Connections...

You can't live in a small town, for as long as I have, without having things intertwine. Things that don't seem related.....are. People who seem to be related.....aren't. That's just how it is in Podunk.

Recently, I had the opportunity to go to an “Open House” down the street from my home. My daughter-in-law invited me to join her and look at the famous house on the corner just two blocks from my house.

I remember it as a drab, brown farmhouse but that was many years ago. More recently, the owner of a cleaning company bought it and renovated it. No longer drab and brown, it became a brick beauty with Gothic and Victorian features.

Sitting on a huge lot, with a gargantuan oak tree dominating the yard, it is quite a sight to see. For years, the owner allowed groups from the local high schools to take yearbook pictures in front of the giant tree. Frequently, coming and going from my own home, I would see brides and grooms and wedding parties being photographed under the tree, too.

And then, he died. The house was put up for sale by his estate and purchased by a couple of entrepreneurs. Apparently, they looked at the house and had an “aha” moment: they planned to open a business in the house. A photography business. They would charge people to use the property and to be photographed under the great oak tree.

They ended up in bankruptcy as local people stayed away in droves. Everyone remembered the kindly man who allowed use of his property—for free-- and no one seemed interested in paying the new owners for the same privilege.

Until the recent tour of the house, I had only been in it one other time, as a teenager. The then-owners needed a babysitter and their regular one was busy. Another neighbor recommended me. I just sat with their children that one time. I really don't remember anything about the house except that it was a nondescript older home with lots of little rooms.

Talking to the realtor at the open house, I learned the name of the original owners. I had forgotten, after only sitting for them the one time. But I knew the name very well. And I knew why I remembered it.

As a young nurse, working the night shift at the local hospital, I had taken care of a memorable patient. She was on our nursing unit for more than two months. It was unusual to have a patient for that long, but she was too ill to go to a nursing home. And we didn't want her to leave, either.

She had become our special patient, bravely battling cancer. A mere ninety pounds or so, and barely five feet tall, she was iron-willed. A force to be reckoned with. Oh, she was as kind as she could be to the staff and her family, but the cancer that was killing her was the enemy. She was not going to go without a fight. Or, before she was ready.

Her daughter was engaged to be married in the spring. The wedding plans had been made. Despite her illness and weakness, she was determined to attend the wedding. Dress fittings, shoe shopping, and hair styling became nursing functions, occurring between chemotherapy, wound care, and rest.

On the day of the wedding, she was strong enough to be released from the hospital long enough to attend the ceremony. She was accompanied by our Nurse Manager and the Charge Nurse. The three of them posed for pictures in their wedding finery before leaving for the ceremony.

Coming in to work that evening, I was one of those who got to see all the Polaroid pictures that were taken. The patient was exhausted from the day's activities and went to sleep with a smile on her face. Although her physician had okayed the plan, we were still relieved that she had been able to do it.

And less than a week later, she died on my shift. I remember calling her husband and telling him. He came in and looked at her and left quickly, without speaking. And I spent the next several hours cleaning her room. I stripped the bedsheets and washed the mattress and the bed frame. I mopped the floor and cleaned the bathroom.

The housekeeper came up to the floor and told me that she would finish cleaning the room. I told her that I needed to do it myself....

Somehow, in all those years, I had not put that patient and that house together. As I think back about it now, I remember so much about that time early in my nursing career. She was not the first of my patients to die, and certainly not the last. But somehow, for some reason, I needed the closure of cleaning her room.

And now, I understand why....