When I started working at the nursing home, I never expected one resident to change my life forever. At the time, I thought I was helping her, but I had no idea she had a plan of her own.
The small home smelled of lemon polish and old books, and after a year of working there as an orderly, I still found it more welcoming than most places I’d lived. Growing up in foster care teaches you to notice small kindnesses, and that place had plenty of them.
The residents mostly ignored me at first, except for Gloria.
Gloria was 82, sharp as a tack, stubborn, and somehow always made everyone around her smile.
I still found it more welcoming.
“You’re new,” she said the first time I brought her breakfast tray. “But you don’t move like it. You’ve been carrying trays your whole life, haven’t you?”
I laughed. “Something like that. I’m Daniel. Nice to meet you, Gloria.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, too. Sit down for a minute. Tell me about yourself.”
Nobody had asked me that in years.
“Something like that.”
***
After that morning, it became a routine. I became the person she talked to every day. Somewhere along the way, she stopped feeling like a patient and started feeling like
I’d bring Gloria tea after my shift, and she’d tell me stories about growing up on a farm, about her late husband, and about the way people used to dance in when the radio played the right song.
She never mentioned family visiting, because nobody ever did, unlike the other residents.
It became a routine.
“I had a nephew once,” Gloria told me one evening, stirring her tea more slowly than usual. “Marcus. He stopped visiting once he realized I wasn’t leaving anytime soon. But he’ll come back the moment he hears I’m gone. People are like that, Daniel. You’ll learn.”
“You don’t seem bitter about it,” I said.
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“Bitterness is a house I refuse to live in.”
“I had a nephew once.”
***
The one thing I couldn’t figure out about Gloria was the bag. It was an old, faded canvas hospital bag with frayed corners, and she carried it everywhere.
If a nurse tried to move it to make room on her nightstand, Gloria would politely reach out and take it right back.
“Is that bag important?” I asked once.
“Everything that matters to me is inside it.”
“Can I see?”
She carried it everywhere.
