A Remembrance of Rita Ladue by Marita Boulos

Rita's Hand's

My first visit with Rita was in the middle of December last year. She had just been diagnosed as legally blind and was getting used to "feeling her way" around, literally. "It's amazing how much you can tell just by feel," she would say. Her hands were busy all the time: finding her way along the furniture and walls, locating dishes and cups on the table, or twirling small items between her fingers to identify them by their shape and texture.

From the very beginning,Rita liked us to hold hands when we sat and talked or when I read to her. It helped her to focus and she told me she could hear better that way.

Once she was hospitalized, and later on at Meadowbrook, where she could no longer move about on her own (because she had broken her back in a nasty fall) holding hands became more important than ever. It was the only way she could feel anchored in her new and ever changing surroundings. " I feel so safe when I hold your hand," she would say. Sometimes when pain spasms were severe, she asked me to clasp her one hand between both of mine. Somehow that energized her and made the pain seem just a little less intense.

One day she stroked my hand and told me I had "love hands." I guess I felt a little embarrassed, so I joked about it and said I didn't have nice hands like hers, but that mine were big Swedish farmer's hands like my Dad's. Rita gave that deep sigh of hers and said quietly: "I didn't say your hands were pretty, I said they were loving."
Such a Rita statement!

During the last weeks of Rita's life, her hand holding wish was fully satisfied. Not only did she have a crowd of people with her at all times, but there was always someone sitting right next to her bed holding her hand, twenty four hours a day.
It makes me happy to know that our hand holding soothed and reassured Rita, and she knows it meant a lot to me too.

I've held hands more in the last four months than I ever have before, and it has helped to melt my heart.

I am thankful to Dan and Steve that they considered me to come aboard as one of Rita's care givers.

There's an old Gershwin tune I can't get out of my head lately. I've been humming it to myself but only knew the first two bars: "Holding hands at midnight, 'neath a starry sky".

When I finally went to Google it, it all made sense. The title of the song is "Nice
Work if You Can Get It." So for those of you who may not be old-timers who know the refrain, here it is:

"Holding hands at midnight,
'neath a starry sky.
Nice work if you can get it,and you
can get it if you try."

One thing I know for sure is this: if holding hands with Rita is considered work, then I just lost the nicest job that I will ever have.

Marita Boulos
May 2, 2010