Dale Says

I walked Bea home to her apartment last Friday after lunch at the neighborhood center. Bea is 84, lives alone, and walks several blocks each day to have a hot meal at the center. She always arrives wheeling a small cart that is loaded with her things; including groceries, an extra jacket, and who knows what else. Bea always sits in the same place for lunch, and no one else dares sit in her chair. She doesn’t talk much, but instead eats her lunch and heads home.

Bea is single and has never been married. She worked her whole adult life and supported herself, and now she survives on the little in her savings, social security, and the meals at the center. She’s spunky, independent, and eccentric. The other people at lunch (and the volunteers) are a little afraid of her, and she will bark at anyone who dares cross her.

Last Friday, Bea arrived at lunch with a rolled-up tissue stuffed in her nose. She has been having nose bleeds for several days and she has a hard time getting them to stop. I walked her home to make sure she got there safely. We took it slow and had to stop several times for Bea to rest on the way to her apartment. She lives on the third floor of a run-down apartment in a cul-de-sac in the North Beach area of San Francisco. There’s no elevator in Bea’s apartment, so she climbs the three sets of stairs, dragging her cart up the stairs behind her. The door to her apartment is barricaded with an old bed frame, tape, and signs that warn her neighbors to stay away. At the door, she painstakingly removes the barricades, takes the tape off the door knob, and pushes the door open. Her apartment is dark and smells of cigarettes, which she smokes. Paper grocery bags fill most of the apartment, and they are filled with various “treasures” she has gathered and stacked three and four high around most of the studio apartment. Her shades are torn and drawn, and her single bed looks old and worn. The only other furniture I saw was one arm chair and a small table that likely serves as dining table and coffee table.

Bea said she was alright, but she gratefully accepted the card I offered, on which I had written my phone number in large numbers. I told her she could call me if she needed anything. She seemed pleased. As I left and headed down the three flights of stairs I could hear her talking to herself in her apartment. A lot of what she was saying was mumbling that I couldn’t follow, but I did her say, “Well, how nice,” referring to my efforts to help her. That, coming from such a stong-willed and independent woman, was an excellent reward.