Kathleen and Roxanne are the residents across the hall from Dad’s room. Unlike Dad and Roxanne, who have family coming to see them, Kathleen is all alone. She spends all her days inside her room—well, she strolls around in her wheelchair but never ventures outside the building—all by herself.
For that reason alone, we have “adopted” her. We can’t take her outside, but when we visit Dad, I spend time conversing with her. We buy her cupcakes—we deliver a bunch of those to others, but she gets hers without fail. She likes popcorn and Diet Coke, so she gets them too. This year we celebrated her birthday—hat, card, cake, and singing—which she said hadn’t happened for a long time. It made us sad but happy to be able to do it.