The empty chair

An empty chair raises more than curiosity—it raises concern.

I love doing my long term care ombudsman (advocate) quarterly visits during breakfast or lunch. Most residents are in the dining room then, and it’s the easiest, most natural way to connect. I usually look for an open seat at a table, introduce myself, and ask if I can join them.

Very occasionally, a group will tell me they’d rather I didn’t—and I always respect that. It actually amuses me a little—more power to them for being content in their circle and not wanting a stranger to sit down. But the vast majority of the time, I’m welcomed. I ask how they’re doing, and then I listen.

One thing I’ve heard repeatedly, from residents is, how many of their friends  sat in the chair I’m sitting.

They’ll point to it and say, “Mary used to sit there and before her it was Gaylen. The last person was Gloria but she died last week” One man told me that at his table alone, at least fourteen table mates had died in the past two years. He said it plainly, then shook his head, “It’s really depressing.”

I asked how they find out when a fellow resident dies. Do staff tell them? Is there some announcement? A student at my son’s high school died this year and every parent received a text,  and email letting us know that a student had died and counselors were available to anyone in need.

They shook their heads. “Nobody tells us” they said. “when a person we expect doesn’t come for breakfast we wonder.” Sometimes they said, they wait until lunch or the next day but eventually, someone will go to the front desk and ask.  Occasionally, they  know because they saw an ambulance. Or because they saw someone being taken out of their room by the funeral home.

It’s just one more layer of getting old and living in a facility.  Every stage in life changes and friends move on, but this move is different than graduating from high school or college. Some residents leave for a hospital stay or a higher level of care and some are discharged. But many die. The residents who remain are left to do the math in their own heads—left to think about their own mortality and the friends lost.

Very few facilities I visit have a formal process for acknowledging a resident’s death. One holds a moment of silence. Another does a monthly memorial. A few post obituaries on a wall. But most do nothing at all.

The person is gone.

Recently, I worked with a resident who was actively dying. She was estranged from her family, but had a brother she had recently begun reconnecting with. The brother was the person who called the Ombusdman office and asked for me to visit. The resident gave me permission to speak to her brother about her health status but said a friend from church was listed as her contact. Shortly after our visit she died.  A couple days later I received a call from the brother. He asked if I knew she had passed or where her body was.

He wasn’t listed as a contact and the facility would not share any infomation. Not even the location of her body.

I spoke with the social worker. She told me they had tried to reach the listed contact, couldn’t, and they sent her to a funeral home where they would “deal with it.” That was the phrase she used. “Deal with it.“  “IT’s name was Sylvia. She was a CPA, a BYU football fan and loved to garden.

By the time I visited the facility any evidence that Sylvia lived there was gone. There was a new person in her bed. Life moved forward without pause. Nothing skipped a beat.

And the residents who saw the chair empty—and the brother who had to call around looking for his sister—were left with the same understanding: when someone dies here, the system moves on. Whether anyone notices depends entirely on if anyone is looking.