Eyes On The Sparrows

By Ava Gordon

Hear no evil. Speak no evil. See no evil. Exposing elder abuse evils in a fictional nursing home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483543406

Book preview

Author

1

A PERFEKT PLACE OPEN HOUSE

All the world’s a stage and all the men and women are merely players.

—William Shakespeare.

Mrs. E SRUN WAS IN HER ELEMENT . S HE WAS THE DIRECTOR OF nurses at A Perfekt Place Nursing Home in Ryeslip Manor, near Springfield, Missouri. This was her fifth annual open house presentation always held in mid-July, two weeks after July 4. Her stage was set. She spoke from behind a podium on a makeshift stage in the facilities dining room to a packed house and a receptive audience. Her script was extolling the virtues of A Perfekt Place and why the audience should bring their loved or unloved relatives; seniors recuperating from surgeries; illnesses; waiting placements or needing a retirement home should come to A Perfekt Place.

Welcome families, guests and residents to A Perfekt Place nursing home’s annual open house. My name is Mrs. Esrun and I’m the director of nurses. Unfortunately, Mr. Aim, the administrator could not be here to welcome you. However, he sends his greetings to you and if you need to contact him for any reason at all, he is at your service. A Perfekt Place lives up to its name by delivering quality professional care and service to all of our residents, who keep on keeping on.

Her audience smiled. Some staff members standing at the back of the dining room tittered at the same old joke she said year after year.

Our beautiful facility has two annexes: Annex A for our more active seniors, Annex B for our seniors who need more specialized care and service. All information is in your welcome packages. We will have questions and answers at the end of the tour. Before we start the tour and, of course, lunch, I am proud to present our Employee of the Year award to our most outstanding and caring staff member who exemplifies our commitment to deliver professional healthcare services and promote safety and longevity of care to our most valued seniors, who think, act and know that age is nothing but a number.

Again, some staff members tittered, nudged each other or rolled their eyes to the ceiling at another tired same old joke routine.

All of our staff members are caring and compassionate and they all deserve the recognition for all the work that they do, continued Mrs. Esrun. This year an outstanding staff member has been nominated by their peers. They exemplify the true caring and compassionate nature of our home away from home facility. In recognition of their supreme efforts to make A Perfekt Place a better place, I will be presenting to our Employee of The Year free coffee for a year at their favorite coffee shop, a designated Employee of The Year parking space, plus, drum roll please…a free weekend all-expense paid trip for two to Las Vegas!"

The audience clapped and cheered.

And now our nominees are…

As Mrs. Esrun continued her award winning enrollment performance in the downstairs dining room, two residents upstairs in Annex B, room 101A, we’re quietly sitting on their beds listening to Mahalia Jackson’s beautiful, sonorous voice singing, His Eye Is On The Sparrow.

Mrs. Cordelia in Annex B, room 101A, bed A, was a seventy-three-year-old African American woman diagnosed with asthma, diabetes and congestive heart failure. She was wearing a pink fluffy boa over her blue flower print hospital gown. She was sitting on the bed, humming and singing with Mahalia, on an old, black cassette player, slowly taking bobby pins out of her hair and placing them in a Christmas candy tin. Her bedspread was cluttered with chocolate wrappers, empty potato chip bags and empty brown pill bottles. Mrs. Karmer was sitting on bed B looking out the window at the courtyard, gardens and orchard at the back of the facility.

Suddenly, Mrs. Cordelia called out to Mrs. Karmer:

This is for you, and handed her the CD player.

The four hands, two black, two white, veins protruding and gnarled in wisdom and age, quietly held the cassette player together, both humming to the end of the song. Mrs. Cordelia let go the cassette player, applied her makeup from a bright, pink floral plastic bag in her bedside drawer, picked out her curls, straightened her wig and huffing and puffing, got her large frame into bed. She covered herself with the bedcover, laid on her right side and went to sleep.

Florence, the nurse’s aide, was walking the Annex B hallway, opening doors and calling out to residents to attend the open house. She opened Mrs. Cordelia’s bedroom door and spoke to Mrs. Cordelia.

My! Don’t we look pretty! We don’t want to be late for our special lunch do we? She gently shook her.

Come on now. Time to get up sleepyhead, she gently shook her again. There was no response from Mrs. Cordelia.

Florence walked over to the other side of the bed, put her hands on Mrs. Cordelia’s shoulders and firmly then vigorously shook her.

Are you okay? she asked. She bent down to look at Mrs. Cordelia. Florence opened Mrs. Cordelia’s eyelids and checked her carotid pulse. No pulse. No respirations. Florence knew that she was dead.

Florence was about to open her mouth to yell for help, when her sharp, magpie eyes were attracted to a shiny light glimmering on Mrs. Cordelia’s left ring finger. It was a beautiful vintage ring set, a one-carat solitaire diamond platinum wedding band, plus, two diamond encrusted baguette eternity rings given to her by her husband forty-five years ago, his symbolic promise to love her until death do us part. Through lean times and hard times, Mrs. Cordelia never parted with her rings, even though there had been plenty of pawn opportunities. Mrs. Cordelia refused to allow her rings to be locked up in A Perfekt Place safe deposit box believing that they would be conveniently lost or stolen. Florence bent over and picked up Mrs. Cordelia’s left hand as if she was going to give her