Features

Three days before Christmas I had to fire the two people who helped me with my husband’s care. I broke out in hives the moment I asked them to leave. It was not a good sign.  

I was expecting 17 people for dinner on Christmas day. I was planning to go back east after the holidays for a long visit. I didn’t know how I could do all this and take care of Ralph. The hives were hot and they made me itch. The last time I had suffered from this affliction had been 35 years ago when my first boyfriend dumped me. I hadn’t quite gotten over that experience and now I was faced with this new dilemma. I was worried, scared, and covered in red bumps. 

So I did the only thing I could think of: I called the person I had fired two years ago and asked him to come back. That would be Jerry, the man who came to live with us six months after Ralph’s accident. We had gotten along great for many years, but like most situations in which unlike people live together in close proximity, we had grown peevish, cranky, and intolerant of one another. Nine years into our employer/employee relationship we called it quits. It was not an amicable break-up, but by then Jerry had a place of his own in which to live, and Ralph and I had found new help. 

For the next two years we saw Jerry occasionally and even employed him a few times when our current live-ins didn’t meet their responsibilities. He was subsisting on Social Security and weekly hand-outs from nearby churches. He had lost weight and his hair had grown gray.  

Jerry said he could help. He came into our home and took over. My hives went away. I hung a wreath on the front door, roasted two turkeys, and hoped for the best. 

I was not disappointed. We pulled off Christmas dinner and I came back from my vacation well rested. My house was semi-clean and my husband relatively healthy. My life, though not in order, was not entirely out of control. 

But unbeknownst to me, Jerry had made himself a supervisor and contracted the work out to some of his associates. I returned to a house full of people, some I knew, some I didn’t. Jerry rehired the woman I had just fired, and also employed his friend, Willie. Willie had been living in a van in front of Jerry’s apartment until it was towed away. He didn’t have the cash to get it back. He had lost all his belongings, including his clothes. When I met him he had on my t-shirt and Ralph’s pants. Jerry explained it was better that Willie was wearing our clothes than no clothes at all. I had to agree. 

Willie has moved in and made himself comfortable. Jerry has taught him what to cook for Ralph’s breakfast, how to get him in and out of his bed and wheelchair, what medications to give him and when to hook up the oxygen tanks and night bags. All I have to do is pay Willie for his services, and fill in when he is at his other job.  

Willie works as a cook at a local barbecue joint. It is a position he has held for the past four years. One of the benefits of working at the restaurant is that Willie can take home the leftovers at the end of his shift. Our refrigerator is filled top to bottom with the fruit of Willie’s labor: barbecue ribs and chicken, deep-fried turkey, well-cooked greens, and banana pudding. There is enough food in there for three extended family reunions. I’m not all that fond of barbecue, but I haven’t complained. I’ve had to learn to tolerate a lot of things since Ralph’s accident; learning to love barbecue should be a cinch.›