Memories of grandparents
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Dialogue in the dark
Blind and nearly deaf for years: how do you stay in touch with the world when all that is left is a hand and silence? The story of Mrs Carla.
Mrs Carla is, I think, the longest-staying resident of Villa Teruzzi. I have no idea exactly how old she is, but on my very first day of volunteering, seventeen years ago, she was already there in her place. Sadly she is not only long-lived but also blind and almost completely deaf. I do not know whether she was always blind or gradually lost her sight; either way, I cannot even begin to imagine what it is like to live seventeen years — half my life — in a world without colours, shapes or sounds.
What are her thoughts? What does she dream of? What does she make of the people around her? Questions that will remain unanswered.
At first Mrs Carla could walk and had a little hearing thanks to her hearing aid; sometimes we managed to take her for a short stroll, but because her hearing was so poor we could not hold much of a conversation — we never got beyond “what is your name?” and little more.
The darkness and isolation that surrounded her made her very much a creature of routine: if you took her for a walk, at a certain point she would ask you the time, because she had to head back to go to the bathroom and get ready to eat. It was incredible — she had learned by heart the way from her chair to the bathroom and, though completely blind, she went entirely on her own. For us it would be the most natural thing, but for Mrs Carla it is a great achievement.
Dialogue in the dark
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As the saying goes, “when it rains, it pours”: after years, owing to various problems, Mrs Carla lost the ability to walk by herself. This shattered her routine, making her even more dependent on the help of others and forcing her to rebuild her little world from scratch.
You can communicate even in silence, even just by holding hands.
Yet sometimes the way out of such situations comes through small gestures — through a hand, in this case: the only means left to her of keeping a link with the rest of the world. By now we know that, when we take her around, with one hand we push the wheelchair and with the other we hold her hand. The gesture of offering a hand can carry many meanings. I use it often with the residents, because in many situations words are not enough, or are of no use at all: you can communicate even in silence, even just by holding hands. Of Mrs Carla I will remember the image of her at the table on her chair, her Lego bricks beside her to pass the time, hand in hand with her table neighbour — a resident, ill like her, but still possessed of a sense of mercy.
Collected by Riccardo Beretta · AVO Concorezzo volunteer