond happily flaunting the “rules,” eating margarine while making the rounds at other tables; and, well, Lola remains – the single hold out who continues to fight the good fight.

I didn’t know these three remarkable women before they came to the nursing home; there is a part of me that does like to imagine the full width and breadth of the lives each of them enjoyed before time and circumstances brought them together at that smallest of tables.

There was no getting around it. I absolutely never wanted to like anything about the nursing home, that stupid table, and the old women who occupied space at Mother’s side during meals. But each of these women eventually managed to worm their way into our collective hearts without really trying. We are all the better for it. I personally never would have predicted that such an unruly admixture of personalities and experiences could have melded into such a perfect union of souls.

Whomever they were, or wherever life took these women prior to their arrival at the nursing home was never a part of our shared experience. With time, all of us simply came to love the women who were living in the here and now – the girls from Table 5. Without reservation, the only place to be!

In the next few days or even weeks, family and friends will gather at Stroud’s in a celebration of your life, Delia; they will pass the chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans – and, yes, even the bottle – around the only table that truly mattered in your life. The table of your making.

It is said that a person is never completely gone so long as one person remembers her name.

Your family and friends will not allow Kane to forget you, Delia.

I will cherish the memories of my friend from Table 5.