Oregon150

by Nancy Murphy

We had little in common. I was 18 and new to Oregon, having taken the phrase “Go west young man” to heart. Never mind I was a girl. I’d looked forward to 1971 and coming of age for a long time. Sam was over 80, a native Oregonian living in a nursing home against his will. He’d come of age long ago and had no future left to speak of.

“Beware,” the head nurse told us the morning he was admitted. “He hits and bites. Swears and spits. Don’t try to handle him alone.”

I’d left the idea of heeding advice back in upstate New York, so when I was assigned his room, I went alone to serve him breakfast.

He took one look at me and spat. “Untie my damn hands,” he raged. “I’m not an animal.”

I sized up the situation. He had refused to eat in the last facility he’d been in. “Okay,” I said. “But you have to let me help you with breakfast.”

I took his grunt as agreement and freed his hands.

Immediately, he lashed out, upending his tray. Eggs and juice flew into the air, much of it landing on me.

Eyes fierce, he cursed me.

I stood my ground and swore back.

“You’ve got a nasty mouth for a little girl,” he said.

“Not as bad as yours.”

I called for another breakfast, saying I’d spilled this one. I didn’t put his restraints back on. I doubt it he appreciated my efforts, but at least he knew I wasn’t exactly like everyone else. I’d even fib if I thought it was for the greater good.

Sam became my reason to come to work. I could empathize with his anger at being under someone else’s control. Wasn’t that why I’d come to Oregon myself? To be my own person? Eventually he let me push his wheelchair around the nursing home. He stopped hitting people and no longer had to be restrained. I couldn’t say he liked me, and he never initiated any conversations, but at least he answered simple questions without swearing.

A couple of days before Christmas, snow flurries teased me with hopes of a white Christmas. Homesickness had been nipping at my faith in my ability to make it on my own, and this connection with my past might ease that some. But at the end of my shift when I went into Sam’s room to say goodbye, gloom descended.

Finding Sample’s eyes closed, I moved to the window. The snow had all but melted, and the landscape was bleak and gray. Tears rolled down my cheek unchecked.

I jumped as Sam’s voice broke the silence. “Look at the way the snow melts and makes little rivers out there,” he said. “It’s almost like being in the wilderness. It’s beautiful, don’t you think?”

I turned to him, brushing my tears away. Compassion had restored life to his expression. Our eyes met and a silent understanding far deeper than I’d experienced with anyone before passed between us. We knew nothing of each other’s history, had no common friends, had never shared our feelings or thoughts with each other, but in that moment, we recognized we were all either of us had.

And it was enough.