The Guy in Bed #11

Each of the men at the at Mother Teresa's home at Kalighat are assigned a bed with a number.  The beds that are against the walls have the number in white above them, the two rows of beds that run down the center of the room have the numbers painted in white on the side of the bed frame.  I don't know any of the men by their name.  Many of them don't speak and of the ones that do, few speak English.  I really started identifying them by their bed number.  Often a nun or other staff member will say something like.. "please feed bed numer 29."

Anyway, from my very first day I gravitated to the man in Bed #11.  He has the sweetest face, very expressive eyes, big ears that stick out and shortly cropped gray hair.  He's pretty small and weighs about 95-100 lbs.  They think he's probably in his mid 60s.  He seems to have a lot of pain in his left leg, from the knee up to the hip.  He doesn't speak any English.

Every day that I walk into the place (actually twice a day), I look over to Bed #11 and there he sits and when he sees me he raises his hands into the prayer position.  I do the same and then we exchange smiles and a wave.  I then head upstairs to stash my backpack then right back down to put on an apron and rubber gloves (I would normally chose not to wear gloves, but a number of the men have scabies, so I thought I would do my best not to catch them) and head over to check in on my dear friend in Bed #11.  He reaches out both hands and then indicates for me to sit down on the bed with him or the one next to his.  We hold each others hands and he starts speaking to me in Hindi.  I react and talk back to him like I understand him, always with something upbeat.  He nods and mumbles a response as if we were really conversing.  I do actually think we are communicating and there are a few hand gestures (for eat, drink, pee) and words (for example the easy one is pani, which means water) that we use.  However, one day we were chatting away and I could tell he was asking me a question and I answered, "no, no" and shook my head.  Well, that was the wrong answer and he burst into tears!  I was so upset!  Luckily I was able to calm him down in just a few seconds. I couldn't believe I made this poor, sick old man cry! It actually has happened a few times.   I'm now very careful when I think he's asking me a question to say something like, "I'm sure everything will be fine."  And give him a rub on the back and a big smile... it usually does the trick.

When it comes time for meals, he is one of the guys that the nuns ask us to feed.  I've had the pleasure of feeding him several times already.  He also asked me to give him a shave the other day.  I told him I wasn't very good at it but I would certainly give it a try (I've given about six shaves since I've been here).  It just makes me nervous as I'm afraid I'll cut him since the razors they have are a bunch of cheap disposable ones that they keep reusing on the guys.  So I gave him a shave and it really wasn't the closest shave ever.  The next day I see him getting a shave from another volunteer and we just looked at each other and started to laugh.  I apologize again for my bad job.  Now we have an inside joke - i just grab his chin and say "I'm sorry!, and we both laugh.

He really would prefer not to be there even though he's being fed and cared for.  They don't think he has any family, but he asks daily to leave.  You have to remember, he can't stand up or walk.  So it's become kind of a joke between him and the staff.  They say, "okay, you can go, come on" and they reach for him as if to pull him up and he pulls back and smiles and chuckles. But he does want to leave.  I think one of the questions he asks me is if I think he'll die there.  

One morning last week I showed up to work a little before 8am to find the little guy from Bed #11 lying on the ground outside of the building in the already scorching morning sun.  I was shocked.  I bent down to talk to him but really couldn't figure out what had happened and then it dawned on me.  He had continued to insist on leaving so the staff put him out on the doorstep to give him what he wanted.  Of course he couldn't get anywhere because he can't walk.  A few minutes later he was comfortably back in Bed #11.  

I spend more time with him than any of the other guys (although there are others that I will talk about later) and I just adore him.  He actually seems to be a favorite of many of the staff and volunteers.  I'm sure he is a very wise man and I would love to know his story.  If I catch someone that speaks Hindi and we find time to sit with him, I'm going to try to find out more, but if all I have is our interesting conversations and out time together each day that I'm here, I'll be just as happy with that.