Life can sure be scary sometimes
My only remaining sibling is very ill and while both he and I know how it’s probably going to go, I can’t quite process it.
I spoke to him by phone on Wednesday. His only son had just left after a week’s visit and he was exhausted. No contact on Thursday. None Friday. Yesterday I tried to call him at 4 pm and again at 8 pm. No answer.
I got obsessive. I tried to find him. And couldn’t. By then it was 9 pm and the facility was closed for the night. Hopefully, they don’t evict the patients until 8 am.
Finally, apologetically, I called the Lebanon, TN Police Dept.
It was quite surprising. I’m telling you, if you get in non-crime trouble near Lebanon, TN, call the cops.
An amazing ten minutes later, the officer called me. They couldn’t find him. It didn’t appear he was there. He pointed out there were a LOT of facilities named like that in and around Lebanon. Maybe one of them?
I went back to look at the address he’d sent us, and sure enough, it was Murfreesboro, TN.
I called THAT facility and after a long stretch of ringing, a woman answered. It took another four or five minutes to persuade her that “he’s probably sleeping,” wasn’t gonna cut it.
Our older brother fell out of bed in the night and ended stuck between the bed and the wall. He developed a ‘compartment injury’ and died soon after.
If we could have come to blows, we might have, although our voices remained at “I’m trying to reason with you” levels.
She reminded me of a waitress I met at a crowded restaurant-in-a-ranch-house in the South Dakota badlands, who hobbled over to me, collapsed on the chair next to me, and wheezed “Do you know what you want or do I gotta find a menu?”
Anyway, I broke her spirit with courteous but insistent questions. The one that worked was “Are you telling me there is NO WAY to check on a patient in your care?”
She gave up and went to check.
In 10 minutes, she called and said, “He’s SLEEPIN’ just like I TOLD you.” So she got the last word in.
I thanked her.
I spoke to him by phone on Wednesday. His only son had just left after a week’s visit and he was exhausted. No contact on Thursday. None Friday. Yesterday I tried to call him at 4 pm and again at 8 pm. No answer.
I got obsessive. I tried to find him. And couldn’t. By then it was 9 pm and the facility was closed for the night. Hopefully, they don’t evict the patients until 8 am.
Finally, apologetically, I called the Lebanon, TN Police Dept.
It was quite surprising. I’m telling you, if you get in non-crime trouble near Lebanon, TN, call the cops.
An amazing ten minutes later, the officer called me. They couldn’t find him. It didn’t appear he was there. He pointed out there were a LOT of facilities named like that in and around Lebanon. Maybe one of them?
I went back to look at the address he’d sent us, and sure enough, it was Murfreesboro, TN.
I called THAT facility and after a long stretch of ringing, a woman answered. It took another four or five minutes to persuade her that “he’s probably sleeping,” wasn’t gonna cut it.
Our older brother fell out of bed in the night and ended stuck between the bed and the wall. He developed a ‘compartment injury’ and died soon after.
If we could have come to blows, we might have, although our voices remained at “I’m trying to reason with you” levels.
She reminded me of a waitress I met at a crowded restaurant-in-a-ranch-house in the South Dakota badlands, who hobbled over to me, collapsed on the chair next to me, and wheezed “Do you know what you want or do I gotta find a menu?”
Anyway, I broke her spirit with courteous but insistent questions. The one that worked was “Are you telling me there is NO WAY to check on a patient in your care?”
She gave up and went to check.
In 10 minutes, she called and said, “He’s SLEEPIN’ just like I TOLD you.” So she got the last word in.
I thanked her.
