The Bus Stop

He was visiting his grandmother on the maternal side. Didn't see her often. She was in a home now, in the big town, and his parents went to see her four or five times a year. It was a modern building with all the latest in equipment and apparatuses to help the care workers fulfil their tasks.

 

His grandmother had Alzheimer, and he wasn't sure, whether she recognised him or not. When he was a small child, her grandmother had looked after him a lot. Taught him songs and told him stories. He felt sad now. It was as if she was no longer the same Grandmother at all, but an altogether different person. There was no contact.

 

He started exploring the building. At the end of a corridor, much to his surprise, he found a bus stop. Not a real bus stop, of course, but the sign for at bus stop and a bench to sit on. He looked at it wondering what it was doing there.

 

A young nurse passed by and noticed his perplexed look.

 

Let  me explain you, young man, why we put it there. The old people here all have Alzheimer. They don't remember much anymore. But they are often restless and long for their old place and want to go home. They then tend to wander off looking for at bus stop or a train station, without actually knowing which place to go to or how to do it, and without knowing how to get back to this home.

 

Now they can go to this bus stop. They sit a while and wait for the bus, and then they forget why they are sitting there and go back to their room. It's much safer than if they go out into town.

 

He knew that his Grandmother was going to die soon. His mother had told him that someday soon she would not be there anymore. But if anybody would go to Heaven, it would be Granny, she had assured him.

 

So this was her last bus stop. He almost started crying. He hoped the bus would be late.

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NB! I actually heard about a home that has installed a fake bus stop.

NB! I just read a novel by Dimitri Verhulst. About an old man in a home. There is also a description of a fake bus stop. Very entertaining novel: De laatkomer. It is in Dutch, but I am sure it will be translated into English some day.