My Client and I

This story is about the love of a patient and her caregiver. My clients' name is Mary, whom I have had the pleasure of taking care of for two years. She was a retired RN. And when I approached Marys' house for the first time, she and another private duty aid was sitting in the kitchen smoking a cigarette.1

I heard Mary tell the other aid,"Me and this one is going to get along good." Now I don't know how this woman knew this, but I just know she must have felt it from her inner feeling. From that day until November of 2005 we got alone great.2

We became like sisters. Although, she was much older than I. She was 79 years old.3

I also had the pleasure of taking care of her three toy poodles. Their names were Dolly, Penny, Ruby. I would feed them and give them their medicine. I also would sit down in the middle of the floor and play with them also, cause they were like humans, needed attention.4

Penny was the one that will alert me to let me know if Mary was up to no good.Mary hand picked six of us to take care of her and her babies.5

Mary told everyone of us that we have to be with her until she dies, she made us promise her that. Now back to my relationship with her, Mary and I would always argue. She would want to do something for me and I will say No. This usually started the arguments. We would go back and forth with it.6

Like for example: Every Saturday Mary and her daughter and I would go to Crackle Barrels for breakfast, and when the employees there see us coming they say "Oh, here is the arguing team". One particular time at Crackle Barrels, I saw some pillows that I liked. She asked me if I wanted them I said NO.7

All she would do is look at me and ask me if that's the only word in the whole dictionary that I know. When we finished our breakfast and ready to go back home, she sneaked and told her daughter to get the pillows, without me knowing this. When we arrived at the house, and I started to take everything out of the bags that she bought I saw the pillows. She looked at me above her glasses and said.8

"See, you don't tell me what to do, if I want to buy you something I can."9

It was some what hard to argue with a four-footed person with red hair. 10

Mary and I loved to watch T.V. our programs were Matlock, The Match Game and Little House On the Prairie.11

Mary died in November of 2005; a part of me went with her. The three dogs were cremated and went to heaven with her. She was lying in a reddish-pink casket with a dark pink outfit on, the lights in the funeral parlor were pink, flowers were pink. So you can guess that her favorite color was pink.12

She was not just my arguing partner, she was also a dear friend. I will always love and miss her. She helped me in deciding what to do with my life.