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One and Only: A Love Story
“When you start to really know someone, all their physical characteristics start to disappear. You begin to dwell in their energy, recognize the scent of their skin. You see only the essence of the person, not the shell. That’s why you can’t fall in love with beauty. You can lust after it, be infatuated by it, want to own it. You can Love it with your eyes and body but not your heart. And that’s why, when you really connect with a person’s inner self, any physical imperfections disappear, become irrelevant.” — Lisa Unger
I work as a home-health and hospice nurse, entering the physical and emotional spaces of living human beings, five days a week. Sometimes this is easy and fun, sometimes it is sad and difficult. On Wednesday morning, my scheduler assigns me a new client, an elderly woman in a small farming community a short, pleasant drive from the city. I’ve been told that Marian is one of our newer clients and that she is unhappy with her care.
Meandering along the river, I follow the calm voice issuing instructions from Google Maps. Reaching my destination, I pull into the assisted living, walk down the hall to the last apartment on the left, and knock on the door. It opens, and standing before me is Uncle Fester from the Addams Family: Just under five-feet tall and completely bald, he has the eerily familiar, enormous, cone-shaped head, prominent, dark, eyes, and…
