26 July 2025
Sometimes when I walk by the nurses' station, I hear someone call out, "Mr. Abbott!" Poor old Mr. Abbott, I think, wonder what he's gotten himself into. Then I realize they are trying to get the attention of the guy who comes to visit Joyce Abbott every day. Me.
But when I go to see Beth in the business office to pay the monthly bill, she never calls me Mr. Abbott because we know each other from Golden Pavilion where she used to work in that business office and I paid my mother's bill every month two years ago.
"Hi, Mark!" she says.
It's no disadvantage to not be recognized by the business office, of course. They'll never know who to sue.
But I thought I should straighten Beth out. So I told her a story to help her remember my name.
When my mother was at Golden Pavilion she had a remarkable CNA named Feliciana, Fely for short. Fely, who was no longer a girl, would make the beds, put everyone to bed and change diapers before her shift ended like clockwork, all the time singing to her charges and telling them she loved them.
She would buy things her patients needed (a pair of pants for my mother once) with the lifetime discount she had from working at Target. So when her shift ended, there always a pall that fell over the room as if a party had ended.
"You remember Fely, Beth?" I began.
"Sure!"
"Well, she always called me 'Sir,'" I started. "But my mother and then the other people in the room, always called me Michael. So Fe (Faith in Spanish) and Gráinne (Ann in Irish) and my mother were calling me Michael while Fely was respectfully sticking to Sir."
"Uh huh," she followed.
"But one day, speaking faster than her mind could keep up, Fely called me Sir Michael. And everyone, including Fely, loved it so that's what they called me from then on."
Not Mark.
"OK, Sir Michael," Beth laughed.
Although I suppose i should resign myself to being known as Sir Michael Abbott at Golden Heights.