Dorothy

Some of you know that for my field ed. this semester I've been going to the Grande Prairie Care Center to visit with the elderly. At first, I really had wished I had picked something else. I dreaded going every Wednesday because I did not really know how to talk to people and I found it awkward. Well, over the semester I kept going back to one particular lady's room. Her name was Dorothy and we became friends. Soon I began to look forward to our visits every week and her's was the first room I would visit, often staying for the entire hour. She was in a wheelchair, and was almost completely blind. But there was nothing wrong with her mind. She was funny and and sarcastic. She had a great memory and told me all kinds of stories about how she met her husband and what her life had been like. She loved to watch curling and was even patient enough to explain the game to me as we sat and watched the Tim Horton's Brier together. She always remembered me and remembered things I was going through. She would ask me questions about myself and how I was doing. One day I came into her room after I had not been there the previous week. She looked up at me with her crooked half smile and said "Well hello there stranger!" She loved her kids, grandkids and great grand kids and loved to show me pictures and talk about them. We had many long talks about nothing in particular. She never failed to give me candy as I was leaving her room. "Take some for the road" she would say.
One day we were sitting together, mostly just being quiet, when I noticed she had tears streaming down her face. I asked her if she was okay and she said that she was. I asked her if she was ever lonely and she confessed to me that she felt lonely a lot and that she missed her husband very much.
I grew to love Dorothy as a friend, and although it was always a posibility in my mind, I did not expect to lose her.
This Wednesday I walked up the 3 flights of stairs thinking of things that me and Dorothy could talk about. I got to her door and it did not have her name on it anymore. The nurse told me that Dorothy passed away.
This has been harder for me than I expected and the last couple days have been pretty tough. I'm going to miss her a lot...She was a good friend.