“Sweetie, I been doin’ this for 34 years”, she said in a way that wasn’t quite scary. “Oh”, I said, “well you’re good then”. I was trying to explain to her that this other lady gets a tube feeding that gets set up with the pump. Usually her full-time caregiver does it, but she’s not here on the weekends. I personally haven’t done hers before, and if she wanted, we could go into her room and try to figure it out before I took off.

“Yeah, I’ll figure it out.” We counted narcotics. She’d said while we were trading off that she’d not worked this wing before and didn’t know any of these people. I wanted to make sure she felt comfortable, and that I wasn’t just leaving her hanging, or leaving something undone. “Okay, well just call me if you need anything, or if I forgot something or whatever. “Honey, I try not to bother people when they’re not workin.”

I missed her name. I keep meeting people there that I haven’t met before. One of the regular nurses has been sick for four days and wasn’t going to be able to come in today either. She texted yesterday wondering if I wanted to work tomorrow. I really didn’t, but with a job like this you’ve sometimes got to do favors when you can. Long story short, she found someone to split the shift with me. I’d told her I could probably do half.

Dad took the kids to Jacksonville this morning. I’d almost forgotten about it being Palm Sunday. They have a legit called LCMS chaplain that works at the senior place. He came today to check on the hospice patients before doing the facility wide church service at 10. There was quite a collection of residents in the common room watching and listening on the big TV. The music from the organ seemed to calm everybody.

And there was one who listened from her room. It was turned up so loud, that while I was outside her door, I thought for a moment that the song was coming from hidden speakers in the hallway. I called Josh and the kids when I was back in the van and they were on their way home too. I’d started chicken before I left so we didn’t have to worry about lunch. I showered and changed back into different clothes, glad to have gone.