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| Pyre for Pammie 3.17.10 |
Pam was a friend of mine. We met in the early 1970s, working for the State of California reviewing welfare paperwork of the counties. In remembering how and why I was drawn to her, I’d say it was the level and tone of her intelligence, education, and ironic sense of humor (all of which matched mine). Also, I admired and envied her oh-so-chic personal style.
Her life had many twists and turns, ups and downs, and geographic moves. We managed to stay friends for over 30 years. About 15 years ago, she had a falling out with a friend she had named as executor of her will, and substituted me. By the time she lost her mind, I was the only old friend still in touch, and willing and able to be her guardian as well as her executor. The following is the first in a series. Due to the...um...nature of some of the “Pammie Stories,” as we and she have always called them, they won’t all be published publicly.
Pammie story #1
Begin at the end, perhaps? Pam was such an unusual person, that starting her stories near the end makes some sense.
I visited Pam in the nursing home in which she had been “incarcerated” (certainly, that would have been her opinion). She had been placed there in the spring with a rare, early-onset dementia, finally divined to be “progressive supranuclear palsy.” The nursing home unit was designed for those with dementias. Most of the inmates,...uh, patients...were in their late 70s or 80s. Pam was not quite 65.
On my first visit to the home, I had determined that the home was so close to the airport hotel, and folks so accommodating, that I could take the airport shuttle to the home. After my visit, the home’s director, Ms Buckalew, offered to drive me back to my hotel.
As we drove, she asked some questions and I told her bits of Pam’s life to help her make a bit more sense of Pam. Ms Buckalew, all the home’s caregivers, and the gerontology coordinator I had hired—all seemed to enjoy and appreciate bits of Pam history, and tried to understand her. Given that the town she wound up in—after all her moving and buying and selling of homes—was a tad unsophisticated (from a Pam perspective)...they did struggle with her “white tablecloth” restaurant palate.
As we arrived at the portico of my hotel, Ms Buckalew said, “Well, that helps me understand her better. Oh, did I tell you about Pam trying to kill her roommate?”
“Nooooooo,” I replied (thinking, Well, I would kinda think that was something you would tell her guardian!!!).
Ms Buckalew recounted:
Pam’s roommate was an elderly woman with advanced Alzheimer’s—Ellen, who was on oxygen. [My reaction was:
At lunch, Pam would help to feed Ellen and other residents. Ellen’s husband, Paul, visited frequently, and noted Pam’s kind attentions to Ellen. He began to include Pam in his attempts at conversation with Ellen.
Well, one night, the staff found that Pam had turned off Ellen’s oxygen feed! They quickly relocated Ellen to a private room and took the precaution of locking it with a keypad. (Smart, they became. Smart, Pammie was...even when demented.)
Pam told the staff that she needed Paul’s phone number. “He needs a younger, prettier woman. Namely, me,” she asserted.
- Great, another “Pammie story” to add to my portfolio.
- All of it, except actually turning off the oxygen, was totally in character for Pam, all the 30 years that i knew her. She always thought men were interested in her, married or not. And often she was correct. Men were interested in something with her, however fleeting. (Oh, do remember to ask me the one about the Shakespeare shelves in City Lights bookstore!) She would always have thought the husband was interested in a “relationship” with her. She would have always thought the guy needed a “younger, prettier” woman and that she herself fit the bill. She would have talked and talked about ways to get rid of the wife. The only difference with her “before dementia” mind is that she would not have touched that oxygen dial.
Copyright © 2013 by Susan C. Price
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