The quiet journey with George
That year, at the end of my career, I was listening to the radio when I heard a community announcement requesting volunteers to provide friendly visits to elderly people in nursing homes. I was thinking "Zaga, you are now retired. Since childhood, you have liked and respected old people. Hurry up, as soon as possible, and participate in this kind of volunteer work. Help people with your heart and knowledge as much as you can."
Without hesitation, I picked up the phone and dialled the number advertised and spoke to Valerie. After some training and, to my great joy, I became a member of the Community Visitors Scheme managed by the Central Sydney Area Health Service.
I was happy but, on the other hand, I was scared about my initial contact with a complete stranger. The person I visited was a man named George who was an 80-year old with some degree of dementia. Straightaway, I went to the library to look for more information on the topic of dementia.
George was still a physically strong man. He had good manners, was well-educated and I would say was a gentleman. He was born in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. I supposed that after the Russian October Revolution, the winds of war brought his civil engineer father and lovely mother to that country. He studied in Serbia and after the Second World War, he went to Germany. In the late fifties, he migrated to Australia where he married and had two daughters. I heard this information step by step during my many visits.
He enjoyed listening to classical music so much that you could tell from his face. He tapped his feet, moved rhythmically with the music and was totally immersed in the melody, living in another world. Sometimes I would see a teardrop or, once in a while, a brief smile on his face.
On one occasion, while listening to the music together, my mind was elsewhere as I was worrying about my husband's health. George gently patted my shoulder and said: "Everything would be fine. Don't worry, Zaga."
Every Monday morning, I visited the nursing home to see George. Monday had become a very important day in my life and, over time, we became good friends. One day in December 2001, I took George to Centennial Park. It was a sky blue day. The heavy rain had stopped early in the morning. Wet leaves hanging on the trees glimmered like the stars in the sky.
We sat on the grass, several ducks were nearby and there I saw for the first time some happiness in George's eyes. He picked some grass and, smiling, he smelled it. "I would like some coffee," George said kindly. We shared the coffee in my thermos and fed the ducks at the same time.
We started playing cards and I taught him to count again, but only for a short while. Suddenly his happiness disappeared and darkness unpredictably came again. The silence swooped down once more and tightened around him and unfortunately stayed until the end.
My poor old friend died soon after my last visit but I was unaware of his death because nobody told me … I had broken my arm and it took two months to heal. When I came to see George again, he was already with the angels sleeping and dreaming the dreams that once he craved most of all — the tender dreams of his past life.
Rest in peace, my dear friend! I will light a candle every year on the date you passed away and think about you to the end of my life …Did Zagorka inspire you to volunteer? Find out how you can become a volunteer.