Whatever Libby Wants-With One Exception
February 28, 2011
Last week a plump 94-year-old woman named Libby sat down in Irene’s empty chair in the dining room. The staff had picked Libby to be Alice’s new dining partner.
It’s not going well.
After Irene died, a staff member told Alice she would soon be sharing meals with someone new. At The Place, the woman explained, no one should have to eat alone.
Alice, who likes to eat alone, protested. But along came Libby anyway. Although hard of hearing herself, Libby suffers from an inability to stop talking, and she talks very fast. Alice reads lips, but she can’t read Libby’s lips. Not only are they moving too quickly, but the woman’s mouth is often filled with food while she’s talking.
Alice has asked Libby to please slow down. She has explained that she can neither hear nor understand her, but Libby keeps on talking. One night Alice left the table before finishing her meal and hurried back to her apartment, where she cried with frustration. Gone is the refined, elegant Irene who managed to live 110 years without talking and chewing at the same time.
The next day and the next have come and gone and Libby still sits across from Alice, chattering nonstop, mouth awash with food and coffee, a swarm of indecipherable sounds filling the air between them.
“I feel sorry for Libby,” Alice began last night in a tone that sounded more annoyed than sympathetic. A few seconds passed and then out it came. “She takes the biggest forkfuls of food I’ve ever seen anyone put into their mouths!”
The rest of the report was delivered in a low voice because she thought someone might overhear her from the hallway and think she was being critical.
It’s not that she wants to be thought of as a saint. 
But she doesn’t want to sound intolerant either.
Libby talks about people and points at them, Alice told me, adding, “And when she wants one of the aides to fill up her water glass, she claps her hands together and sings ‘How Dry I Am’ at the top of her lungs.”
How dry I am!
How dry I am!
Nobody knows
How dry I am!
“Oh dear,” I said.
“And she takes food from her plate and puts it into her pockets.”
“What?”
“Yes! Tonight she put some broccoli and baked potato peelings into a napkin and shoved the napkin into her pocket.” After a moment she said, “Oh, how I wish Pearl were alive so I could tell her these things.”
I hadn’t heard that much longing in her voice since Pearl died. The two of them would have laughed about some of this, but Alice couldn’t laugh alone, and even though I tried to keep up, it wasn’t the same. Her sister, who suffered the peculiar eating habits of strangers in another Place far away in Wisconsin, would have responded with her own amazing dining room stories.
Dining Room-Assisted Living Facility
“Tell me more,” I said.
“Well, when Mr. Fickle walks by she always hollers out to him, ‘Hi, Howard!’ And if he stops to talk to me, she talks to him. And talks and talks and talks to him. Sometimes she grabs his hand. She told me they’re good friends. Very good friends. For a long time.”
This was a delicate piece of the dilemma. I turned it over in my mind, then offered to ask the manager about a change of tables. I could tell him, I said, that my mother can’t hear or understand much of what her new lunch and dinner partner says but, nevertheless, the woman never stops talking and it’s stressing Alice too much.
“Libby is a good person,” Alice said quietly. “She really is.”
“Of course she is.”
“I’d hate to hurt her feelings.”
I promised to be tactful.
“She’s trying to be nice. That’s why she talks to me.”
“But you can’t hear her, and she knows that.”
“She can’t hear me either, so I guess she didn’t hear me tell her I couldn’t hear her. So she thinks I can. I nod and smile. I pretend to hear.”
“But why…?”
“I’m a good actress,” she said lightly, determined to fend off my radical intervention with the authorities. “I could have my own TV show.”
“You don’t need a TV show. You need a table by yourself.”
“Let it be,” she said, but when I tried to change the subject she dug back in. “And here’s another thing. This is a small matter but it bothers me. I like to have the salt and pepper shakers and other condiments lined up in a neat row on one side of the table. Libby takes them and spreads them all out.”
“That one does seem like a small matter,” I said.
“No, it isn’t really. It was my table. She came to my table to sit with me.”
“Yes…”
At last she laughed. “Okay, you’re right about that. But you should be in my shoes.”
“They’re too small. You’re a size seven and I’m…”
“Yesterday,” she said, ignoring me, “Lyle walked by when he’d finished his dinner and he patted my shoulder. He sits at the next table you know. That little pat made me feel better. And then Susie Obama came over after Libby left and she asked me how I was doing. I told her I just couldn’t hear or understand anything the woman said, and she sympathized with me.”
“Your friends understand.”
“I wish I’d gotten a Valentine for Mr. Fickle,” she said with a mighty sigh. “Too late now. I should have made him one.”
But then she remembered that my cousins, Pearl’s daughters, had sent her motto hearts for Valentine’s Day. Pearl had mailed a bag of these small, pastel-colored candy hearts to Alice every Valentine’s Day for seventy-two years. Her daughters didn’t want this year to be different. These days the hearts come in little boxes. Alice has been giving the boxes away anonymously, one by one, to friends. She puts them on their place mats before they arrive in the dining room.
Tomorrow, she told me, she’d leave one on Mr. Fickle’s place mat and write his name, Howard, next to “To” on the box. He’d know they were from her because he’d recently spied her putting a box on Susie’s place mat.
I told her I thought this was a good idea.
Nothing can be done about Libby, but at least Mr. Fickle will know who he belongs to.
I don’t use the real names of Alice’s fellow residents in any of these posts.
February 28, 2011 at 10:14 am
too sweet!
February 28, 2011 at 10:40 am
Oh Alice, my sympathies – two of the things I hate most – nonstop talkers with nothing worth hearing, and someone talking with her mouth full – I’d put “too kind” on your motto heart!
