The Best Buddhist Writing 2010 - Melvin McLeod [9]
“But if I sleep over there,” I said, pointing to the couch on the other side of the room, “I won’t hear him if he wakes.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be here,” she said.
She pulled a blanket and pillow from a second bed in the alcove and placed them on the floor between the recliner where Jim slept and the door. She had been doing this since the previous week when Jim began wandering. He would often wake and try to walk quietly down the stairs. Irma couldn’t watch him and take care of the other residents by herself. That’s why people had volunteered to stay with him throughout the night—every night until he died.
“Sleep, sleep,” Irma said to me. I didn’t need any encouragement. She lay on the floor and I crunched sideways on the couch with a blanket pulled up to my head. I almost immediately fell asleep.
“I need your help,” Irma said in a whisper, as she gently tapped my shoulder. I looked at the clock. It had been less than an hour. “I’m sorry, but he’s had an accident.”
Although I was groggy, I knew what she meant. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the gloves. Across the room I saw Jim.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, standing next to the recliner. “Goddamn it. Look what I did,” he said, staring at his soiled jeans.
Earlier in the evening I wondered how I would react to cleaning another person, especially someone contagious. Worse, would it be a preview of my future? Looking at Jim apologizing over and again, my fears and the odor that filled the room both disappeared. In their place, I saw someone devastated by probably one of the most embarrassing things an adult can do in the presence of other people.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Look what I did,” he repeated.
“It’s all right Jim,” I said.
Irma and I helped him to the bed, where it would be easier to clean him. He stopped apologizing as she told him where to move his legs and what we would be doing. Irma directed each of my movements like a choreographer preparing a child for his first dance recital. When I hesitated, she would gently take my hands and place them where she wanted them.
It took almost thirty minutes to clean him, change his clothes, and replace the bed linens. When we began, my hands moved hesitantly, almost as if my fears pulled them back. But when I stopped trying to analyze everything and just let my concern for him lead me, a flowing rhythm developed. I didn’t have to wonder if I was rubbing him too roughly or too lightly. It was as if I were transported back to when I changed my children’s diapers, and my hands instinctively knew what to do.
Finally done, I slept on the couch until six, when Jim woke. He asked to go back to the recliner, and I gently led him there. He turned his body so he could look out the window on the other side of the room. It was a typical gray San Francisco morning.
“It’s going to be a good day,” he said, then fell back to sleep.
Evan came to the House at 8:00 AM even though his shift didn’t start until late afternoon. He stood outside Jim’s room and motioned to me. We walked down the hall so Jim wouldn’t hear us.
“I asked the house manager about Jim’s daughter,” he whispered.
“Can we contact her?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why not? He wants to see her.”
“She said she died five years ago.”
“But we talked about a daughter in Illinois. Are you sure there isn’t another one?”
“No. That was Jim’s only child. She’s buried there. The family blames him for his daughter’s death. Nobody here knows how it happened, and the family didn’t want to talk about it.”
At 9:00 AM, after spending eighteen hours at the Guest House, I left to go home. The street seemed cleaner, the sky bluer, and I was becoming less afraid of my emotions. I confronted my fears of contagion