My Friendship With Helen...

Please don't feel obligated to read all of this!!

Helen is my dear friend.  She and her husband, Alfred, were the first people we met when we visited Lakeland (33+ years ago) to see if we wanted to move here.  Al was a CPA, like Joe.  Joe had looked in his Virginia Society of CPAs directory for anyone who lived in central Florida.  Al's name was there, with a Lakeland address, so Joe called him. He and Helen had moved from Virginia to Lakeland a few years before (1984, I think). Joe told him we were going to visit Lakeland and were thinking about moving there.  Al didn't hesitate to invite us to meet them when we arrived.  A few weeks later, we did just that. 

He and Helen met us at the door of their home, invited us in, and had coffee and just-baked cookies waiting for us.  We sat with them, enjoying the refreshments and the conversations for over two hours.  The house next door to them was for sale and they told us to be sure and look at it because they would love to have us as neighbors.  We just clicked and the friendships grew from there.  (We did look at the house, but it wasn't what we wanted.)

We found a home we loved (two miles from them) and it wasn't quite three months before we lived in Lakeland (1989).  Al and Helen didn't have children and ours were miles away so we started sharing holidays.  Thanksgiving was usually at our house (sometimes kids were here too) and Christmas was usually at theirs (unless we had kids here and did Christmas at our house, too).  Al was Catholic so we started picking him up for Mass on Saturday evenings and Helen, many Saturdays, had dinner ready when we brought him home.  Helen was Methodist and was very involved in her church.  Al would go to church with her on Sunday mornings and many times we joined them for Christmas cantatas or holiday potlucks.  She volunteered in the church office doing the bulletins and was on a few other committees. 

Fast forward to a very sad morning in 2013 when we received a call from Helen that she thought Al was dead.  We jumped into our clothes and drove to their house, arriving before the EMTs got there.  He was gone. He looked so peaceful like he just slipped away during the night.  He was 85 and had some major health issues.

Helen asked Joe and me to be her power of attorney, health care surrogate, and to be her guardian if she ever needed us to take over for her.  We visited the attorney with her and the paperwork was done.  This was all a dozen years before it would be needed.

Helen's niece, Cheryl, lives here in Lakeland and she quickly moved in with Helen (at Helen's invitation). Helen was still driving then (in her early 80s) and Cheryl was working but we were happy Helen had company in the evenings and Helen was happy helping her niece with living expenses.

Fast forward again to when Helen had an accident and lost her license.  Cheryl was her main transportation and that worked for a while until Helen started having health issues that became difficult for Cheryl to handle, especially while still working during the day. 

Fast forward yet again... Joe died on February 16, 2021.  A few weeks later, just after Joe's memorial service, Cheryl announced that she was moving in six days.  I had to shift gears and, with a lot of help from my dear friends, Elaine and Jim, who were renting in Mas Verde during that time, helped me get arrangements made for Helen to move to an assisted living facility.  It's the same one my grandmother had been in years earlier. We were blessed that they had room for her.  Helen was able to help make the decisions about what to take (furniture, clothing, etc.) and was fine with moving.  She understood that she couldn't live alone in her house. 

Assisted living, during covid, was not a happy place.  No communal dining, and no activities, and Helen was soon being moved to memory care.  It was so hard seeing her deteriorate so quickly and we blame the covid quarantine and anxiety for that.  (I was able to sell Helen's house last summer.  She would never be able to go back there and the money is invested for her.)

That brings us almost two years later and about where we are today.  We were so blessed to be able to have her with us for Christmas dinner last year and were hoping for the same this year. Sadly, it's not to be.  We will all go visit her, though.  As an update, I wasn't able to visit yesterday but spoke with her nurse, Hannah. and Helen is just sleeping all the time and is not very responsive.  I hope they can get her to the rehab/nursing home soon where it will be much easier for me to visit and she will have more attention.

  My sister, Cheryl, and Helen - Christmas 2021

Peace & hugs!

Cherish those people God has blessed you with in this life!!