Dear Old Uncle Jim, Grandma’s brother has lived in a nursing home for the last few years. He had to move recentely, due to the fact his previous residence was scheduled for flattening and reconstruction. So with a couple odd hundred elderly residence looking for new accommodation made apartment hunting a down-right kerfuffle.
Luckily, Mum came to the rescue.
She shoved and decieved a large number of seniors just to get a foot in the door. As expected some of the doors fell off, run-down and unkempt nursing homes barely and rarely observe a sufficient level of maintenence that keeps doors on their hinges. It became a fairly well choreographed operation. Nevertheless, we had other options.
I was the middle man, if you will, between my Mother and my Grandparents. I would relay the information as it happened.
So one day I get a call. It’s Mother.
“What’s news?” I ask.
“Well,” she says, “we have three leads: the first is a nurse at the hospital, she’s got a few ‘contacts’ higher up the chain, that could pull a few strings. A bit like a puppeter, I guess.”
“A puppeteer?”
“Yes.”
“Get to the point, Helen.” My patience melting like the cheese I think Pat left under the griller a few hours ago.
“The other is a lady who works at the nursing home in Waverly.”
“A puppeteer?” I inquire.
“No, she just put Jim on the waiting list.”
“Oh, and the last?”
“A place I will visit this afternoon in Botany, I’ll keep you posted.”
At this stage, Pat conveniently enters the room. I relay the information, the nurse, the lady and the rest, excluding the puppet part.
Not twenty minutes later, I, from the desk in my room, overhear a conversation between my Grandparents sitting outside my window. Pat is talking.
“Helen just called, said she’s visiting her Nurse friend in Matraville, to put Jim on a waiting list in for a home in Bondi. That’s what Gage just said.”
grobic's mirror 