The Wake

They say if you give them an hour, you’ll get endless rewards. Maybe they come in a smile here or a heartfelt thank you there. Maybe it’s the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes when you know you’ve done something to help someone in need. Or maybe the rewards come in the time spent with someone you care about, no matter what the task at hand.

Duffy and Doris

Neighbors and friends Duffy Sauer and Doris Mancino experience this each week when they spend an afternoon delivering food to homebound seniors as part of the Northeast Dinner Bell Meals on Wheels program. I’ve been invited to ride along with the two to find out just what it takes to be a part of this team.

Although the two women are old enough to be my grandmothers, they bound down the stairs laughing and giddy like young girls into the basement of the Northeast Minneapolis church that houses the program. They’re the last of the volunteers to arrive on this Thursday morning. About a dozen gray-haired men and women are sitting quietly, waiting for the meals to be packed and ready to go when the duo arrives. Suddenly an explosion of voices rips through the quiet. Here they are! Duffy and Doris are here! Did you two get lost again?

Volunteers are supposed to arrive at 11:15 a.m. and be on their way as soon as the meals are ready. Duffy and Doris really are late, so there isn’t much time for chitchat. We grab the two insulated soft-sided packs; one filled with the hot portion of the Thanksgiving meal: individual tins containing turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. The other is full of white paper lunch bags, each containing an individual pumpkin pie and a carton of two percent milk. We head out to the parking lot and pile ourselves, and the meals, into Duffy’s gold Chrysler Town and County minivan. A quick look at the clipboard containing our route for the day, along with a detailed map to keep us on track, and we’re on our way.

Duffy and Doris don’t need the map though, they’re familiar with the route; it’s been their usual lately. The organizers at Meals on Wheels try to keep volunteers on the same routes as often as possible to help them establish a relationship with the clients. The two give each other a knowing glance when they notice that one of their regular clients is not on their list. It was recently discovered that the man was receiving two meals each day under two different names. It’s rare though, that someone tries to take advantage of the system; most people are simply grateful for a hot meal and a smiling face at their door.

The generous duo began volunteering with Meals on Wheels a few years ago, when Duffy signed the pair up for it. When Duffy is out of town—she and her husband travel often during the winter months—Doris’s husband subs. But it’s always an adventure when it’s just the two, whether they’re so busy talking that they get lost or find a garage sale too tempting to pass up. They tend to get distracted and they’re the first to admit that they’re suckers for a garage sale–any kind of sale actually. They both have too much junk, but just can’t pass up a good sale. It’s not uncommon for them to be hours late returning from their deliveries during prime garage sale season.

They say they’ve known each other forever, but it’s actually been 38 years. Doris moved into her St. Anthony Falls home on March 1, 1966 and Duffy moved in next door a month later. Their children grew up together, and now their children have children. Duffy’s daughter lives in Texas and a son lives in the Twin Cities; each of Doris’s three children live within two miles of the house they grew up in.

The Faces of Meals on Wheels

We arrive at our first of eight stops- –-a small, dilapidated house, with an overgrown and disheveled fenced-in backyard. Duffy waits in the car—for efficiency volunteers usually go out in pairs, so one person can stay in the car and the other can deliver the meal—as Doris and I make our way to the back door. A quick hello, goodbye and we’re on our way back to the minivan without stepping foot in the house.

On the way to each house, the two give me a brief preview of the client I’m about to meet. This woman, they say, smokes. And she lies in bed all day, but sometimes uses a wheelchair to get around the house. No one answers when we knock, so we venture through her unlocked front door and into a living room that looks like it never gets used. The sound of daytime soaps and the smell of smoke lead us into the bedroom, where a small, frail woman lies in bed, a cigarette in her skeletal hand. “You can just put it at the end of the bed,” she croaks in a soft, raspy voice. I don’t know where else we could have put her meal; the room was filled to the brim with stuff—dressers, a television, a small refrigerator, a wheelchair. An overwhelming sense of sadness hit me as I realized this tiny woman lies alone in bed in a cloud of smoke all day. I want to know her story, as do Duffy and Doris. But it takes time to get to know someone, and they only see her for a few minutes each week.

Our next stop is a towering apartment building. The dull exterior and the sparse, institutional-looking interior tell me it’s a public housing project even before the sign in the lobby confirms it. We head up to the third floor and knock on the door, but no one answers. The television is blaring, so we’re both immediately concerned. Doris speaks first, “I hope she didn’t fall.” I nod in agreement, but what I’m really thinking is I hope she didn’t die.

Doris assures me that once we get back, someone from the program will try to contact the woman to find out if she is OK. All Meals on Wheels clients have a family member or social worker that the program can contact in situations like this. In addition to delivering the meals, volunteers try to keep track of the client’s condition and alert the program if they notice any change in their health. Ardie Morrissette, who works full-time for Meals on Wheels, says it’s important to have that personal interaction to gauge both their physical and mental health. “One more person checking on in helps them to know someone cares,” she says. I try not to worry about the woman who I’m sure is hurt and alone, trapped in her crummy project housing unit, but the thought nags at me for the rest of the afternoon.

The last client I meet is Betty, an 83-year-old woman who has lived in Northeast Minneapolis her entire life. She invites us into her apartment, a tidy space filled with ornate antiques and Victorian-style furnishing, that occupies part of the first floor of an ancient, but well-cared for brick mansion. She shows us a photograph of herself that was taken only a decade ago. The voluptuous brunette with the long, wavy hair and high-heels looks nothing like the tiny, gray-haired woman in a dressing gown in front of me, leaning on her metal walker for support.

When she learns I’m a writer, she tells me about the book she just published—it’s all about her life, and her childhood, and how much her father loved her even though he died when she was six. She can’t quite believe how old she is. “You’re so young. You’ll live forever,” she tells me. I want to stay, I want to hear about her life, I want to explore her beautiful old apartment building, I want to see the house just a few blocks away that she was born in, but we have to go. She hopes I come back, and so do I.