The Past Becomes Present

The Past Becomes Present

           I’d better hurry or I’ll be late for work. I pick up my pace to nearly running. It’s not like I can drive faster, as I’m taking the bus as my usually reliable old car is in the shop, having a long overdue repair job according to the mechanic.

           Good, there’s someone in the bus shelter. That tells me that the bus has not been there recently. I’m surprised by what else I see. There’s a wide black curved line that looks like a skid mark right in front of the bus shelter. I stop and stare for a few seconds. The fellow in the bus shelter suddenly speaks. “It looks scary, yes? That’s where the big accident took place last week. A lady was struck by a speeding car when she was going to pick up something she had dropped. I was here at the time. What was that idiot driver thinking, driving that fast so close to the curb?” The bus shelter historian, having said his bit, looked for a response. I gve him a “That’s horrible. Glad you weren’t outside the shelter.” He smiled after that last bit.

           I sat down on the bench in the shelter, a little tired by my dash to the bus stop. The back of my legs felt a touch of something underneath the bench. Always being under the sway of my curiosity, I bent down to pick it up and have a look. It was a large, blue cloth bag, with something rather heavy inside. It was a book of sorts. I opened it up and saw handwriting rather than the printed word. I saw the words “Dear Diary” on the first page. The bus then arrived, so I closed up the diary, put it back inside the cloth bag, and carried it with me onto the bus. I know that my curiosity and my respect for a person’s secrets are going to clash.

           Several times on the bus ride I closed my eyes and opened the diary to a random page. I began to see the writer as a person who enjoyed life and generally had a lot of fun.

           I work at a home for seniors, not doing anything technical, just giving them a little care and comfort. My college diploma was all that I needed for the job. I deal with about 10 or so patients each day, the one I see and interact with first, and generally share the longest sessions I call my ‘primary patient’ (or P.P – not to be said out loud). My primary patient until yesterday, an old man with lots of stories to with tell, and who liked to be read to, had suddenly died, so I was being shifted to a new one, an old woman named Diana.

           When I arrived I was directed to an administrator’s office, where I was told that Diana did not or would not speak, although there did not seem to be a physical cause for this, as determined by our resident doctor. She had even gone so far as to refrain from writing down or typing messages. The best that could be done would be to ask questions that could be responded to with a nodding or shaking of the head. I was told by one of the nurses that even that was not a certainty.   I could see that she was going to present a challenge to me. How was I going to get through to her. Of course, with my bizarre sense of humour, my first thought was to sing to her the lines from the old Paul Anka song, “I’m so young and you’re so old. This Diana I’ve been told.” It was one of my mother’s favourite songs, and the old woman would probably know it. I wanted to have it played at my mother’s funeral, but my sisters shot that idea down. I had received a stern warning from my boss not so very long ago to “Reign in your sick humour”. Fortunately, to keep my job, I refrained from replying, “So I will not be permitted to let the patients run free in the back fields then.”

           I hadn’t known what to do with Diana as I knew nothing about her before this morning. I hadn’t brought any of the books that I share with some of the inhabitants of the home, so what could I do? I know. The few pages I had read of the diary were interesting. Maybe Diana could relate woman to woman. I had put the bag with the diary in it in my locker, so I went to fetch it before I was led to Diana’s room.

Meeting Diana

           Then I walked into her room. She was seated, but she stood once she saw me. I gestured for her to sit down again, and she did. I then said to her, “My name’s Glenn. I am here to help you survive this place.” Was that a smile? I could not tell for sure.

           “For now I am going to read to you. I think you might find it interesting. It was written by a woman, and her life was interesting.” I then took the diary out of the bag, closed my eyes, flipped through the pages, and stopped somewhere in the middle. She tilted her head slightly in response. 

           I walked about the room as I read. I began reading each page with a melodramatic “Dear Diary”. I couldn’t completely say how she was responding, but at least she did not look bored, and she did not wave me away. My time with her flew by, in part because I was interested in what the diarist had to say, and also because my presence seemed welcomed in the room by my patient, although I cannot say why I thought that.

           Diana and I established what can be called a comfortable pattern. I would read to her from the diary, and she would listen. I don’t know whether it was my imagination, but she seemed more engaged with each session.

           At the fifth session, when I had finished my reading, I wondered out loud, “I would love to meet with this person. I would have a lot of questions to ask her.” Diana made a coughing sound, and then, to my great surprise, she spoke in an initially gruff and tentative voice that became clearer with every sentence. “You have met her. She is me. At first I thought the words were familiar, then, last night, I realized why they did. Thank you for giving me my past and my voice back.” In reply, I sang the Diana song. We both laughed.