The Lady Across the Street: Part IV

This story is something that I've wanted to tell for a long time. It's true. It's about a very random person during a very random part of my life, who had a huge impact on me, without doing anything huge at all. (Part I can be found here.)

There weren't many days now that I didn't see Mrs. Sands. I was usually in charge of taking dinner to her. I would go to write down a list of the groceries she needed. I would help her call customer service people to complain about utility outages. I changed the paper and replaced the cuttle bone in her parakeet's cages. I helped weed her flowers and water her lawn.

But I got so much more out of our visits than I even realized at the time.

Inevitably during our visits, I would find a new treasure that would inspire a new story. I'd listen to the voice of a woman who'd actually lived history.

I remember the time I was searching for a fork and found a book of ration stamps and some black-out candles from WWII. Mrs. Sands had lived in the same house during the war, and remembered the practice air raids. She made real for me the terror that Americans experienced after Pearl Harbor...wondering if their town would be attacked next.

For a girl who'd always believed that war happened far away from my home, it was an eye opening experience.

Then there was the time that she helped me move the old fashioned ice box away from the wall to show me how it operated. The ice-man would deliver a giant block of ice that was placed in the back of the wooden cabinet. I expressed shock that a block of ice could keep food from spoiling. Mrs. Sands laughed and assured me that her milk had always been cold.

And then all of the sudden, Mrs. Sands began to forget things. Little things at first...She'd forget to pay her water bill. When my mother would go to visit, she would be sure that all of her pipes had broken, even with the past due notice in plain site on the table. Slowly her flowers began to die, despite mine and my families' attempts to take care of them. Then there was the day that Mrs. Sands acted as though she didn't know me. She refused to open the door, telling me harshly to leave her alone.

Still sometimes things were normal.

I remember sitting on her front porch step, tracing my finger along words that had been drawn into wet concrete.

Jim Loves Lana

"My husband was a romantic" she had laughed. "He drew that the day we moved in."

Then her eyes were far away and her voice was silent, remembering moments that were too private to share.

Meanwhile my parents were frantic to find help for her. My mother worked tirelessly to get local and state services for our good friend. And she was trying to find her family.

Although Mrs. Sands was childless, she spoke often of her nieces, and my mom was set on contacting them to let them know just how much their sweet aunt was deteriorating.

The day Mrs. Sands locked herself out of the house in 100 degree weather was not a good day. She spent the day fretting at our house while my father found a way to get into her house with minimal damage.

The entire time I sat talking with her. The entire time she called me by the name of one of her nieces that she hadn't seen in more than a decade. Tears welled in my eyes every few minutes.

My mom had taken me aside and explained Alzheimer's and age-related dementia.
But explanations aside...it was difficult to understand and accept.

I'd never thought much about what a gift the ability to think was. I had never expressed gratitude for being able to speak. I had never once thought about what it would be like to have the entire world go dark...even if only for brief moments. To do things that I couldn't later remember.

I felt helpless to stop what was happening. A beautiful, intelligent, and amazing woman sat before me. For her entire life, she'd been a pioneer, helping to settle and found communities. And yet it seemed like the community, the people, the entire world had forgotten about her. And now she was forgetting us.

And then my mother got a phone call from Oregon. Mrs. Sands' nieces were coming. Help was on the way.

In Part V, Mrs. Sands receives help...but not in the way I'd imagined. And I'm forced to watch her lose much of the life she'd built up.

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