03 June 2021

Gisèle

The photos in this post show the spectacular fleurs d'acacia that appear all around the vineyard at this time of year. The so-called acacia tree is really a naturalized North American plant called the black locust tree, a Robinia.

I've been thinking about our friend Gisèle a lot recently. She turned 90 years old about a month ago. She was one of the first people we met when we came to live here in 2003. She was a good friend of our across-the-street neighbors who mostly live in Blois but own a house out here in the country. G. became a friend to us and invited us to several parties over the years. She had us over for dinner on numerous occasions, and we her. Her partner was Jean-Luc, and he did a lot of work for us. He fenced in our yard for us, to keep the dog in and keep the deer and rabbits out of our vegetable garden. He and another guy re-tiled our front deck. Jean-Luc passed away unexpectedly in 2009.


The last time I saw Gisèle was two or three summers ago. She and we invited to a big outdoor party by the neighbors from Blois. One of their daughters went over to Gisèle's place to pick her up and drive her back here. She had given up driving and sold her car. She lives (or lived) on the opposite side of the village, three or four miles from our hamlet. It was obvious G. wasn't doing well. She couldn't help repeating herself constantly. Her teeth were really bad, so her diet was very limited. She was clearly dazed and confused.

Gisèle recognized me and Walt and obviously knew who we were, but she seemed lost in the commotion of the party, which was attended by 30 or 40 people. After a couple of hours, she said she was ready to go home. I volunteered to drive her there. When we arrived, she immediately turned on the television and sat down to watch a game show of some kind. She seemed focused exclusively on that. We sat there without talking for a while, and I didn't stay long.



A year or more ago, I asked the Blois neighbor if she had talked to Gisèle since that big party. This was all pre-pandemic. The neighbor said she had tried to get Gisèle on the phone a couple of times, but had spoken only to a woman who was G.'s care-giver/aide ménagère (a housekeeper and cook paid by the French Sécurité Sociale). That woman told our neighbor that Gisèle had stopped talking. She was basically bed-ridden as well.

Since we were all unvaccinated and already locked down in 2020. I couldn't really go see her. And I couldn't phone her if she wasn't communicative.

Last week I went down into the village and got my hair cut by Amélie, who owns and operates the village hair salon, and who is a neighbor of Gisèle's. It occurred to me that Amélie might know how G. was doing. And she did. She said that Gisèle's health had continued to decline. Her children, two of whom live in the Saint-Aignan area, had decided to put her in a nursing home and to sell her house. She also said that one of Gisèle's aides ménagères had been verbally and even physically abusive to her.
When I finally get my second dose of the Covid19 vaccine, I will try to track Gisèle down and go see her again. Amélie believed she had been moved to the nursing home (called an EHPAD — un établissement d'hébergement pour personnes âgées dépendantes) in Saint-Aignan, but she wasn't sure. Yesterday I went to the village to put some things in the recycling bins down there. I decided to drive up to Gisèle's neighborhood and have a look around. There was no À Vendre sign on the gate, but there was a big white van parked in the driveway and it looked like somebody was working in the house and barn. Maybe it was her son. I don't know him, so I didn't stop. He wouldn't know who I am.

P.S.: Somehow the final version of my post today just vanished into thin air. The text above is an earlier version. The comments on the original final version also disappeared. Maybe it's all because of some error of mine, but I don't know. Very frustrating.

14 comments:

  1. Here is my comment on ghe vanished post!?!?!
    It is so nice of you to illustrate this sad story with such nicely scented beautifull flowers. The so-called accacia is one of my favorite tree.
    When I met Gisele, as Ken said, she was sitting at a table in her garden pitting cherries. I guess she was preparing to make some cherry preserves. I don't recall her saying anything about it. She was a very nice lady. I'm sorry she had to go into a nursing home. it's nothing to be happy about, I know it first hand!
    Now, after posting my comment, I went back to sleep. I woke up a little less than two hours ago and that post was replaced by another post about Gisèle in shich there was a part one a out a mechoui that I was just reading, and that one's gone too!. Strangel things happening!!!

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    1. I should have said ...a post in which there was a link to a part one that I read about a mechoui...

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    2. Sorry for all the typos.i

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    3. IIRC, I also said that Ken seemed to nave mastered the Google's "New & Improved" thing ....

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  2. So sad about your old friend. My 92 year old neighbor is in a similar situation but without the abuse, I hope!

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  3. It's quite frustrating for hard work to disappear. When we first got our Apple 2 in 1980 we'd write things and forget to save them and they would be gone forever. Such aggravation. Still it was worth the effort to have so much information available now.
    I remember Gisele from your posts. I hope you will see her and maybe your visit will bring her some happiness. The acacia flowers are so lovely.

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  4. Great pictures of the acacias. They grow here on the west coast, but are imported I'm sure and not native. That would be nice if you could find Gisele and visit her!

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    1. I think black locust are native to Virginia.

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    2. Ah, makes sense. They do well here, but need lots of water supplementation.

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  5. How could it be an error of yours that your post vanished? It was posted and I was able to post two comments with a time lapse between the two. And then pfft, it was gone!

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    1. I was working with two blogs, Living the Life and my test blog, to get that post done. The only thing I can figure is that I copied an older draft instead of the final version from the test blog and pasted it into the public blog, accidently overwriting the final version of the post. But I don't really know if that's what happened.

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    2. As I said above, the final post was replaced by another post about Gisèle in which there were links to part one and part two about a mechoui. Was that post in Living the Life ?

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  6. Thank you for the news about Gisèle, even though it's sad.
    The acacias are beautiful, and the tale of the lost work (argh!) is not.
    Walt's page has spit out my comments for the last three days or so.

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