This  amazing lady made corsages one year for every woman in every nursing home in the county.  She volunteered with us even after she was admitted to a nursing home herself.  She visited other residents,  called people in our Telephone Reassurance Program and taught others how to make craft items and gifts.   Sadly, we lost Ida before we moved into our new facility.  When I visited her in the hospital, she would say, “tell me again about the center — tell me what it will be like.”  Then she would close her eyes and I would tell her all about it.

Ida was a tiny lady with a huge heart and I think I will always miss her.

She searched the faces of each one who came,
Waiting for someone who’d call her by name.
“Where are you going? And who will you see?
Do you have some time to spend here with me?”

Each one who comes by has someone to see.
I guess it’s someone more special than me.

By the end of day, her head in her hands,
She wonders if God really understands
Why day after day and year after year,
Days begin with hope and dissolve in fear.

She’s old now, crippled, away from her home.
But that’s not as bad as being alone.
She goes to her room and retreats to bed.
Withdraws to memories she stored in her head.

Now she won’t get out of bed anymore.
She doesn’t get dressed to wait by the door.

The bright, shiny eyes that searched the faces
Are dull and lifeless – just empty blue cases.
They talk about her as though she’s not there
Because all they see is a vacant stare.

At the end of her life she didn’t ask much
Someone to talk to, to listen, to touch.
To embrace a child, be hugged by a friend,
To have someone there when you reach the end.

Five million people are alone I’m told.
Fragile and frightened, forgotten and old.

I wish I could look each one in the eyes
Take hold of their hands make them realize.
Someone is coming to love them – to care.
Someone is coming, yes, do fix your hair.

Get up and get ready.  It is not the end.
Somebody loves you.  You do have a friend.
There is an answer.  We can change each life.
If we match those in need with friends for life.

Working together, we can end the wait.
Help us help them now before it’s too late.

by Inez Russell, Founder, Friends for Life

 ©1991, Friends for Life.

I gave her a stuffed animal and flowers and read from my Bible to her.  Mostly, I just listened to her.  She decided I wouldn’t be doing all that if she were dying.  In a short time, she got well and went home.

After I visited her, the nurses asked, “Since you visited this lady that you didn’t know, would you go see a lady on the fourth floor who is all alone?”  So, I also brought her a stuffed animal, visited with her, and she got well enough to go home.  Then they asked, “There is someone on the second floor who has no family, could you check on her, too?”

As God made me aware of more elderly people who needed help – people who were without family, I kept thinking that the help they needed already existed – somewhere.  For months it seemed that every time I picked up a newspaper, listened to the radio or watched television, I heard about elder abuse, neglect or exploitation.  I learned that over half of the people in nursing home never had a single visitor.   I also learned that over half of the elderly people who were living alone, needing help, weren’t getting any help at all – from anyone.  I heard more about the elderly in those few months than ever before.

I searched for an organization that would give the elderly a support system when there was no family or when family could not meet the needs. When I couldn’t find anything, I started Friends for Life.

A grant from the city would make all the repairs that she needed for her house, but the contractors refused to do the work unless we would provide an interpreter. Her disease had slowly taken away her ability to speak clearly. The disease had progressed to the point that it seemed impossible to understand anything she said. Fortunately, I had one employee who understood her so we were able to work with contractors to get the work done on her house. We helped her get new ‘slightly used’ furniture to replace the ‘awful’ stuff. I was especially pleased when we were able to replace her dining room suite. It was just a board resting on saw horses. She was so unsteady on her feet that she constantly fell against it and, of course, it would fall and so would she. We found a used dinette set that didn’t fall down when she leaned against it.

One day we told her we would pick her up to take her to buy new shoes. It had been a very long time since she had new shoes and she was very excited. When we got there, she had dozens of tiny cuts on her legs from trying to shave with very unsteady hands.

She loved to go places. When we took her to the doctor, she would ask to ride by the lake. In fact, wherever we took her we had to allow extra time to ride by the lake. She was a bright woman who loved her independence and with our help she was able to stay independent for a very long time – in spite of her illness.

She owed money to loan companies – lots of loan companies. In fact, $390 of her $420 a month income was supposed to go to loan companies. It took us almost two years to help her pay off all her bills, but every loan company was paid. We got a grant for her to fix up her house, including a stove (no more cooking on the space heater). I kneeled down beside her wheel chair one day and she said, “I prayed God would send someone to help me and I know God sent you to me.”

We became his guardian so he could get the care that he needed. What a delightful man he turned out to be. I remember that he asked us to take him to get new frames for his glasses. He was quite specific. He did not want new lenses. They were just fine. He had broken his frames when he fell onto the railroad track. He just needed new frames. He wanted to go back to his optometrist. He knew exactly where the office was, even though he had not been there in over fifty years! Fortunately, the son of his optometrist had taken over the practice and still had his records. He was right about the lenses. The prescription had not changed!

“Do you want that animal?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because if you don’t want it, I do”.
“What do you want it for?”
“I thought I’d put it on my bed.”
“Well, go on, take it!”

The social worker said, “I have been by that man’s room several times this afternoon and each time I pass by I see him sitting on his bed hugging that little stuffed animal.”