Trena Eiden

I find most humans to be a dismal disappointment so friends in my inner circle have heard me somewhat jokingly, say, “I’m a great judge of character. I hate everybody.” I always add, “So if I love you, you’re really something special.” Truly, the most precious people on the planet are those considered geriatric and I have gobs of patience and mercy for them. If they’re cranky, most often it’s because they’re in pain or perhaps depressed. Thankfully, my 95-year-old client is usually upbeat because yesterday I spilled sawdust on the floor as I was putting it into the wood stove. Exasperated by my clumsiness, I turned to her and shaking my head, bemoaned, “Good help is hard to find, thus you have me.” She waved her hand, dismissing my negativity and quipped, “If you were good help, you wouldn’t stay with me.”  

One thing I relish about the elderly is they tend to say whatever’s on their mind (so you better be thick-skinned). One day my client was telling me a story about a friend of hers who’d been a cocktail waitress 75 years ago. She said, “She came to the job every day in high heels and worked long, hard hours and was so cute everybody loved her. She was about your size, only skinny.” 

Two years ago, when I started helping her, I’d moved into her cabin the day she got out of the hospital after falling and breaking her pelvis. That night she had to use the bathroom so I helped her to the commode. Sitting was painful so she had to brace herself, leaving her one-handed. When I gave her a few squares of toilet paper, she looked at it, then at me, and summing up it wasn’t enough asked, “Are we rationing toilet paper now?”  

One afternoon, as I attempted to grind peppercorns, I wasn’t making very good progress. After scrutinizing me from the couch for a while she declared, “I think there’s enough money in the kitty for pepper.” I held up the ancient grinder and said, “This thing is ancient, I’m guessing it came over on the Mayflower.” She shook her head and deadpanned, “No, it was the boat right behind.”   

We’ve come to know each other well, and I’m blessed by our great relationship and the laughter we share. Among other things, the ranch she’s on boards horses. In summer, one mare, God bless her, is kept mostly by herself and off the main pasture in a small grassy enclosure because if she’s in with a lot of feed she gets too fat. One morning, I patted my belly and said, “Glad I’m not a horse, I’d be in the little field.” My client leaned close, elbowing me and whispered, “Stay outta that bog, it’s hard on your feet.”  

She recently had a CT scan and mentioned she was glad it wasn’t an MRI. “I hate those. How long do they think you can lay there like a dumb bunny?” When we arrived for the scan, the tech tried putting in an IV. I’d mentioned she was a lousy water drinker, but he ignored me, and without hot-packing her arm, stabbed a vein and missed by a mile. She put up with him “digging” for a moment then calmly said, “Just take me to oncology, those nurses are good at this.”   

Her 93-year-old sister came for a visit and since both ladies are thin, weighing less than a hundred pounds apiece, we were chatting about it over breakfast. I asked the sister if they’d always been skinny girls and being completely sincere and meaning no malice she replied, “Oh, I used to weigh 135 and was chunky like you babe.” Since she was being absolutely serious, I stifled a guffaw. I wasn’t even offended. She thinks I weigh 135. What a win. Days later, Gar and our daughter, Lunny came to see my client. I made introductions to the sister, mentioning Gar was my husband. Since both ladies have hearing loss, she obviously missed this detail. Gar and Lunny were talking to my client across the room and I was standing by her sister. She pointed at them and said, “Your daughter is beautiful.” I started to speak, but she broke in, “And your son is so tall.” With great difficulty, I kept my composure, but on the way to the car I told Gar what she’d said. He shook his head, “Great, I’m a loser and still live with my mother.”