Saturdays with Seniors: Guest Post by Jane Gallagher

I am pleased to introduce Jane Gallagher as our featured “Saturdays with Seniors” blogger today. A writer in Wanda’s Wednesday “Me, Myself and I” class, Jane is a retired psychiatric nurse, and until the pandemic, she volunteered at O’Hare, assisting passengers getting around the airport. The tales she shares with us in class of growing up in Oak Park with four brothers and one sister are a delight. Her mother died when she was 14 years old, and her descriptions of how the five siblings ended up separated into foster homes and far-away boarding schools after that are painfully moving –and honest.

Today’s guest blogger, Jane Malone Gallagher.

After years living out-of-state, Jane’s husband and their two children moved back to the Midwest, where she reconnected with her siblings. She and her husband have retired in Chicago, and Jane shared this little ditty with her fellow memoir writers , who meet weekly now on their own via zoom:

by Jane Malone Gallagher

A couple weeks ago, while sitting on my little old gray couch — which now has a big slump in it — I was listening to the president’s latest daily briefing on the pandemic. “We will all be together at church on Easter,” he said and, as if that wasn’t irresponsible enough, he added, “And won’t that be glorious.”

“Oh my Lord,” I thought.

Don’t tell me he’s actually going to send people out of their homes at this critical time. We should be hunkering down. As if on cue, my husband’s cell phone started ringing. A little unusual because my husband is almost totally deaf. Anybody who knows him wouldn’t call his phone. He only texts. Must be somebody we don’t know, a scam maybe — we get a lot of them. Once I hear the come-ons, I just hang up. In my hotly irritated state after the president’s speech, however, I grabbed my husband’s phone and prepared to yell at the scammer.

The caller began, “Hi, I’m from State Farm and we want to check up on you.” Wow, what a clever way to start a scam. “No really, what do you want?” I replied tersely. The caller said, “I just want to make sure you’re all right.” Now I was really irritated. The nerve of this woman. She’s going to persist.

“Well I would be just fine,” I shouted over the phone, “Except we’re in a crisis and we don’t even have a decent president.”

The caller replied in a gentle tone of voice, “You’re right. It’s hard to be without a leader in this crisis. Reassurance is what we need, and we should have a good president.”

She went on to describe how the pandemic had affected her kids and how she was not always coping well herself. Surprised and touched by her openness and sincerity, realizing that she was not a scammer, my throat tightened. I wanted to cry.

This kind-hearted person feels like I feel. We said a few more words of encouragement to each other before hanging up. Then I let the tears flow.

Today, it feels more hopeful to me that we will get out of this. We may have an incompetent president, but we have an astute governor, who has likely saved many lives. We also have a smart mayor who, gratefully, has a keen sense of humor.

And Chicago, as we know so well, is a resilient city.