May No One Ever Forget Louie

When I remember Louie, I think first of the three weeks I spent at the "facility" after he left. The halls were quiet at night, the CNAs were more attentive, and most of the services (except the food) had improved.

Two months earlier, when I first moved in, I had the room to myself. The hall outside was a jungle. There was always loud talking, and TVs blared late into the night. I was bedridden and completely at the mercy of the staff.

In about a week, Louie arrived. He had asked to be transferred from Room #2 where his roommate was mentally incompetent and would frequently scream out for no apparent reason. Louie was a thin, swarthy, 60-year-old man who looked like someone who would draw scrutiny at any airport. Actually, he was of Italian heritage, and a gentle, thoughtful person. He had fallen on a glass-top table and lay in a pool of his own blood for two days. By the time I met him, he was walking again, but therapy preferred he use his wheelchair. He had been committed to the facility by his brother and nephew,who, it turns out, just wanted to get rid of him and not ever have to check in on him again.

Louie and I discussed the shortcomings of the facility every day, and he wandered the halls at all hours observing and complaining for the two of us. His unique personal problem involved an inability to eat the food without vomiting, so he took to ordering out which, unfortunately, aggravated his diabetes. But his mind was clear, and his good humor helped me to survive the ordeal.

As the days passed, he made some friends (and some enemies), but conditions improved. The staff began to realize that not everyone was deaf and brain-dead. Apparently, Louie was sometimes abrasive with others, and this quality eventually got him sent home, which is what he really wanted. I was appalled, however, when I heard his nephew say, as he picked him up, that he was just going to take Louie home and drop him off. Wherever Louie is now, I hope God is watching over him, because, apparently, his family isn't.