Long Day and Longer Night

I went in to work at 10:30 this morning to work the lunch shift.

Guess who came shuffling through the doors on their walkers to have lunch with us? "The Girls From The Home!" They clucked around in the lobby, wandering off in every direction they could while the hostess got their table set up.

If you are a follower of my blog you may have read about this group in a couple of other blogs I have done.

They live in the Alzheimer's Care Facility in the town where my restaurant is located. They come in several times a year and it is ALWAYS a pleasure and a treat to wait on this cute little group of ladies...one of them even brought along a beau today (I thought maybe he was the male stripper, but it turns out he was just on a lunch date.)

They come in with two care givers that are amazing in their own right. They treat these women with total respect and gracefully administered tact. If a woman forgets what she wants to drink the care givers prod them gently...not pushing them or losing patience, but trying to let them do it for themselves. If they get flustered the care giver simply tells me what to bring them...they seem to know each and every woman very well and I admire the wonderful care they are giving these women ...some who have all but lost their minds to this terrible disease.

Sometimes I will bring back what they ordered to drink and either they have simply forgotten what they ordered or had a quick moment of clarity and remembered that they really like coffee. Some of the women are better off than others... and some are simply toddlers in an eighty year old body. They are all at varying stages in their dementia and some are hopelessly lost in the fog of what used to be a quick and sharp mind.

Some of the women come in dressed impeccably, some look like they had to be dragged into their clothes. At least they have someone to make sure that they are presentable enough to go out to eat. Some shuffle in on their own with walkers with tennis balls attached to the bottom...some are scooting themselves along with their feet in wheelchairs and some have to be led by the arm.

But they ALL get to go out and have a nice lunch... even if they don't remember it by the time they get back to the home at least they had the chance to get out and have some semblance of a normal life for a couple of hours.

I absolutely LOVE waiting on these precious ladies and the care givers that are giving them the best life they can have while this disease rips away their mind, memory and emotions.

When the van pulled up to the door today, my manager said to me "Your girls are here" and I knew immediately who he was talking about.

As I wallow in my own despair, seeing them shuffle in reminded me of how truly lucky and blessed I am and quickly brought me back to reality.

My husband is out of work , I am working myself to death, I worry constantly...but at least I CAN worry. At least I am AWARE of what is happening in my life and can DO something about it.

These women have no say or choice as to what is happening to the person they have been their entire life. They simply have to continue to breathe and be guided through every step of every day for as long as they can hang on to the last scrap of life they have left.

I needed to see these women today.

They will never, ever know...even if I told each and every one of them individually how they uplifted my day and made me step back and once again look at the big picture.

I think God must have sent my "Girls" in today to help me realize how many others are so much worse off in their life than I am in mine. At least I have a life that I can remember, a childhood that I can remember and a family that I can remember...screw the financial problems.

In the grand scheme of things...I seem to be doing pretty good .

Picked up a dinner shift to try and get my bank account back into the black and God smiled on me once again.

All my customers drank lots of alcohol, ordered big and tipped bigger.

Just a mere twelve hours after I left for work, I am back home typing on my blog...feeling a LOT better thanks to "My Girls" today and my "Drinkers" tonight.

At least when I wake up tomorrow to do it all again...I will know what I have to do and will know what I did yesterday...YES! I am TRULY a BLESSED person...I just have to keep remembering that... HEY, at least I still have the capacity to remember.

Til Next time....COTTON