February 28, 2011 at 11:49 am
too true!
February 28, 2011 at 10:16 pm
Sounds like Saint Alice needs to come up with her own song to sing at the dinner table. Surely she has something appropriate in that song book of hers.
February 28, 2011 at 10:21 pm
I wonder…Thanks for reminding me about the songbook.
February 28, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Talking with your mouth full is just plain bad manners. My mom taught me that. I can hear my mom in my head anytime I see someone talking around a mouth full of food. Quite frankly, it’s not just bad manners, it’s gross. Yes, the food was not gross when it was on your plate, but, somehow it becomes gross in your mouth. It’s like the whole lettuce thing: it’s pretty and green when it’s on your plate, and hideous, gross, slimy and black when it’s plastered to your front tooth.
I digress.
Incessant talkers really do bug me. I can carry on a good lengthy conversation, but, there’s nothing worse than someone who talks non-stop, barely giving you a chance to reply. Rude and annoying.
As for The Place — well, it’s all fine and dandy that they want to look out for the well-being of their guests, but, some things should be respected. If someone enjoys eating alone, then so be it. I share dinner every night with Julian and mom (at the very least), but, I have always been the kind of person who is quite happy dining alone. Good food while reading a good book is sheer bliss! When someone reaches a certain age, they should be allowed to decide for themselves if they want a dining companion or not. (Sorry, but the story makes me a bit angry!) It’s bad enough they make you go down to dinner — I’d be the kind of cranky old man who’d just want to dine in the solitary silence of my room.
I’m sure I’ll be asked to leave, when my time comes to be in some version of The Place. Don’t sit the chatterbox with me. I will start throwing food. Heck, at 90+, I’ve earned the right to throw food!
March 1, 2011 at 10:05 am
I spoke with a friend last night who used to live in a facility like this (severe health issues that have now, thankfully, receded). She said that is the way these places work. People don’t get to choose, and they do get very attached to where they sit. Alice insists that she’d rather sit with Libby than give up her table. So…there we have it. At least for now.
March 1, 2011 at 7:21 am
Poor Alice and how stoical she is being with Libby. Poor Libby, so unaware of her unintentional invasion.
I hope Mr Fickle appreciated his hearts!
March 1, 2011 at 9:59 am
Alice got a hand squeeze from Mr. F, so I guess that means they were appreciated. That generation is subtle, I tell you.
March 1, 2011 at 9:46 am
I think you should butt in on this one. Alice is not being respected and if you are as good at it is I am sure you will be I bet you could get Libby moved to another table and give Alice a peaceful meal….that’s my 5 cents on the matter.
March 1, 2011 at 9:58 am
Thanks, Diane. I agree and I tried this again morning but Alice was adamant that nothing be changed. Her concern is that she’ll lose her table, her “spot” that she’s become accustomed to. I suspect that’s not true, but now she’s really dug in about it. Maybe if I lie low for awhile and say nothing she will change her mind.
March 1, 2011 at 2:50 pm
My sympathies to Alice! How unpleasant to have to sit next to a lady who talks with her mouth full, and incessantly as well!
March 1, 2011 at 9:02 pm
I’ll pass them on. Thanks, Mary.
March 1, 2011 at 7:45 pm
This is funny and distressing at that same time–and who hasn’t found herself, like Alice, in that hard place between empathy and aversion?
March 1, 2011 at 9:07 pm
That’s right. Good way to put it. Think of the bus rides, plane rides, co-workers, dates, classmates…So many places for that debate between empathy and aversion to pop up. I just wish Alice didn’t have to deal with it. Maybe Libby will move to another table. She waves at an awful lot of people, so someone else might invite her to sit with them.
March 1, 2011 at 9:40 pm
I feel bad for Alice. Mealtimes shouldn’t be spent being so annoyed by the only other person at the table! I hope there’s a way to make some changes there, as it doesn’t sound like it will improve on its own.
March 2, 2011 at 8:56 am
Ugh, sharing a table w/ someone like Libby would stress me no end, too. I’m sure Libby is very nice, but she sounds completely wrong for your poor mom. Still, I understand her not wanting to make waves…especially Alice’s generation, these valiant, don’t-put-anyone-out, generous souls.
March 4, 2011 at 10:40 am
I hope it’s generosity, Chris. Sometimes it feels more like, well, stubbornness. But who am I to say? Alice is still, thankfully, in charge of her own life. I’m just the escort to medical appointments and gopher.
March 4, 2011 at 9:35 am
So real in every detail! My heart goes out to Alice. You have captured just how the institutional efforts to recreate social norms miss the complexities of real relationships. I also love that you call it “The Place.” I am looking forward to reading more!
March 4, 2011 at 10:38 am
Dana, thank you for coming to read about my Alice. Your Alice has taken up residence in my mind and heart. I so love your sketchbook and writings about her.
For those interested in seeing Dana’s touching and poetic work on her mother’s journey with Alzheimer’s, go to: http://danawalrath.wordpress.com/
March 30, 2011 at 10:33 pm
[...] changed the subject to Libby, who had snatched a glass sugar container from one of the tables in the dining room, wrapped it in [...]
April 10, 2011 at 10:39 pm
[...] the past month, Alice has been listening to her dining room partner, Libby, comment frequently on what’s happening with the flag, viewed from Libby’s position [...]
June 20, 2011 at 8:55 pm
[...] always surprising and often inappropriate Libby is usually the focus of at least one note per meal. For example, a recent note featured an [...]
February 27, 2012 at 11:46 am
[...] changed the subject to Libby, who had snatched a glass sugar container from one of the tables in the dining room, wrapped it in [...]