Elderly Support System
I rapped lightly on my grandmother’s door, stepping back slightly in preparation for it swinging open. Why was I so nervous? I wondered, feeling the slickness of my palms and anxiously rubbing them against my jeans. It had been years since I’d seen her, but we’d never had a bad relationship. Her and my mother, though…
The door began to rattle as a series of locks were systematically unlatched and slid aside by a very slow pair of hands. After a few more moments, the handle turned and the door swung open.
‘Gran!’ I said, with a forced smile. ‘It’s me – it’s Alyssa!’
‘I know who you are,’ she grunted. ‘I’m old, not blind.’
‘Oh,’ I said, the smile slipping slightly from my face. ‘I just thought, since it’s been a while…’
‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ she said gruffly. ‘Come on in and I’ll make you something to drink.’
Suddenly hoping that she meant something stiffer than tea, I followed her inside. The air was thick with the cloying scent of age, and I wrinkled my nose involuntarily, glad that she was walking ahead of me and couldn’t see.
‘Sorry about the smell,’ she cackled without turning around. ‘Hard to avoid at my age. My disability support worker says you stop noticing it after a few minutes.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You have a support worker?’
‘Of course I do,’ she snapped. ‘You think I’m changing my own sheets at this age?’
‘You seem plenty capable, actually,’ I laughed. ‘You’re not even using a cane.’
‘Oh, I’m plenty capable,’ she snickered, turning around and fixing me with a devilish grin. ‘But one of the advantages of old age is you get to be incredibly lazy, and the state pays for somebody to do your chores for you.’
‘Fair enough, too,’ I nodded. ‘So uh… what’s the best company for community nursing in Adelaide, then?’
‘Did you actually have something you wanted to talk about,’ my grandma rolled her eyes, gesturing for me to sit at her dining table.
‘Um…’ I gritted my teeth, unable to say it. She sighed again.
‘How much do you need?’