The festive season at the Palms

Dec 25, 2009 News

“We long to spend Christmas with our relatives again”

By Latoya Giles

Christmas is known as the season of giving and sharing, especially with loved ones. It is also that time of the year when most prefer to be surrounded by the people they love to share in the merriment.

However, for two patients of the Palms Geriatric home to have such experiences again is their fervent wish.

Eighty-eight year old Iris Charles, who once resided at Timehri, East Bank Demerara, longs for the day when she could be surrounded by her family during the Christmas holidays. The mother of one has been living in the Palms Geriatric home for 13 years.

88-year-old Iris Charles sits calmly and reminisced about her past.

As she longs for the return of days of old she recalled Christmas in her younger years in comparison with what Christmas is like presently.

Originally from Buxton, East Coast of Demerara, Mrs. Charles said what she most enjoyed and looked forward to during the Christmas season was the shopping.

With a sweet smile the amiable old lady reminisced, “Oh I just loved the shopping and there were so many nice things to buy.”

She recalled the decorations, ornaments and even the food which she admits at times had her confused.

“My God there was a great variety to choose from, and everyone wanted the best in their homes so you would have found people going a little overboard” she chuckled.

She explained that with the assortment there was back then, many persons were able to afford the best because consequently, things were “really cheap”.

“Things back then were so cheap and you could have left your entire house open and went to town and no one would have dared to enter your house,” Mrs. Charles recounted.

In the countdown to Christmas Day, she said anyone could have found her washing flowers, cleaning out her cupboards and also the customary wiping of the walls, if repainting proved too costly.

Energetic 99-year-old Ruby Sydney

The former housewife had always liked to keep a clean house and took pride in inviting people to her home. She even recalled that neighbours were in the habit of sharing their festive foods with each other over the fence and lived in love and unity.

“Neigbhours would share whatever little they had and especially with those families who were less fortunate. No one was left behind.”

Her journey to the Palms began after her husband passed away and she began living in her home at Timehri alone. “My grandchildren were always afraid of something happening to me so I moved to the Archer’s Home for the Elderly and paid about $4000 monthly for a room there.

After a few months, Mrs. Charles moved to the Palms on the advice of a friend who insisted that she was paying too much at the other institution.

Before moving from the Archer’s home to the Palms she had asked the administrator how much she would have to pay monthly. “She told me ‘moms’ it’s free here you don’t have to pay,” Mrs. Charles recalled.

Mrs. Charles said she was delighted by the news, but noted that unlike the Archer’s Home, she would not have her own room. However, though she was institutionalized, she still was able to go shopping.

“I would go down Regent Street and do my little shopping with the money that I received from family and friends. My grandchildren used to call me ‘Money Iris’, because I love my money.”

Presently that ability to leave whenever she likes has been cut short as she is stricken with a foot ailment which has restricted mobility.

As a girl at age 12, she underwent a minor operation to her foot and she alleges that the doctors made a mistake and clipped the wrong vein.

She recalled being fully awake several days after the operation and hearing a group of doctors arguing over her, saying that they did something wrong and that she would have complications with her foot.

A friend of her mother had told the family that they should have taken legal action against the doctors who had performed the surgery, and opined if she was living in a developed country, she would have been a rich woman.

She now has to be by nursed to be mobile and the doctor attached to the Palms has told her that she has been suffering for some time from bad circulation in the foot and this has affected her heart. She is now a member of the heart clinic at the Georgetown Hospital.

While her daughter visits regularly Mrs. Charles still longs for that Christmas Day visit and admits, “If my family could come and visit me on Christmas Day it would mean the world to me.

The mere fact that I’m seeing them on that momentous day would take away any pain in the body, because it would mean that they still care and love me.”

99 and doing fine

Another patient who shares that same feeling is 99-year-old Ruby Sydney. Mrs. Sydney is no ordinary nonagenarian. When this newspaper caught up with the energetic woman she was assisting the nurses with sweeping the ward. She has been a patient at the Geriatric institution since 2005 and says “I love to do housework and I think that’s why I’m still alive today.”

She is considered to be one of the strongest patients in her ward and one nurse said Mrs. Sydney, unlike most of the patients, would go to church on her own. She would wash her clothes and even though the nurses would try to help, she would insist on doing it on her own.

Mrs. Sydney who hails from Buxton on the East Coast of Demerara said that Christmas was a big thing when she was much younger.

The former market vendor said that although she never had any children of her own, she was the foster mother of many and remembers making pepperpot, ginger beer and garlic pork.

“I used to make all of the things for my house because I was talented in that area” she boasted.

Mrs. Sydney also took pride in recalling that she would even make Christmas cards and distribute them to friends and families.

She smiled and softly said that she also enjoyed the Christmas parties in Buxton. Like Mrs. Charles, Mrs. Sydney said that she longs for the day when she could be surrounded by one of the many children she cared for.

The woman said that although she receives gifts from a few who live abroad, it would be really nice for her to see them in person.

“I would really like to see them; to sit and reminisce about old times and enjoy the warmth of family” she said.