Personal Narrative-Inospitable Hospice

Inhospitable Hospice
I remember a couple of months ago my aunt, who suffers from schizophrenia, had to be admitted to a hospital to get her medical needs sorted out. She was lonely while she was there so my dad and I went to visit her. When we walked in the facility there, the secretary ignored us so we had to wander around until we found where my aunt was. We brought her a present with snacks and activities to keep her busy but we had to be careful because a lot of things were not allowed there. While walking through the doors to get in the ward a man said hi to me and of course i willingly said hi back with a smile. The man seemed giddy as he waved at me and brought a smile to my face and walked through the halls talking to everyone and waving to them, he seemed to have autism, I wondered why he was there. My dad and I checked in and went into the area she was in, which they called a “social” area. The room didn’t seem very social though, ironically, the people in there barely spoke or even
moved. The room seemed gloomy, there was a worn-down tv that was pixilated and played Hallmark channel christmas specials 24 hours a day. The bright white lights above me were flickering like they hadn’t been changed in years and walls had scrapes and scuffs and looked like someone had clawed it with their nails. The windows were dirty and cloudy, in which I could faintly see a beautiful sunset out of.
Surprisingly, my dad murmured, “This is the nicest facility I’ve seen”.
Apparently, it was rated the best in California, which was hard to believe. I kind of wished these people had a nicer place to stay. While in the room there were people there that looked like they had been there for years and had never been visited in the ward. Most of the patients seemed very lonely and their minds had dissipated and only muttered gibberish, this made me rather sad. My aunt mentioned, “I want to go home”, with a nervous tone in her voice and added, “I hope I can come home for Thanksgiving”. With Thanksgiving and Christmas right around the corner it made her feel sad and anxious, The Hallmark Christmas specials didn’t make it any better. My dad and me tried to keep her company and stayed there for about 2 hours just talking to my aunt and trying to take her mind off the miserable place. She was asking me questions about my life, like how school was, but I was more concerned about
her.
I didn’t blame my aunt for wanting to go home, it was a sad, bland place, she had no one besides the nurses and that one autistic man to talk to. While walking out the doors the autistic man asked me to bring him a national geographic magazine, I really wanted to help him. We never got him the magazine and I still think about it. At times I feel lucky I don’t have to go through things like this and I feel for these people that are cursed with a condition that are making them decay in a hospital rather than enjoying life.